Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Monday, September 10, 2007
Cellphone: Semacode Bars Speed Up Shopping and Bankruptcy
Black-and-white patterned boxes called Semacode bars will be placed on advertisements which carry coded information that will bring the shopper to the retailer's product catalog. You'll then be able to buy the clothes using your cellphone account, making it that much easier for your spouse to rack up an insurmountable debt and send you to an early grave. [CherryFlavor via SciFi]
dyeSight $2 Multi-Touch Pad
By Erling Ellingsen on June 12, 2007I guess most of the people reading this will have seen some of the multi-touch demos by Jeff Han, Apple and Tactiva. I wanted to play around with some ideas that required a multi-touch pad, but there aren't any devices available (Tactiva aren't shipping...)
Long story short, I made a simple one from a plastic bag, some dye and a camera:
RFID implants linked to animal tumors
VeriChip -- and other vendors -- have been busily implanting radio-frequency ID (RFID) chips in human and animal subjects ever since the FDA approved the process. But a series of studies conducted from 1996-2006 noted a high incidence of dangerous tumors arising at the sites of RFID implants -- something the FDA apparently did not consider when it approved the procedure.
Cancer or no, I wouldn't go near an RFID implant. These things don't have off-switches. They don't have disclosure policies. They don't have logs, or even notifiers. That means that you can't stop people from interrogating your RFID, you can't choose who gets to interrogate your RFID, you can't see who has polled your RFID -- and you can't even know when your RFID is being read. You wouldn't carry normal ID that behaves this way, but from London's Oyster Card to the DOT's FastPasses to the new US passports, these things are being stuck to our person in ever-greater numbers.
And while manufacturers claim that these things have inherent security because they can only be read from a few centimetres away, hackers have already ready them at more than 10m distance.
Leading cancer specialists reviewed the research for The Associated Press and, while cautioning that animal test results do not necessarily apply to humans, said the findings troubled them. Some said they would not allow family members to receive implants, and all urged further research before the glass-encased transponders are widely implanted in people.Link See also: How thieves steal RFID-enabled cars HOWTO disable your new, RFID-laden US passport CA bill would ban forced subdermal RFID-tagging of humans HOWTO make an RFID virus Report: "contactless" credit cards with RFID are easily hacked DIY self-RFID-chipping HOWTO, Wed. Jan 4 at Dorkbot in NYC HOWTO build an RFID skimmer Hello Kitty anti-RFID skimming sleeves Personal firewall for the RFIDs you carry Interview with RFID implantee Former Bush official signs up for RFID implant How RFID hackers can steal gas, cars, and office access HOWTO turn a disposable camera into an RFID-killer UK RFID passports cracked US Passports to get RFID chip implants in 2006 US starts issuing RFID passports, despite security concerns Audio from Bruce Sterling's "Arphid nor RFID" rant Why RFID-chipped US passports are a bad idea Why new US passports can be read without permission US govt admits RFID passports are danger to AmericansTo date, about 2,000 of the so-called radio frequency identification, or RFID, devices have been implanted in humans worldwide, according to VeriChip Corp. The company, which sees a target market of 45 million Americans for its medical monitoring chips, insists the devices are safe, as does its parent company, Applied Digital Solutions, of Delray Beach, Fla.
Weekend Feature: The How of Habbo Hotel
Augustine: one of the oldest online multi player "worlds" around
Gamasutra was on hand to take great notes, which is a good thing, because very few developers reportedly attended Haro's talk. (The phenomenal success of Habbo Hotel continues to be criminally under-appreciated by the game industry.) Reading Gamasutra's coverage, I've gleaned five takeaways that strike me as most valuable.
Old School Ages Better
Originally launched in 2000 as a two room space made to promote a Finish pop group, Sulake was surprised to find the place swamped by international players who couldn't even speak the language; they retooled and expanded as Hotel Goldfish, then re-dubbed to become Habbo Hotel. Throughout that time, Habbo has retained the same look of blocky, pixel-heavy, 2.5D graphics.
"It's actually served us pretty well," says Haro. "If you think about 3D games from seven years ago they look pretty terrible. And the kids who play this game don't even know what the word 'retro' means. It's just another look to them." Upgrading to 3D graphics (the game industry assumption) would have required enormous development costs, and by requiring a better computer to run, cut out much of their audience.
More Revenue Streams, not Less
Initially launched with premium SMS as a payment model for virtual furniture, Sulake had to tweak this scheme to prevent hacking, then when they went opened in UK in 2001, where few kids had cell phones back then, changed to selling virtual currency. They've added "rare item" sales, external advertising, and other revenue channels, and a wide variety of ways for kids to pay. This is in marked contrast to most other MMOs, which are generally tied to a single major stream. Not a good idea, especially when dealing with an international audience. "Credit cards and prepay cards are cool — but they just don't cut it in the global market."
Roll with the Churn
To me, the biggest surprise is just how many Habbo accounts have been created, in relation to active users: 80 million to 7.5 million. (Parenthetical: this is roughly the adoption rate of Second Life, which is 12-15%, and I suspect most other free account-driven worlds, too.) Haro evidently didn't address Habbo's high churn rate at GDC, but what's striking is that it hasn't mattered to its popularity. My guess is that the turnover is a necessary part of it, as kids experiment with numerous different avatars, before finding the community and the identity they want to stick with.
Different Countries Mean Different Audiences
Haro mentions a fascinating demographics analysis of players according to personality types (Rebels, Creatives, Achievers, Loners, Traditionals), and unsurprisingly, these vary according to nation. (The US has a lot of Achievers, and Japan, a lot of Loners.) This suggests that content and experience should be tweaked to cater to these types, and to national expectations around them. At one point, Habbo's Japan area was swamped by Finns, leading to "a total catastrophe — the Japanese locked up their rooms and didn't allow people in their rooms unless they had a Japanese name." As a result, Sulake closed off the Japan region until its users had grown large enough not to feel overwhelmed by outsiders.
Another key demographic: Habbo is 51% boys and 49% girls, a rare gender parity that's surely crucial to its success as a social game.
Think Play Space, Not Game
Haro calls Habbo a "gameless game", adding "I'm very proud that we have this core gameplay without going out and killing monsters." Instead, they've created a number of themed rooms and let the players devise their own games around them. Habbo users have joined together to run their own roleplay areas, and the company keeps a light hand on community management, because then, "the players forget that the player-created content is the core of the world."
The reason this has worked so well, he speculates, is because it serves a deep need for adolescents. "If you look, little kids will play for hours… but teenagers are reaching the age where that's not socially allowed anymore. We're providing an environment where that's OK." (Also a philosophy behind Gaia Online, the US-based teen MMO showing amazing growth.)
If there's anything more interesting than the actual Habbo Hotel talk, it's who didn't really attend it: the game industry. GDC is the preeminent conference for both the creative and business sides of it, but according to several attendees, Haro's presentation attracted but a tiny audience, especially compared to a re-tread presentation on WoW, which was packed. "It was downright shameful how few people were at this keynote," veteran game designer Raph Koster moans on his blog. Koster has been the industry's biggest advocate of merging 2.0 principles to games, but he's still a largely solitary figure. "This was stuff that the crowd here needed to hear."
"Most of us are slow," fellow MMO vet designer Scott "Lum the Mad" Jennings acknowledges in his own worthy GDC wrap-up . "We obsess over what the big news was last year, much like hidebound militaries that always train to fight the war that they just got finished with." By that logic, maybe the industry will be ready to hear about Habbo Hotel in 2008– but as I've argued, it's probably way too late for them already.
- The Gamasutra post puts Habbo at 7.5 million active users; in May, it was 7.9 million, largely from the EU and North America, with about a million, interestingly enough, from Latin America. See image, from Habbo spokeswoman Susan Mills.
Image credit: Habbo.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
