Sometimes a phrase, however mundane the context or application, just hits you like sub-bass and makes your teeth vibrate:
“The problem is that its very hard to get a feel for how these new planetary-scale applications might behave in the wild, says Timothy Roscoe, a scientist at the Intel Research Berkeley Laboratory. Thats the idea behind PlanetLab.”
Planetary-scale applications. Ooooh.
» Intel Research: PlanetLab: “Thinking Locally, Experimenting Globally” by David Pescovitz
Reasons to revisit Paris are stacking up, alongside the stuff that Chris Heathcote described, here’s something intriguing that Elizabeth Goodman has on exhibition there in September:
“POV/POW is an interactive 3D environment that revisits the familar space of the first-person action game from the perspective of a child. The world of shoot-’em-up games looks very different when you’re on the other side of the gun…”
Reason One: you won’t be able to pretend you’re in the Kings of Leon.
Reason Two: they’re installing interactive TV.
“Having hair extensions can be a lengthy business. And going blonde requires patience, dedication and sitting still for hours. But what happens when youve flicked all the way through Heat magazine? If you visit some of the UKs top salons, the answer could be staring you in the face: interactive TV screens.
The screens each measuring about 6.4in across and designed for one customers individual use run a 45-minute loop of magazine programming, with fashion, lifestyle news and advertising. They invite viewers to touch onscreen buttons for more information on certain items, with the lure of prizes and special offers.”
Jeff Veen on the perils of inertia:
“Tight deadlines and other resource constraints do the same thing. If youre doing any amount of user researchand you better be doing at least some user researchlarge budgets can actually hinder you. Its easy for Web teams to get stuck in what we call analysis paralysis. They have so much information that they cant act on it. Likewise, Im frustrated by massive projects that span multiple quarters and have hundreds of dependencies and deliverables. Ive never once seen a project like that come in on time or never have major revisions along the way. Im much more interested in quick wins. Have a vision for where you want a product or Web site to be in nine months, then see what you can accomplish in a couple of weeks with the staff and resources you currently have. Keep chasing down the next quick win, and eventually youve got significant change. This doesnt necessarily work for every project in every company, but its certainly a good way to build some credibility and heal the immediate pain you may be feeling.”
In the meantime I realise I’ve been back at the BBC for two years now, and have launched just one service (BBCi Search) although I did two iterations of it… My current project has now been ongoing for one year and two months…
» DigitalWeb: An interview with Jeffrey Veen
[via paranoidfish/links]
Walter Jefferies, immortalised though the use of the term “Jefferies Tube” in the Star Trek Universe has died.
Chris Heathcote reports back from Paris on an exhibition at the crossover of maps, information design and art: “Global Navigation System”
…can now be found over at /artifacts. First of a cascade of apologies: I haven’t got permalinks functioning there at the moment…
This struck me in the Star Wars Galaxies review on Gamespy:
” As many have mentioned, there are still quite a few bugs in Star Wars Galaxies … but I tend to think of it as a service rather than just a game: They are improving it every day, working at an intensity that is unlike that of any subscription service in memory.”
» Gamespy.com: Star Wars Galaxies: Pile-On!
[found via many-to-many]
…but you could apply his arguement to a lot of things that people get very excited about at the moment…
“Every technology invention has been touted as the key to peace and understanding. Dynamite (which Nobel truly thought would simply make construction safer), the telegraph (world peace because at last, world leaders could communicate), telephone, phonograph (everyone would learn languages effortlessly, said Edison), radio, TV, movies, internet, …
The notion that enough is understood about the psychological, sociological, anthropological, political, cultural dimensions of humankind to embed them in a sort of XML goes beyond comprehension.”
and he goes on:
“Fortunately, these committee exercises never go anywhere. They allow lots of people to travel to lots of conferences in exotic places in the world. It’s a great job, when you want to retire, to get on international standards committees. The price is a few boring meeting[s], but the benefits are world travel.”
“…Boktai – the first ever videogame that incorporates sunlight into its gameplay. On the game cartridge is a solar sensor and when your GBA is in the sun, your vampire hunting character’s Solar Gun is charged up, giving you essential ammo.”
Petafloptimism 