Pitched as somewhere between Second Life and MySpace, it’s a social space where PlayStation 3 owners can meet PlayStation 3 owners. They do this by navigating an avatar (similar to Nintendo’s Mii, but more realistic and with more customization options) around a 3D world. Each user also gets a private space - a virtual apartment - which they can customize as they see fit. They can invite people into this private space and launch multiplayer games, or stream music and videos from their PlayStation 3 to the other people in this room. Sony’s Home includes a virtual ’trophy room’ where people can display their “entitlements” (Sony’s answer to Xbox 360’s achievements) as moving, 3D trophies.
Oh, and it’s all free.
This was Sony’s ace in the hole. A completely unexpected, beautifully executed masterstroke that almost makes you forget about all of Sony’s fuck-ups with PlayStation 3.
Almost.
Right now, Sony is still talking about the possibilities of Home, and although a lot of these are still pretty blue-sky suggestions, they do give you some idea of what an online virtual world is capable of when you’ve got the weight and muscle of the entire Sony Corporation behind it. For example, using its ability to stream high-def movies, there could be movie premieres (in a virtual cinema) of Sony Pictures movies within Home. And for the MySpazz crowd, there’s the possibility of in-game appearances by their favourite Sony BMG bands.
I bet the makers of Second Life won’t get much sleep tonight.
I was speaking to someone earlier about superpowers - how all childhood conversations about “what superpower would you like to have” were ruined by the one asshole who had to say “everything” - when our conversation drifted towards Batman. When I was growing up, you either liked Superman or Batman (just like you were either a Whizz-kid or a Chipite). And so the Superman-followers would want Superman’s powers and the Batman-followers would say they would like Batman’s superpowers.
But what the hell are Batman’s superpowers?
He can’t fly. He can’t run faster than a speeding bullet. He can’t slice people open with Adamantium claws. So what does he have? Well, he’s got a neat car and a lot of nifty gadgets. And he’s pretty athletic, I guess. But these aren’t super-powers. With enough money, anyone can have these.
And is this a good message for our kids? That being fabulously wealthy is a superpower?
(For more pictures of Joker’s boners, check out redshirt.co.uk)
A few months ago, someone spotted that Brown Bag Film’s “Bears” Lotto campaign looked suspiciously like Matt Everitt’s Ricky Gervais Bears. The thread on CreativeIreland.com has some interesting discussion, including a couple of posts by Matt Everitt himself, saying
I was told about this and after watching the ad (and falling off my chair) and emailed Brown Bag who of course denied that they would ever do such a thing and said that they could’nt see any similarities.
What can I do? Not a lot.
Brown Bag Films defended their position by suggesting that Bears3 are “obscure” and hadn’t been broadcast.
How similar are they? You can make up your own mind
Matt Everitt’s Bears3
Brown Bag’s Lotto Ad
Now we have a similar situation. The new Argus Car Hire advert from Brown Bag Films looks suspiciously like the terrific opening title sequence from Steven Spielberg’s “Catch Me If You Can”. Hardly something they can claim as “obscure”.
Can you see any similarities?
Argus Car Hire advert
Opening credits of Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me if You Can
Well, it was bound to happen eventually, I just wasn’t expecting it so soon. According to an article on thedigitalbits.com, Disney will be releasing Cars on Blu-Ray in June. And because of the amount of extra content and the ridiculously high resolution of the movie on the disc, they’re going to be releasing it as a 2-disc (dual layer) Blu-Ray package.
Just to put this into perspective here, a standard DVD (such as the single-disc DVD of cars that came out last year) holds 9GB of data. A dual-layer Blu-Ray disc holds 50GB of data. And they’re using two of them!
For demonstration purposes, here’s what you can expect the difference in quality to look like:
Cars on Blu-Ray
Cars on Standard-Def DVD
Now if only they had given the Incredibles as a 2-disc Blu-Ray release. Then I might be actually tempted to buy a Blu-Ray player.
Just before Christmas, I took part in the Port Tunnel 10k run. I hadn’t run much before then. In fact, I would estimate that if you if you took all of the times I have run in my life and added them together, you probably wouldn’t get 10K. So how did I go from lazy fat ass to the bronze Adonis I am today?
Well, it’s entirely down to my special 10k iPod playlist* These songs helped keep me going when I couldn’t see anything in the port tunnel except the steam from other people’s sweat. It kept me going when I realised that, after 5 minutes of actually being in the tunnel that I’d seen everything the tunnel had to offer and the next hour or so would be like watching paint dry. Really painful, exhausting paint.
Anyway, so here’s the mix. If anyone’s got any suggestions for additional, suitable song, please let me know. I’ll put them to the test next time I go to the gym.
We Want Fun - Andrew W.K.
Still Waiting - Sum 41
Noise Brigade - Mighty Mighty Bosstones
Training Montage (Rocky IV) - Vince DiCola
Girls Own Love - Andrew W.K.
Life During Wartime (Live) - Talking Heads
How I Could just Kill a Man - Rage Against the Machine
List of Demands (Reparations) - Saul Williams
Bump - Spank Rock
Movies - Alien Ant Farm
Dancing in the Dark - Bruce Springsteen
Witness (1 Hope) - Roots Manuva
Music is my Hot Hot Sex - Cansei De Ser Sexy
Heart’s On Fire (Rock IV) - John Cafferty
Fat Lip - Sum 41
99 Problems - Jay Z
Flashdance / Fame - The Dan Band
God Hates a Coward - Tomahawk
Fuckin’ Spend - High Speed Scene
Glory Days - Bruce Springsteen
Jump - Van Halen
Holing Out for a Hero - Bonnie Tyler
Jesus Walks - Kanye West
Shimmy - System of a Down
Million $ Man - Imperial Teen
This Month, Day 10 - Cansei De Ser Sexy
Goin’ Out West - Tom Waits
You’re the Voice - John Farnham
Notes:
Yes, there’s a lot of Andrew W.K.
Yes, there’s a lot of 80s power ballads
Go for the single version of “I need a Hero” - you don’t need six minutes of Bonnie Tyler wailing
Every life goal should be achieved with Vince DiCola’s “Training Montage” playing in the backround
Well, the four or five weeks of training I did beforehand may have helped a little
Reading Sean O’Hagan’s story of the emotions he felt while recently compiling a mix tape is fascinating and I’d encourage everyone to read it as an eloquently-written piece of nostaligia. But I strongly disagree with his article’s suggestion that mp3s have somehow made music less personal and I think he’s just plain wrong to suggest that “mix tapes” are somehow dead. They’re not - they’ve just evolved.
The “Mix CD” is the most basic 21st Century representation of the “Mix Tape”. Sure, it might not be as difficult to compile these as it was to compile a mix tape, but this doesn’t mean they’re any less important or meaningful. I would even suggest that these are more important, more meaningful. With the actual creation of the CDs mostly taken care of by software like iTunes which allows the user to just click and burn a CD, more time can be spent putting thought into the content of these mixes. This means that the medium is no longer the message. The message is the message.
One of the traditions of the thumped.com Christmas bash is the ‘mix exchange’. Everyone who comes is encouraged to bring a mix tape/cd, put it into a box and in return, this entitles them to take someone else’s mix from the box. I’ve gotten some great stuff from this, and in recent years, have seen this taken to the next level: Mix DVD featuring some of the year’s best movies (it’s not like this is any more or less legal than a mix tape).
And what about when we outgrow CDs too? Well, we’re already seeing the next stage in the evolution of the mix tape. Sites like Out of Five offer weekly themed collaborative mixes. Collaborative! Can you imagine the logistics of trying to do a collaborative mix tape?!
Personally, I think the whole thing has less to do with the death of the mix tape or music being less personal and more to do with the fact that the writer has reached the stage in his life where mix tapes are somehow “immature” and music isn’t the most important thing in his life. He and his friends have become old farts: grown up and settled into a rather rigid existence; less willing to try new things.
And After all, It’s hard to put thought and effort into a mix when you don’t have anyone to give it to.
Video footage of a Lucasarts presentation of the technology they’re going to be using in the next Indiana Jones and Star Wars games. This includes the latest version of the Havok physics engine.
Besides the killer technology on show, this video is also interesting for the part where they blow up Jar Jar Binks encased in Carbonite.
johnke.me
