MW2 Patch for Color Blind Gamers Urged

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/12/15/mw2-patch-color-blind-gamers-urged

Animating the News - Bad Journalism?

On one hand having studied journalism I find this "fill in the gaps" reporting somewhat frightening. It can certainly lead people to inappropriate conclusions. What if people think they are actual reenactments of the events?

On the other hand, I found the animation and the technique of the quickly produced animations very interesting. They can knock out twenty animations a day.

I thought it was interesting enough to share. Animation journalists? Hmmm.

Tiger Woods and the Animation of News

Animation News Video

Animating the News: How Videogame Technologies Can Alter Our Perceptions of Real Life Events

Is it done yet? (Food thermometer)

PDF File here

FTC: Bloggers Must Disclose Payments For Reviews -- Or Pay Big

Excerpt: The Federal Trade Commission will try to regulate blogging for the first time, requiring writers on the Web to clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products.

Read more

Retrieved: 10.5.09

Financial Literacy Game by Persuasive Games
Play game here

If you need to create a 3D timeline

Bee Docs
Present full screen interactive timelines with a 3D perspective. Use the arrow keys or your Apple Remote to fly over your timeline or integrate them with your Keynote presentations.

http://www.beedocs.com/index.php

http://www.icyte.com./<br class="khtml-block-placeholder">

Save web pages or the whole site.

Comics on iPhone

App brings comic store to iPhone

Link

audioBoo iphone app

An iphone application for recording and sharing your audio with the world.

http://audioboo.fm

Square root of x divided by zero: The speed, size and dependability of programming languages

Square root of x divided by zero: The speed, size and dependability of programming languages

2D Boy rapid prototyping software

Indie game developers 2D Boy have just released their open-source program for rapid prototyping.

http://www.offworld.com/2009/05/gimme-indie-tools-2d-boy-unlea.html

2D Boy is the company behind the great WiiWare title "World of Goo." This might be worth looking into if we are going to move forward with rapid prototyping as a method of development.

Video Games Find New Market With Mobile Devices



FROM NPR: "> Link

iPhone Apps for New Moms

Perhaps this will help us think of some creative games for the progeny of these new moms...

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1896919_1896920,00.html

Wearable, Projected Computer from MIT

The "sixth sense" is a prototype out of MIT's Media Lab that allows you to wear the computer around your neck, and project (and then interact with) onto any surface... your hand, your wrist, the wall, a bar code... Very inspiring and a fresh approach to interface.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html

Paper Moon

This game looks amazing. Limited palette and old-school platforming ahoy!

http://blurst.com/paper-moon/play

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

Popular Science:

"According to the Entertainment Software Association, 40 percent of video game players are female, while women over 18 represent a larger built-in audience than even teenage boys. But where are the titles"

Google's Web 3D

Google is trying to create an open standard for interactive 3D content on the web: O3D.

Taking a Picture of the iPhone Screen

To take a screen shot on the iPhone or iPod touch, hold down both buttons at the same time. It is then saved in your "Photos" app.

Lifehacker - CometDocs Converts Between More than 50 File Types - PDF

Lifehacker - CometDocs Converts Between More than 50 File Types - PDF: "ou can convert PDFs to Excel files, huge TIFF images to PDF, icon files into images, and the site even does a little OCR work on certain image-to-text conversions"

Scarygirl

Scarygirl - Offworld
This game looks beautiful. I want to play this one.

WiiSpray: WiiMote spray can

http://www.wiispray.com/

Looks pretty cool.

closer look at the device:
http://www.wiispray.com/press/

Can design save the newspaper?

Check out this brief TED talk by Jacek Utko about how design might save the newspaper. This is actually a good listen even if you don't care about the decline of the newspaper, because his is a point that is generalizable to other efforts.

Gizmodo - Learn How to Build iPhone Apps from Stanford University - iPhone

Gizmodo - Learn How to Build iPhone Apps from Stanford University - iPhone

Collaborative writing: etherpad.com  

looks kinda neat. No sign up needed. -- haven't tried it yet.

Transformative Works and Cultures : Vol 2 (2009)

Vol 2 (2009)
Journal issue dedicated to:

Games as Transformative Works

Looks pretty cool

New 6th to 12th grade public school that uses gaming methods to teach.

link

Video Game Grad Programs Open Up The Industry



NPR

Innovations make fitness fancier - CNET News

Innovations make fitness fancier - CNET News

National Center for the History or Electronic Games: 
http://www.ncheg.org/

Google Voice

Google is only a few week away from launching it's new free service called 'Google Speak'.

It boasts a lot of cool features like...

- Listening in on calls before you answer them
- Simultanius redirection of any call to multiple numbers allowing one shared number for work, home, and/or cell.
-Cheap long distance (like 2 cents a min to China)
-Free voice mail (even get your voice mails transcribed instantly and sent as text messages)

https://www.google.com/voice/about

Most Useful Bookmarklets

Guide to Most Useful Bookmarklets for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc.
I have been reading about bookmarklets a bit lately. They seem to travel better than add-ons or extensions.

The Electric Company

The Electric Company - Videos
The new re-imagined Electric Company has begun on PBS. I think it looks pretty good. Check out some of the videos. I particularly like the Captain Cluck animation.

CONSOLE by NAJLE.com

DAFT PUNk

Go Daft!

Readability

Readability is a bookmarklet that strips out nasty advertising and other distracting content from a page to make it readable with a single click.

World’s Largest Media Center Remote Control?

World’s Largest Media Center Remote Control? I’m

a fitness game to be had?

Apartment Therapy Unplugged | How To...Remove Your Online Identity

How To...Remove Your Online Identity

Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds

Wordle makes nice-looking tag clouds. Requires Java.

Cartography with Photoshop

While looking for mapmaking resources for the iPhone game I'm working on, I stumbled upon a nice series of Photoshop tutorials called Fantasy Cartography with Adobe Photoshop (link goes to the first episode). Basically, it's a video series showing a lot of cartography tips and tricks for fantasy RPG games, but the tips and tricks are applicable to many other pursuits with Photoshop, as well.

In particular, I learned a lot about adjustment layers and working with Photoshop to achieve maximal flexibility without relying on the undo history. The adjustment layer and masking tools were introduced after I first began using Photoshop, and I hadn't taken the time to delve into them. These tutorials really drove home how to integrate them easily into your Photoshop work and how flexible they make your Photoshop documents down the road.

11 Free And Useful Open-Source Alternatives For Designers - Opensource, Free and Useful Online Resources for Designers and Developers

11 Free And Useful Open-Source Alternatives For Designers - Opensource, Free and Useful Online Resources for Designers and Developers: "11 Free And Useful Open-Source Alternatives For Designers in which most of them are cross-platform."

Cameron Moll on Conference Speaking

Cameron Moll just blogged 20 tips for better conference speaking.

'80s Flashback With 'Retro Game Challenge

Retro Game Challenge' for the Nintendo DS, a collection of new games designed to mimic and parody those of the 1980s

http://www.wired.com/video/latest-videos/latest/1815816633/80s-flashback-with-retro-game-challenge/13389089001

Ben Balistreri's Blog

Ben Balistreri

It is really awesome.

Creating a Necromancer for Castle Crashers

Dan Paladin of The Behemoth continues his Flash videos, this time showing how he created the Necromancer level and boss. Be sure to check out his other video for creating the Frost King!

http://www.vimeo.com/3170624

TED: David Merrill: Siftables, the toy blocks that think

MIT grad student David Merrill demos Siftables -- cookie-sized, computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands. These future-toys can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too. Is this the next thing in hands-on learning?

Pretty Cool

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_merrill_demos_siftables_the_smart_blocks.html

How Not To Sort By Average Rating

How Not To Sort By Average Rating is a discussion on how to take ratings and make them meaningful for any number of reviews. I've actually been wondering about this for a while, especially since we sometimes talk about "a web site where kids or parents can rate games". It's nice to know that the problem is solved when we go to implement...

Symbol6 : How We Created an iPhone Game � All Things Gogogic

Symbol6 : How We Created an iPhone Game � All Things Gogogic

YourFonts

YourFonts - Generate Your Own Fonts Online
With YourFonts you can make a TrueType font from your own handwriting for free. The process is simple, quick and basically idiot-proof. Print out a template from the site, write in your letters, scan, upload and -- voila -- there you have it.

I thought this might be cool for the ATV project...

The Oregon Trail

http://www.offworld.com/2009/02/apple-classic-oregon-trail-com.html

A remake of the oregon trail is coming to the iPhone and iPod Touch, with updated graphics! I just hope they are tasteful in their depiction of dysentary.

Presentation Zen: Lessons from the art of storyboarding

Cool Google video about Lessons from the art of storyboarding.

Pipl

Yikes.

WhatTheFont

WhatTheFont!!
Great tool. A friend just yesterday asked me what font was on a logo a client had given him. The client did not have any of the original artwork and needed it recreated... enter WhatTheFont. It worked like a charm. Just uploaded an image(they list specifications but I just uploaded the logo with no tweaking) It still worked and gave me the right font.

CSS Grid Designer

Here's a handy tool for designing grids and columns for web: Grid Designer.

BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | North East/N Isles | Elderly wanted for Wii experiment

BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | North East/N Isles | Elderly wanted for Wii experiment

Closure.

Closure.
Great game... try it. Stay in the light.

Creating an Undead Cyclops

Dan Paladin, an animator for The Behemoth (makers of Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers) has a time-lapse video up showing how he created and animated his undead cyclops boss using Flash.

http://coldhardflash.com/2009/02/harness-and-hanson-rock-ghost-town.html

LeapFrog announces educational, interactive Zippity - Engadget

Zippity - Engadget
I want the adult version of this thing. I like the organic look and the color.

Amazon moves into casual gaming

Amazon moves into casual gaming
Maybe temper the enthusiasm... I went to download one of the free sample games and they are Windows only. Oh well.

Introducing EverSave 1.0.1

EverSave, a free app (for Macs only) that does just that — saves your work in any application, on a timed schedule or at any time you switch between applications. And, just as importantly, there’s an option to have EverSave ask before each save. Yes, thank-you.

Tux Paint

Tux Paint
Tux Paint is a free, award-winning drawing program for children ages 3 to 12 (for example, preschool and K-6). It combines an easy-to-use interface, fun sound effects, and an encouraging cartoon mascot who guides children as they use the program.

DIY Lighting Hacks for Digital Photographers

DIY Lighting Hacks for Digital Photographers

They all look like fun to make too.

Layer Tennis

Layer Tennis is an online design competition that sounds interesting to watch:

Two competitors swap a file back and forth in real-time, adding to and embellishing the work. Each artist gets fifteen minutes to complete a "volley" and then we post that to the site live.

The players may be designers, animators, illustrators or pretty much anything else, and they can use any tool or application they like. The match progresses volley by volley.

A third participant, a writer, provides play-by-play commentary on the action as it happens.

To get an idea of how it works, check out Van Meter vs. Hutchinson or Glass vs. Inman.

FREE: web-based meeting playground

Twiddla is a web-based meeting playground. I haven't tried it but it seems cool.

Twiddla

SMIL animation and 3D canvas library for Firefox

Article

For educational purposes only: Retrieved 1.21.09

Cooking: Rouxbe Has Seriously Impressive Cooking Videos

Cooking: Rouxbe Has Seriously Impressive Cooking Videos

Crayon Physics Deluxe: iphone game

A 2D physics puzzle / sandbox game for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch, in which you get to experience what it would be like if your drawings would be magically transformed into real physical objects. Solve puzzles with your artistic vision and creative use of physics.

http://www.crayonphysicsdeluxe.com/

Year of Awesome JavaScript

Nihilogic presented a roundup of awesome Javascript, wherein you can see the sorts of things which are being done in Javascript these days.

Best of the "De-Makes" competition

ByteJacker has a nice overview of the highlights of an indie game "de-make" competition with some interesting tidbits.

A "de-make" is like a "re-make" of a game, only targeting older hardware than the game was originally released on. For example, one of the de-make games featured is a version of Shadow of the Colossus for the Color TRS-80. Yowza.

Objectified

There's a trailer up for an upcoming documentary called Objectified, which is all about industrial design and its effect on our lives. Looks interesting.

Random Good Stuff - Fun & Entertainment Blog

Random Good Stuff - Fun & Entertainment Blog

Fun Game

Soupbase.com

Special Price for Wise Bread Readers at SoupBase.Com!

I know it is not a typical post for this blog but I thought it would appeal. Soup day is a big hit and I wanted to participate but I was struggling with a soup base. I think I have found the solution and thought y'all might be interested too. Here is to soup!

Picasa for Mac Finally Arrives

After an Agonizing Wait,... "Mac users, you can stop holding your breath. Google announced Monday that Picasa for the Mac, a free desktop application for editing, organizing and sharing digital photos, is now available as a public beta through Google Labs."

How To Draw A Mac Internet Globe Icon

Here's a nice tutorial on how to draw the Mac's internet globe icon in Photoshop. A good example of what you can achieve with just ovals and layer styles.

Tim Burton's new offering

There's a trailer up for Tim Burton's next movie, called 9. It looks like a gothic, post-apocalyptic version of Little Big Planet.

Stanza: A Revolution in Reading | Lexcycle

Stanza: A Revolution in Reading | Lexcycle