I follow a few youth research sites. It helps me track current technology trends. One site that I follow that may be of interest to those in the studio is mobile youth. I think it could be a good resource as we continue to develop for mobile devices such as iphone, or just needing information for presentations or grants.
Enjoy.
http://www.mobileyouth.org/
Our department decided to create a digest for tech talk and tracking. If you have new technology to share with the group, add a post here. Maybe you figured out a short cut on production, or discovered some tech trick. If you think it’s techrific please share. Don't forget to use labels it's much easier for sorting. Labels in Blogger=categories. If you need help getting started with Blogger let me know.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Have you CHA CHA'ed? It's Cool.
Kailey, my daughter, first alerted me to Cha Cha (242 242) text messaging. She came home with a story of how one of her friends was trying to have a conversation with Cha Cha. Of course I was like, huh?
Anyhow, Cha Cha is a mobile texting information service run by a guild of people who look up information for you. While at lunch this past week a few of my cadre mates and I were in discussion and someone asked about the former capital of Indiana. While some were stumped and others were throwing out possible answers I took the opportunity to introduce Cha Cha. I hadn't used it and wasn't sure it would work, but we decided to try it. I mean we are all ed techies so we might as well embrace it. Low and behold we got an answer and then some additional facts on the first capital of Indiana not just the former capital! Very cool.
So, this got me thinking about how Kailey a high school freshman and her friends were using it. It wasn't so much about the information they were looking up as it was a "game" or quest of trying to test the technology and the system behind the service.
Yes, Cha Cha works and it became our tech tool for the week. Fun!
Want more info? Follow the link.
Cha Cha
Thank you Kailey!
Anyhow, Cha Cha is a mobile texting information service run by a guild of people who look up information for you. While at lunch this past week a few of my cadre mates and I were in discussion and someone asked about the former capital of Indiana. While some were stumped and others were throwing out possible answers I took the opportunity to introduce Cha Cha. I hadn't used it and wasn't sure it would work, but we decided to try it. I mean we are all ed techies so we might as well embrace it. Low and behold we got an answer and then some additional facts on the first capital of Indiana not just the former capital! Very cool.
So, this got me thinking about how Kailey a high school freshman and her friends were using it. It wasn't so much about the information they were looking up as it was a "game" or quest of trying to test the technology and the system behind the service.
Yes, Cha Cha works and it became our tech tool for the week. Fun!
Want more info? Follow the link.
Cha Cha
Thank you Kailey!
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Beyond Fun: Serious Games and Media
Introduction | ETC-Press (Beta):
Here is a series of articles on serious gaming from some top academics.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Pictobrowser
PictoBrowser is a free web application that displays Flickr images on websites and blogs.
http://pictobrowser.com/
http://pictobrowser.com/
Mac OS X 10.5.5 released
MobileMe, Time Machine, Spotlight, iPhone, graphics fixes - MacFixIt
I always follow their best practices before installing.
I always follow their best practices before installing.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Pinpoint on cursor
From Tomilee, using pinpoint to create a circle around a mouse for an onscreen demo.
http://www.macchampion.com/pinpoint_download.shtml
http://www.macchampion.com/pinpoint_download.shtml
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
FitBit Trainer
FitBit Trainer: Track Your Exercise, Health, and Even Sleep - Gearlog:
"Step one is to start exercising"
"Step one is to start exercising"
Monday, September 8, 2008
Useful Cheat Sheets for Web Designers - Six Revisions
Useful Cheat Sheets for Web Designers
I love cheat sheets... who can remember all of those key commands?
I love cheat sheets... who can remember all of those key commands?
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Parallax Scrolling in Web Pages
jParallax is a little jQuery utility that creates parallax effects in the browser. Check out the demos off of the page to get an idea what is possible.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Torque Releases iPhone Dev Prices
It looks like iTorque prices have been released.
For indie developers, it's basically $400 plus $100 per title, plus $749 for the base license for Torque Game Engine. For commercial developers, it's $500 plus $500 per title, plus $1250 for Torque Game Builder Pro. You have to buy one title license when you get the library, so minimums are $500 and $1000 respectively, plus the cost of the base license.
So, we're looking at $1150 + $100 per title for 3D, $1750 + $500 per title for 2D. Seems odd to me, so maybe someone can check my math.
The commercial version of iTorque is available now. They're holding off on releasing the Indie version, apparently, because only seasoned Torque developers can get along without documentation. (Yeah, that's not a good sign.)
Also, you apparently need to have licenses for the "Pro" versions of the two development environments because "there is just simply no way to use iTGB without access to the source code of TGB." Another not-good sign.
Unfortunately, Unity hasn't released their pricing structure yet, let alone the actual dev environment.
For indie developers, it's basically $400 plus $100 per title, plus $749 for the base license for Torque Game Engine. For commercial developers, it's $500 plus $500 per title, plus $1250 for Torque Game Builder Pro. You have to buy one title license when you get the library, so minimums are $500 and $1000 respectively, plus the cost of the base license.
So, we're looking at $1150 + $100 per title for 3D, $1750 + $500 per title for 2D. Seems odd to me, so maybe someone can check my math.
The commercial version of iTorque is available now. They're holding off on releasing the Indie version, apparently, because only seasoned Torque developers can get along without documentation. (Yeah, that's not a good sign.)
Also, you apparently need to have licenses for the "Pro" versions of the two development environments because "there is just simply no way to use iTGB without access to the source code of TGB." Another not-good sign.
Unfortunately, Unity hasn't released their pricing structure yet, let alone the actual dev environment.
StressEraser: a game?
Cool Tool: StressEraser:
"The idea is to create a curving graph of regularity that can be worth 1 or 3 points on the device. A meditation session can total as many points as you want."
I see a game here. I wonder if it is hackable and wireless? If it were, it could make a great breathing game.
"The idea is to create a curving graph of regularity that can be worth 1 or 3 points on the device. A meditation session can total as many points as you want."
I see a game here. I wonder if it is hackable and wireless? If it were, it could make a great breathing game.
BioShock Postmortem
The story of developing BioShock is an epic one and isn't easily expressed in 10 postmortem points.
READ!
An informative look inside at what went right and wrong during the design and development. Some key points:
READ!
An informative look inside at what went right and wrong during the design and development. Some key points:
One of the true successes of BioShock's development was our ability to identify and react when the game was not shaping up to become what it needed to be.I think our success also comes from the iterative process too. Lots of other good stuff to pull from.
we failed to fully exercise the narrative production path in early versions
If there's an over-arching theme of our development, it's that we, like many other developers, believe that ultimate success in this industry comes from iteration. You have to build, evaluate (and have others evaluate) and be prepared to throw things away and rebuild.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Comic announcing Google Chrome
This is a very cool way to announce an application. Google announced the introduction of Google Chrome as a comic (drawn by Scott McCloud, the guy behind Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics).
It's interesting not only for the technique, but also for the way it describes some of the issues with browser security and development. There are some pretty good visualizations of what garbage collection and sandboxing mean in there. It's worth a read even if you don't intend to use Google Chrome. We could probably take some cues from this for presenting complex educational content in clear ways using comics.
(As a side note, I really liked how the comic uses actual Google engineers and other employees as the characters describing the concepts. If we wanted to do comics like this for our own projects, that would be a fun and unusual way to position NMSU's faculty as experts in the field.)
It's interesting not only for the technique, but also for the way it describes some of the issues with browser security and development. There are some pretty good visualizations of what garbage collection and sandboxing mean in there. It's worth a read even if you don't intend to use Google Chrome. We could probably take some cues from this for presenting complex educational content in clear ways using comics.
(As a side note, I really liked how the comic uses actual Google engineers and other employees as the characters describing the concepts. If we wanted to do comics like this for our own projects, that would be a fun and unusual way to position NMSU's faculty as experts in the field.)