Geek News and Musings

EFF Bootcamp on privacy and UGC for startups, May 11

Rebecca from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, “Does your company have to contend with the maze of laws dealing with user privacy and publishing user content? Want to do the right thing by the online community that gives your business value, and still fulfill your legal obligations? Check out EFF’s Bootcamp on May 11 in San Francisco. It costs only $300 for a full-day of training.”

Given that $300 won’t buy you an hour of law-firm advice, this is a damned good deal.

EFF Bootcamp

Facebook Hooks Up With Adobe For Richer Social Applications In Flash

Not to be outdone by MySpace announcing a deeper partnership with Microsoft yesterday, bringing Silverlight technology to its development platform and mobile application, Facebook and Adobe are today announcing a partnership and the release of fresh Flash client libraries to make it easier for developers to plug into the Facebook Platform inside their social applications built with Flash.

Flash has been supported since the launch of Facebook Platform in 2007 through tags, embedding Flash in Feed stories, and multiple client libraries, which have helped developers make Facebook API calls directly from ActionScript (see example on the Red Bull website). But Facebook felt the exisiting ActionScript client libraries were not up to par, so it teamed up with Adobe to tweak the open source version to support all Facebook APIs and add some features to better support authentication for both Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect.

After the PHP, JavaScript and iPhone client library, the all new ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform is now the fourth officially supported client library for the Facebook Platform. The code can be downloaded here.

Facebook and Adobe Systems will share more about the new partnership on April 2 at a San Francisco event.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Boing Boing Video + Offworld Live @GDC: Keita Takahashi on Noby Noby, Konami’s Hideo Kojima, Jane McGonigal, Games + Music, and more!

Today is the final day of Boing Boing Video’s live coverage of the 2009 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, with  Killscreen TV + Offworld. We’re streaming live video around the clock on our new Ustream channel. Tune in for conversations in our BBV@GDC studio with hosts including Matty Kirsch from Killscreen TV and Xeni from Boing Boing, visits from fellow Boing Boing bloggers, and the following special guests today, Friday March 27, 2009, the final day of GDC:

* Keita Takahashi, creator of Katamari Damacy, talking about his most recent game, Noby Noby Boy (note: previously recorded on-site at GDC)
* A planned interview nearby with Hideo Kojima, CEO of Konami. He’s the creator of the recently released Metal Gear Solid Touch game for the iPod touch and iPhone (it’s currently available on the Apple App Store). He’s doing a talk at 3pm at the San Francisco Apple Store, if you’re in SF, you should try to go!
* In-studio visit by game developer and researcher Jane McGonigal, whose amazing GDC talk Cory blogged about here.
* Peter Kirn of Create Digital Music, talking about music and video games, and hopefully demoing some music-making gizmos!
* Vlad Micu, “Videogame Visionary” from the Netherlands
* Alice Taylor, game researcher, blogger, and developer, of Wonderland and Channel 4
* Tracy Fullerton of the USC Electronic Arts Game Innovation Lab

For BB Video + Offworld’s complete video and blog coverage of GDC09, visit offworld.com/gdc09.

Chat room after the jump, or you can hop directly to our Ustream page to view chat + video stream side by side.

(Special thanks to our live stream host Ustream TV, to Wayneco Heavy Industries, and to our transportation provider at Virgin America. Video Crew members in the house this week: Jolon Bankey, Wes Varghese, Derek Bledsoe, Xeni Jardin, and Killscreen TV’s Matty Kirsch and Allison Kingsley).

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Artistic and scientific anatomical models from Anatomy Tools


Yesterday, I blogged about the photos I’d caught of some beautifully detailed artist’s anatomical models on sale in the dealer’s room at the Game Developers’ Conference in San Francisco. I ended up going back later in the day to buy one of the models (they brought their “slightly irregular” stock to the show and are selling it at half off), and I got to talking with the staff about their wares.

It turns out that they’re on something of a holy mission to introduce high quality, affordable artistically rendered anatomical models to the fields of science, art and medicine, replacing the standard, multi-thousand-dollar, low-quality anatomical models with sub-$500 versions that are much better rendered and easier to grasp.

But these are more than teaching aids or artist’s reference — they’re absolutely drop-dead gorgeous sculptures, created by a Bay Area artist called Andrew Cawrse. The more I look at the model sitting here on my desk, the more enthralled I am with it, and the more clever grace-notes I spot in the various cutaways that make clear a thousand myriad elements of anatomy (and I had to laugh to discover that the cross-sectioned penis is attached by a magnet, so it can be removed by customers who aren’t allowed to show penises in their workplaces).

Freedom of Teach/Anatomy Tools

Game Developers Conference 2009 Round-Up

The CrunchGear mobile newswagon is parked in downtown San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference, and although this is a more industry-orientated show, we’ve managed to find some pretty interesting stuff — and of course, a few of the latest games.

The news on everybody’s minds is OnLive, a games service which is roughly comparable to a streaming movie service like Netflix On Demand or what have you. The hardware is to be free, and it will support any USB- or Bluetooth-compatible controllers. Purchased games are run in datacenters (on state of the art hardware, we hope), which then push the content out to you. But they’re not sending game assets — they send a video image of the game as you play it on their machine. It sounds ridiculous, but with good, local servers they can get the ping under 10-20ms, at which point it is almost unnoticeable that the game you’re playing is actually a few cities away. Not everyone is so optimistic.

We gave it a shot, and (my driving skills notwithstanding) had no trouble in the form of video artifacts, skipped frames, or lag. Impressive, but the proof of the pudding is in the launching, and when they can provide this level of latency and reliability to thousands of people scattered around the country simultaneously, then we’ll talk. After the demo, we spoke with a more technically-orientated booth guy, who said that between 3 and 4Mbit/s is what they’re aiming for with their 720p60 stream, and when I asked about tension with ISPs, he hinted cryptically that they had that under control. I just hope Comcast and the like haven’t “overbooked” their cable and fiber the way airlines do flights.

Both Microsoft and Sony gave developers a boost, Microsoft in the form of a sleek new developer console and kit tools, Sony by dropping its devkit’s price significantly. Nintendo, as at E3, told us how well they were doing, revealed a couple new games, and demonstrated something ridiculous. Adding the capability to use SDHC cards is a welcome change, however.

The 360 will be receiving a motion-based controller soon, bringing it up to speed nominally with the other consoles in that area. The Gametrak Freedom relies on a sort of ultrasonic sonar, with stereo detectors attached to the display. We gave it a try and it seemed to work decently; keep your eye on CG for video of yours truly flailing grotesquely at virtual tennis balls.

Aside from the relatively far-reaching news I’ve mentioned, GDC is primarily a developer’s paradise. Indie game developers rub elbows with greats like Hideo Kojima and there are more talks, panels, and tutorials than we thought possible, or practical. We’re looking forward to E3 to see how some of these new technologies pan out in a more consumer-orientated environment.

As for games themselves, we got to try out the DSi camera, Punch-Out!!! for the Wii, Fat Princess, and a few others.

Lastly, if you or your spouse or young one is in the market for a little more rhythm, we’re running a contest to win a pre-release copy of Rhythm Heaven for the DS.

For those of you reading this at or around GDC, we hope to see you at one of the many industry events that will be going on later.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Game Developers Conference 2009 Round-Up

The CrunchGear mobile newswagon is parked in downtown San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference, and although this is a more industry-orientated show, we’ve managed to find some pretty interesting stuff — and of course, a few of the latest games.

The news on everybody’s minds is OnLive, a games service which is roughly comparable to a streaming movie service like Netflix On Demand or what have you. The hardware is to be free, and it will support any USB- or Bluetooth-compatible controllers. Purchased games are run in datacenters (on state of the art hardware, we hope), which then push the content out to you. But they’re not sending game assets — they send a video image of the game as you play it on their machine. It sounds ridiculous, but with good, local servers they can get the ping under 10-20ms, at which point it is almost unnoticeable that the game you’re playing is actually a few cities away. Not everyone is so optimistic.

We gave it a shot, and (my driving skills notwithstanding) had no trouble in the form of video artifacts, skipped frames, or lag. Impressive, but the proof of the pudding is in the launching, and when they can provide this level of latency and reliability to thousands of people scattered around the country simultaneously, then we’ll talk. After the demo, we spoke with a more technically-orientated booth guy, who said that between 3 and 4Mbit/s is what they’re aiming for with their 720p60 stream, and when I asked about tension with ISPs, he hinted cryptically that they had that under control. I just hope Comcast and the like haven’t “overbooked” their cable and fiber the way airlines do flights.

Both Microsoft and Sony gave developers a boost, Microsoft in the form of a sleek new developer console and kit tools, Sony by dropping its devkit’s price significantly. Nintendo, as at E3, told us how well they were doing, revealed a couple new games, and demonstrated something ridiculous. Adding the capability to use SDHC cards is a welcome change, however.

The 360 will be receiving a motion-based controller soon, bringing it up to speed nominally with the other consoles in that area. The Gametrak Freedom relies on a sort of ultrasonic sonar, with stereo detectors attached to the display. We gave it a try and it seemed to work decently; keep your eye on CG for video of yours truly flailing grotesquely at virtual tennis balls.

Aside from the relatively far-reaching news I’ve mentioned, GDC is primarily a developer’s paradise. Indie game developers rub elbows with greats like Hideo Kojima and there are more talks, panels, and tutorials than we thought possible, or practical. We’re looking forward to E3 to see how some of these new technologies pan out in a more consumer-orientated environment.

As for games themselves, we got to try out the DSi camera, Punch-Out!!! for the Wii, Fat Princess, and a few others.

Lastly, if you or your spouse or young one is in the market for a little more rhythm, we’re running a contest to win a pre-release copy of Rhythm Heaven for the DS.

For those of you reading this at or around GDC, we hope to see you at one of the many industry events that will be going on later.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

End-of-Quarter Layoffs Hit Amazon, IBM, Google, and The New York Times

With the end of the first quarter of the 2009 almost here, even the strongest companies companies are making last-minute layoffs to shave costs. Today, layoffs were announced across the tech sector, from IBM to Google to Amazon. The biggest layoffs came from IBM, where 5,000 people are losing their jobs in the U.S.. Amazon cut 210 people at three distribution centers in Nevada, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. Google also announced layoffs of 200 people from sales and marketing (so far, engineers have been spared). In all three cases, the job cuts amounted to roughly one percent of each company’s global workforce. The New York Times also announced a 5 percent cut of its newsroom business operations, or 100 people.

It is not as if the payroll reductions will help save the quarter or even have a material impact on it. But the companies can point to the measures during their conference calls with investors and analysts and project the savings going forward.

We’ve added the job cuts to our Layoff Tracker. To see who is hiring, check out our CrunchBoard.

• Total Layoffs Since August 27, 2008: 448
• Total Employees: 316,246

Company	Date	Location	#	%	Source
Amazon	March 26, 2009	Red Rock, Nev.; Munster, Ind.; and Chambersburg, Pa.	210	1%	NYT
The New York Times	March 26, 2009	New York, NY	100	5%	NYT
Google	March 26, 2009	Mountain View, CA	200	1%	NYT
IBM	March 26, 2009	USA	5,000	1%	LA Times
Imeem	March 25, 2009	San Francisco, CA	6	4%	TechCrunch

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Game Developers Conference 2009 Round-Up

The CrunchGear mobile newswagon is parked in downtown San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference, and although this is a more industry-orientated show, we’ve managed to find some pretty interesting stuff — and of course, a few of the latest games.

The news on everybody’s minds is OnLive, a games service which is roughly comparable to a streaming movie service like Netflix On Demand or what have you. The hardware is to be free, and it will support any USB- or Bluetooth-compatible controllers. Purchased games are run in datacenters (on state of the art hardware, we hope), which then push the content out to you. But they’re not sending game assets — they send a video image of the game as you play it on their machine. It sounds ridiculous, but with good, local servers they can get the ping under 10-20ms, at which point it is almost unnoticeable that the game you’re playing is actually a few cities away. Not everyone is so optimistic.

We gave it a shot, and (my driving skills notwithstanding) had no trouble in the form of video artifacts, skipped frames, or lag. Impressive, but the proof of the pudding is in the launching, and when they can provide this level of latency and reliability to thousands of people scattered around the country simultaneously, then we’ll talk. After the demo, we spoke with a more technically-orientated booth guy, who said that between 3 and 4Mbit/s is what they’re aiming for with their 720p60 stream, and when I asked about tension with ISPs, he hinted cryptically that they had that under control. I just hope Comcast and the like haven’t “overbooked” their cable and fiber the way airlines do flights.

Both Microsoft and Sony gave developers a boost, Microsoft in the form of a sleek new developer console and kit tools, Sony by dropping its devkit’s price significantly. Nintendo, as at E3, told us how well they were doing, revealed a couple new games, and demonstrated something ridiculous. Adding the capability to use SDHC cards is a welcome change, however.

The 360 will be receiving a motion-based controller soon, bringing it up to speed nominally with the other consoles in that area. The Gametrak Freedom relies on a sort of ultrasonic sonar, with stereo detectors attached to the display. We gave it a try and it seemed to work decently; keep your eye on CG for video of yours truly flailing grotesquely at virtual tennis balls.

Aside from the relatively far-reaching news I’ve mentioned, GDC is primarily a developer’s paradise. Indie game developers rub elbows with greats like Hideo Kojima and there are more talks, panels, and tutorials than we thought possible, or practical. We’re looking forward to E3 to see how some of these new technologies pan out in a more consumer-orientated environment.

As for games themselves, we got to try out the DSi camera, Punch-Out!!! for the Wii, Fat Princess, and a few others.

Lastly, if you or your spouse or young one is in the market for a little more rhythm, we’re running a contest to win a pre-release copy of Rhythm Heaven for the DS.

For those of you reading this at or around GDC, we hope to see you at one of the many industry events that will be going on later.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Boing Boing Video Live at GDC: Playfish, Chalice Games, Mockingbird Games, Joystiq, Alice Taylor, Telltale Games

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Day 3 of Boing Boing Video’s live coverage of the 2009 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco with  Killscreen TV + Offworld. We’re streaming live video around the clock on our new Ustream channel. Tune in for conversations in our BBV@GDC studio with hosts including Matty Kirsch from Killscreen TV and Xeni from Boing Boing, visits from fellow Boing Boing bloggers, and the following special guests today, Thursday March 26, 2009:

Alice Taylor of Channel 4 and Wonderland

John Seggerson of Telltale Games

Derek Johnson of Chalice Games

Troy Gilbert of Mockingbird Games

Sebastien de Halleux of Playfish Games

and our pal Kevin Kelly from Joystiq

For BB + Offworld’s complete video and blog coverage of GDC09, visit offworld.com/gdc09.

(Special thanks to our live stream host Ustream TV, to Wayneco Heavy Industries, and to our transportation provider at Virgin America. Video Crew members in the house this week: Jolon Bankey, Wes Varghese, Derek Bledsoe, Xeni Jardin, and Killscreen TV’s Matty Kirsch and Allison Kingsley).

Boing Boing Video Live at GDC: Playfish, Chalice Games, Mockingbird Games, Joystiq, Alice Taylor, Telltale Games

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Day 3 of Boing Boing Video’s live coverage of the 2009 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco with  Killscreen TV + Offworld. We’re streaming live video around the clock on our new Ustream channel. Tune in for conversations in our BBV@GDC studio with hosts including Matty Kirsch from Killscreen TV and Xeni from Boing Boing, visits from fellow Boing Boing bloggers, and the following special guests today, Thursday March 26, 2009:

Alice Taylor of Channel 4 and Wonderland

John Seggerson of Telltale Games

Derek Johnson of Chalice Games

Troy Gilbert of Mockingbird Games

Sebastien de Halleux of Playfish Games

and our pal Kevin Kelly from Joystiq

For BB + Offworld’s complete video and blog coverage of GDC09, visit offworld.com/gdc09.

(Special thanks to our live stream host Ustream TV, to Wayneco Heavy Industries, and to our transportation provider at Virgin America. Video Crew members in the house this week: Jolon Bankey, Wes Varghese, Derek Bledsoe, Xeni Jardin, and Killscreen TV’s Matty Kirsch and Allison Kingsley).

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