Augmented Reality Apocalypse basis of new YouTube series H+

I was browsing through my newsfeed on Facebook and stumbled across a reference to a new digital series produced by Warner Brothers and being offered through Youtube instead of the typical cable or satellite services.  It's called H+ and I found the trailer really intriguing:


I'm a fan of apocalyptic fiction and a series where the apocalypse is the result of a technology gone awry is irresistible to me.  The basis for this series is a new technology where augmented reality is delivered via brain implant.  Apparently it works wonderfully well for a time until about 1/3 of the world's population (the early adopters) die leaving the management of the world to mostly people from third world nations.  I'm sure Mitt Romney would find this scenario mortifying!

It will be interesting to see how this plays out not only from an entertainment perspective but from the viewpoint of Warner Brothers who is attempting to tap into the large numbers of people who are "cutting the cable" now and resorting to online streaming as their primary source of media.

The PR says each episode will be only eight minutes long and there will be 48 episodes with two episodes released every week.  I'm a little confused about why the episodes are so short.  Although it's true most online viewers are used to relatively short videos on YouTube, the number of us with smart TVs that can watch YouTube on the big screen is growing rapidly and we would certainly prefer the more traditional episode length.  However, the director, Bryan Singer, hopes web viewers will actually rearrange the episodes and search for clues to solve mysteries almost like a dynamic real-time video game ultimately changing the way we consume video entertainment.

Singer certainly has hit upon an appropriate emerging technology to use as the platform for his new series.  Although augmented reality has been discussed for quite some time (It was a major topic at an Emerging Technologies Conference I attended back in 2006, actual implementation has been a bit slow with Google's "Project Glass"  being probably the most familiar application to date.  Project Glass involves the use of specially equipped glasses that combine information from the internet with GPS location to display data appropriate to a user's location as they move through their environment. Google had initially indicated the technology would be released in 2012 but now they are projecting a consumer grade product will probably not be available for sale until 2014.

However, smartphone users have already found other augmented reality mini-applications to be useful.  One application I recommended to the nature photographers in the Emerald Photographic Society is Peak AR.  It is an application that uses your smartphone's camera and GPS to identify nearby mountain peaks by simply pointing your smartphone's camera in their direction.

Another really useful AR app is named iOnRoad.  This app monitors such things as whether your car is straying outside your lane, advises you of insufficient headway and warns you if a collision is eminent.

Google Goggles will let you scan a painting and provide information about the artist and a description of the work.  Wikitude lets you pull up Wikipedia entries on objects or landmarks simply by focusing your camera on them. The app also finds mobile coupons and discounts for local stores.

So, the technology in Hplus is already here - just not implanted as yet.  As for the digital series plot, I would offer an alternative story line.  What if the new AR modules begin projecting frightening imagery so real looking that people can no longer distinguish real from virtual? But I guess that story line will have to wait for another day!

Update: I watched the first two episodes using the YouTube viewer on my smart Samsung TV.  The first episode was almost 8 minutes but the second was only about 4 minutes including about 1 minute of credits.  I felt like I watched more credits than program!  I see the next 3 episodes are also shorter than 8 minutes.  Come on guys!  There are a lot of us with smart TVs who don't have the "Play All" option like the regular YouTube website has and having to scroll to and start each subsequent episode is a pain - especially when they are not presented in order on the TV YouTube app search function!

Related articles

• Is Augmented Reality Ready For The Real World?
• A Very Cool Video About Augmented Reality
• Watch: What Happens If Google's Glasses Are Evil?

Is increase in gaming popularity among females and older players attributable to minigames on mobile devices?

I found the following infographic very interesting.  Apparently I am no longer in the minority as an older female who enjoys gaming although I simply don't have the average 18 hours per week to spend gaming.  I think the motion aspect of the Wii accounts for not only the popularity of the Wii but the significant growth in attracting older players like me who are bored with traditional exercise strategies but easily lose ourselves in a game that uses body motion to accomplish game objectives.  This attraction is also reflected in the list of most popular games of all time topped by Wii Sports.

I do wish they would have included smartphones in the mobile analysis though.  I have probably spent more time playing games on my iPhone than on my Wii just because I am often stuck waiting in doctors' offices or similar environments and find the games on my iPhone to be just the ticket to make the time pass.  Although iFishing is one of my favorites, being raised here in the Northwest where I grew up fishing the streams along the Oregon coast and Pacific ocean as a child, I also like history-themed games and have been playing Slitherine's "The Tudors."  I also bought the Sims' World Adventures although I must be honest and say I get really irritated with having to keep track of the Sims needs to go to the bathroom.  I think that level of detail is more tedious than entertaining.  I also like hidden object games in historical environments too.  I love the visuals and the short mini-game nature of the challenge especially since I am using these games to fill a relatively small time slot.

It would be interesting to have a breakdown of the average 18 hours spent gaming to see if the types of games people are playing are more of the short term mini-game variety played intermittently through the week or whether more intricate complex games are being played in longer dedicated sessions.  I think this information coupled with a parallel analysis of age groups would be helpful to game designers wishing to address the maximum target audience.  I'm also curious about whether the introduction of minigames through app stores increasingly available through a plethora of devices is ratcheting up the gaming statistics in both females and the older age groups now.



Source: Online Education

X-Box Natal looks like fun but will most games be rehash of previous releases?

I finally had a chance to catch up on a little back reading and watched a demo video of the X-Box Natal.  Of course I was wowed by the technology but will it perform as demonstrated when it actually starts to ship in November?

Last Christmas, my husband, seeing me lingering over sale ads for the Wii, finally told me to go ahead and get one for myself.  Although I have played PC-based games casually for many years, I was intrigued by a system that incorporates motion.  After I purchased my Wii, however, I was a bit confused as to why so few games were available that actually did incorporate the motion sensing capabilities of the Wii. 

 I found Wii Play great fun and actually very physically demanding if you perform the same motions that you would if you were playing the sport for real.  When I played baseball I did a full wind up for a pitch.  I played golf for real for many years so it was natural to fully swing when playing the golf game and I discovered I actually seem to have a knack for boxing which I never knew about - knocking out my first opponent.  I also loved the fact that when I played tennis, I never had to go fetch an errant tennis ball.

I had also purchased a high-end fishing game.  I have always loved to fish since I grew up in a little town on the Oregon coast that had limited entertainment venues.  Bandon, during the time period when I was growing up, only had a small movie theater.  Teenagers could attend a ball game and go to the dance but younger kids only had the theater and their own imagination.  My father had taught me to fish when I was not much older than a toddler and as I grew older, I spent many afternoons fishing from the banks of Ferry Creek that was within walking distance from my house.  I occasionally fished from the docks in the harbor but preferred stream fishing for trout.

The love of fishing has stayed with me all these years although climbing down into ravines to find the best fishing spot is almost beyond my physical ability any more and I discovered a number of years ago that this Navy man's daughter gets terribly seasick on a charter boat.

On a trip to visit my daughter in the early 90s, I was introduced to a new PC-based Bass fishing game from Sierra.  I was "hooked" (pun intended) and stayed up until 3 a.m. playing that game.  Of course I bought my own copy when I got home.  But I always thought it would be great if you could actually feel the fish bite.  I got my wish with the new fishing game I bought for the Wii.

Recently, I bought another game called "Endless Ocean: Blue World" that is a scuba diving simulation that I like very much.  Although it doesn't use motion as much as I would like (I would prefer to swim by having the system detect the motion of my arms) I enjoy swimming about looking at the fish, whales and other marine life and exploring the ocean looking for treasure.  I even learned to "whale ride".  Then last week I bought a Firefighting game that uses motion in its controls.  But dozens of Wii titles are just ports from other consoles and do not take advantage of the Wii capabilities.

From what I have seen of the new Natal X-Box, motion-controlled gaming is going to take another giant leap forward when the hardware is released in November 2010.  But are we only going to see mostly ported games that do not fully utilize the new full-body motion sensing and face and voice recognition capabilities?  This new system could be a major factor in the battle against childhood (or even adult) obesity but hardware is relatively useless without software. 

I noticed that Microsoft claims over 80% of third party developers are working on Natal titles but are they really trying to incorporate the new functionality or just "rebranding" existing titles?  I would like to see games rated on degree of physical activity level (not just an icon denoting "Motion Plus" aware) so we can truly see which games make best use of the new technology and which ones just basically run on the console hardware. 

    

Music Games bring new markets to recording artists

By golly, I think the music industry, like the street wench of "My Fair Lady", is finally starting to "get it!" Unfortunately, I can't get an iPhone with Verizon Wireless, but I see that the iPod Touch can play many of the games designed for an iPhone. My old trusty video iPod can't hold a charge beyond about an hour now anyway and I have to plug it into the computer for a recharge after my morning workout. I know I can buy a third party battery replacement for it but maybe I should be considering an upgrade!

Tap Tap Revenge, a free game that challenges players to keep up with catchy tunes by tapping in the right spots on the phone’s screen, was available in Apple’s iPhone application store when it opened in July.

It quickly climbed the store’s charts, and more than three million downloads later, Apple declared it the most popular free iPhone game of the year.

“We went to No. 1 in three days,” said Bart Decrem, co-founder and chief executive of Tapulous. “Within a week, artists reached out to have their music featured in the game.”

Many software companies have jumped on the iPhone bandwagon, seeing promise in the popularity of the phone and the demand for programs for sale or free download through the App Store. They include Smule, a start-up that created a program that turns iPhones into flutes; and giant game publishers like Electronic Arts, which recently released a version of its classic SimCity game for the iPhone.

Tapulous, based in Palo Alto, Calif., was founded in January after Mr. Decrem, a Belgian software executive, and his business partner, Andrew Lacy, came across an iPhone game called Tap Tap Revolution. They sought out its creator, Nate True, and brought him on board as a developer. (A third co-founder, Mike Lee, was forced out in August after the men disagreed over the company’s direction.)

For Mr. Decrem, who earlier helped create a social Web browser called Flock, the low cost and fast pace of making software for the iPhone made it feasible to create a company that focused exclusively on the device.

“It took two years and north of $5 million to bring Flock to market,” he said. “In this case, the longest you spend building an iPhone application is three months, and it takes four or five people. There’s less risk in terms of betting millions and years on something that might not work.”

To keep its game fresh the company created Tap Tap Thursdays, when it releases new music from artists like Michael Franti and the pop singer Katy Perry. Mr. Decrem said those songs regularly inspire a million game plays — and occasionally a lot of music sales, because players can click to buy the song through Apple. In October, Tap Tap Revenge players bought 50,000 copies of the featured track “Hot N Cold” by Ms. Perry.

The popularity of the game led Tapulous to begin introducing paid versions for $4.99 each, aimed at fans of specific artists or genres of music. In late October it released a Nine Inch Nails edition, followed by a holiday version called Christmas With Weezer, for which that band recorded some carols. Tapulous plans to release one of these each month, including a special edition featuring the Dave Matthews Band.

Tap Tap Revenge is patterned after games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, which test players’ abilities to keep rhythm with popular songs. Those games have been hits on consoles like the Xbox 360, and strong sales of music through the games have given some hope to a beleaguered music industry. Harmonix, the creator of Rock Band, said last week that the game’s players had bought 30 million songs.

“The gravy train of the old days of having CD sales buffer you as an artist are gone,” said James L. McQuivey, a principal analyst specializing in media technology at Forrester Research. “Artists recognize that and are trying to be in more places at once.”

The British music label EMI, seeking a new source of revenue, collaborated with Tapulous on a version called Tap Tap Dance that includes tracks by Moby and Daft Punk.

“We absolutely feel these games could be the next big Rock Band or Guitar Hero,” said Cynthia Sexton, a vice president at EMI Music worldwide.

Ms. Sexton said she viewed the expansion into games and other outlets as a natural evolution of the music industry, though that revelation was not necessarily an easy one. “For a moment, we hid our heads in the sand and thought this was the end,” she said. “But it’s not. It’s really the beginning.” [FINALLY!!!]

Mr. Decrem said his company saw the opportunity in music sales. “We’re fortunate to be sitting at the intersection of a couple of powerful forces right now,” he said. “The iPhone is a device that is on fire, and artists are looking for ways to reinvent themselves.” - More, New York Times

Why are female Computer Science majors declining?

As someone who has been a rather "rare" female technology professional for over twenty years, I read this article by Professor Randall Stross with interest. Afterwards, I wrote to him to point out something I don't think the article considered, at least, not directly:

Professor Stross, I sometimes think that the reason women are not drawn to a computer science degree is that the discipline deals primarily with the computer as a machine, not as a tool that can be used creatively to solve human problems, enhance human communication, and enrich human lives.

Here is the definition of our Computer Science major from the University of Oregon’s own course catalog:

“Computer science is the study of the computer as a machine, both concrete and abstract; it is the study of the management of information; and it involves the design and analysis of algorithms, programs, systems, and programming languages.”

There is not even a whisper of how the machine is used in a human social context.

Women are still given the primary role of nurturers by our culture and are socialized throughout their education with that overriding expectation. The religious fundamentalism that has dominated society in many parts of the country over the last eight years has further emphasized this cultural stereotype. So it is not surprising that the vast majority of women would find a discipline that approaches computer science as primarily the study of an inhuman machine to be less than satisfying.

Anyway, here's an abstract from the original article.

Jonathan Kane, a professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, recalls the mid-1980s, when women made up 40 percent of the students who majored in management computer systems, the second most popular major on campus. But soon after, the number of students majoring in the program had fallen about 75 percent, reflecting a nationwide trend, and the number of women fell even more. “I asked at a department meeting,” he says, “ ‘Where have the women gone?’ It wasn’t clear.” His theory is that young women earlier had felt comfortable pursing the major because the male subculture of action gaming had yet to appear.

Justine Cassell, director of Northwestern University’s Center for Technology & Social Behavior, has written about the efforts in the 1990s to create computer games that would appeal to girls and, ultimately, increase the representation of women in computer science. In commenting as a co-contributor in a new book, “Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat: New Perspectives on Gender and Gaming,” Ms. Cassell writes of the failure of these efforts, “The girls game movement failed to dislodge the sense among both boys and girls that computers were ‘boys’ toys’ and that true girls didn’t play with computers.”

She said last week that some people in the field still believed that the answer to reversing declining enrollment was building the right game. Another school of thought is what she calls the “we won” claim because women have entered computer-related fields like Web site design that are not traditional computer science. Ms. Cassell points out that it’s not much of a victory, however. The pay is considerably less than in software engineering and the work has less influence on how computers are used, and whether this actually accounts for the diminishing numbers of female computer science majors remains unproved. - More (NY Times)

Putting the Education in commercial video games

As an occasional gamer I have always been frustrated by some of the convoluted puzzles designed into games. I naturally try to solve the game puzzles by using logic and experience which often does not work. In this article, the author points out that learning in games would be more authentic if real world information could be used to solve in-game puzzles. I wonder if the gaming industry is listening?

"The puzzle is both the challenge that engages players and the hook upon which various kinds of learning can be integrated. Conversation puzzles can require translations, use other languages, present syntax tasks or grammatical queries, or teach standard as opposed to slang forms. Combination inventory puzzles can introduce chemical compounds or genetic fingerprinting and DNA functions. Environment puzzles can offer tasks regarding neutralizing acids, restoring electrical circuits, or maintaining breathable atmospheres. Puzzles and problems need to emerge logically from the narrative structure of the game, and they must be challenging enough to lead users to seek out new knowledge and assimilate it into their existing schema through discovery, trial and error strategies, and seeking knowledge from others.

This last strategy may invoke Vygotskyan social constructivist pedagogy, as well as problem-based learning. Gamers access user communities, cheat sites, and walkthroughs to find the knowledge they need to solve problems that they cannot solve by themselves. In online gaming, the support can be in real time, while play is in progress, and expertise can reside with any player regardless of experience, knowledge, or status outside of the game; a computer science professor may seek the advice of a teenager. Players who are stumped can appeal to the wider playing community, as this DoomEd player did:

First puzzle is pretty rough. Can't figure how to turn on the power to open the rear bay door. Can get it to flash on, but not stay on . . . . (Senator33, Post to mod site, November 12, 2006)

This is where learning occurs beyond an individual’s own problem-solving capability, through dialogue with peers, teachers, or experts. This is Vygotsky's (1978) zone of proximal development, "the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers” (86)."

I have actually complained to game publishers about puzzles that seemed to me to be totally nonsensical. I realize there is a recognized educational aspect to seeking the answer from others but I find it disconcerting when I have to "cheat" to progress further in the game experience.