GameMaker Challenge #2 At University Of Lincoln
First year Games computing students at the University of Lincoln have been taking part in a series of GameMaker Challenges: setting the objective of making original games based around one central concept. They've already taken care of 'one button games,' and now it's the turn of the 1980s Atari-esque 'ASCII' character set and graphical output.
MG Siegler: "Links From The Wall Street Journal Mean Dick"
The latest controversy surrounding former TechCrunch editor MG Siegler erupted when the Wall Street Journal wrote about Apple' acquisitions startup Chomp without citing MG Siegler's source article. MG, justifiably enraged, published a long tirade on parislemon, his personal blog. What's most interesting about his post is a choice quote from the middle: "I honestly do not care if WSJ links to TechCrunch at all. I’ve been doing this a long time — one thing I know for certain: a link from WSJ means dick. Basically no one clicks through."
NASA Budget Highlights
Last Monday NASA held a conference call to go over their budget for the 2013 fiscal year. The conference call, attended by members of the press and prominent Twitter users, inadvertently managed to highlight just how much trouble NASA is in.
In the midst of trying to put a positive spin on recent budget cuts and unrealistic Congressional mandates NASA officials awkwardly tried to engage with social media (the communications director opened the program by Tweeting a grainy photo of the attendees) and paint a rosy picture of what is going on with the federal agency; all the while managing to perfectly illustrate what is wrong with the American space program today.
Mac OS X Mountain Lion Unveiled
Apple, not resting on it's software-related selection of cats, has released the developer preview of Mac OS 10.8, more easily acquainted to most as 'Mountain Lion.' If one thing can be taken from the new implementations and functionality, it's that the desktop is moving further into the space of iOS.
So what are the major new upgrades...or old, depending on whether you're willing to consider ideas already found in Apple's touch-orientated operating system as 'new?'
Top Games For Valentines Day. Are You Playing Your Love Games With Me?
Embracing that emphatic feeling to scream your love for someone from the rooftops is both lame, and will not score you anything within this wonderful planet. So we're here to assist with a cavalcade (three to be precise) of video games that are destined to spice up your chances and bring romance into the air.
An Interview With Kieron-Scott: The Guy Who Designed The Bamboo Smartphone
So the AD-Zero has been capturing the viral headlines everywhere: the title of 'smartphone made of bamboo' is something that will always find interest, curiosity and conservationalist inspiration in everyone.
But another side to this story proceeds, one that we're much more interested about, that expands beyond the 'allure' of such an original choice of material in mobile phone construction. One that speaks of the design finesses, the struggles of creating an idealistic balance between form and function, environmental responsibilities that go beyond what is normally found in the technology industry, a warmth to a product that you don't get with the trend of sterility that's formed from the industrial-monolithic design ethic of Apple products.
We talked with Kieron-Scott Woodhouse, Head Designer of the AD-Zero, and design student from The University of Middlesex, about not just the phone's technical insights; but the choices and inspirations taken while designing the phone, and the history of progress that has led to this stage.
Product design geeks will love this.
T-Mobile Twitter Campaign Shows That #BritainLoves Hating The British
So T-Mobile have launched a Twitter promotional campaign, surrounding the hashtag #BritainLoves, to promote it's new 'Full Monty Plan' contract option. However, very much like RIM's attempt at cracking the metaphorical nut that is Twitter marketing with #BeBold, and McDonalds' #McDstories, the situation may have gone everso slightly ary.
What Happens To Your Digital Life When You Die?
The after-thought of your mortality: all of your social profiles and cloud stored items create the sum of one digital personification of the self. What happens to this when you die?
This has been something that Life Insurance Finder have been exploring rather thoroughly recently, and after releasing their blogazine on the matter not too long ago, they've delved further into the matter with a video infographic.
A Psychoanalysis of Shallow Hal
What appears to be a rather harmless Jack Black romantic comedy, teaching us the life lesson of beauty being more than skin deep, is actually some rather intriguing and deep under-currents of psychological trauma.
After watching a re-run on Sky Movies, I felt compelled to report my oh-so compelling results.
New Rising Media's position on SOPA
It was a day of protest across the internet yesterday. All the major players came out in force: Wikipedia, Google, Reddit, and others went dark to oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Our readers come first, so we continued to provide our usual amount of content; but that doesn't mean we haven't had an opinion about what's been going on around us. With this in mind, as editor-in-chief, I wanted to publish our thoughts and New Rising Media's stance when it comes to SOPA.
An Interview with a Kopimist
So the story went viral not so long ago that a rather small 3,000 strong organisation, called the Church of Kopimism, had been confirmed as a religion by Swedish Officials. You may know this more as another coined term: 'The Church of file sharing.'
Starting as a term used in Pirate forum conversations to invite copying of information in the early 2000s, 'Kopimi' soon expanded in definition to a way of life and belief in the freedom to copy and be copied, not for political reasons; but for a much deeper purpose: sharing information, copying and building upon it just as a DNA strand's ability to replicate and evolve. The religion follows a key set of axioms, and carries a powerful missionary message:
- Copying of information is ethically right.
- Dissemination of information is ethically right.
- Copymixing is a sacred kind of copying, moreso than the perfect, digital copying, because it expands and enhances the existing wealth of information
- Copying or remixing information communicated by another person is seen as an act of respect and a strong expression of acceptance and Kopimistic faith.
- The internet is holy.
- Code is law.
From all to one and from one to all – and then back again – exchange without beginning and without end. Everything to everyone’s delight, and everybody’s joy of it all. No one is excluded from the global community of knowledge and information sharing. Every believer has all knowledge – all knowledge is spread by every believer to all people without exception. Start the exponential cascade.
Source: Kopimism USA
Christopher Carmean is in no way of special status beyond being a registered Kopimist living in America, as he urged to tell us before we began to ask him questions: "I am merely an enthusiastic Kopimist, hoping to share the faith in the USA and ultimately establish a legal non-profit entity to conduct religious services and charitable work." This made us much more appreciative, and all the more curious to hear his story.
An Interview with Orangutan Outreach
The name “orangutan” literally translates into English as “man of the forest”. It comes from Malay and Bahasa Indonesian orang (man) and hutan (forest).
Hitting viral news recently, the Orangutan Outreach charity effort has asked Apple to add a dedicated "Apps for Apes" category to their app store. This followed remarkable results the zoo keepers saw when giving the primate an iPad, allowing enrichment through the likes of Skype, video and picture drawing apps. Regardless of what sort of response (if any) they will receive off the Cupertino based technology company, it shone a spotlight on their conservation efforts.
The Orangutan is a critically endangered species, and the goal of the outreach is to save these highly intelligent creatures. Public support is more important than ever to protect and care for them. We instantly became fascinated by the curiosity that the Orangutans showed to this technology, and had to find out more. We spoke to Richard Zimmerman, Executive Director of Orangutan Outreach.
An Interview with Brad Hansen
You may know him more for two particular viral videos that go by the names of 'The Lion King Rises' and 'WALL-ETHEUS.' With the rather novel idea of syncing the audio of all-new movie trailers to the scenes of those that fit in an almost oxymoronic way, Brad Hansen has recently received massive viral success.
Surpassing a million hits within seven days, we had to talk to him and find out more. How does he create these mash-up trailers? What else does he do besides these creations? And just how does one connect a children's film with the audio of something less...youthful?
As Brad allows us insight into the conceptualising process, "First I find a new trailer that people are really interested in. Then I just think about what characters, themes, and visuals seem to match up well, that would make an interesting counterpoint. If I can also think of a clever title spoof, then I know I'm in good shape!"
White House denies sending Obama to Mars
Self-proclaimed time-traveling, universe-exploring government agents Andrew D. Basiago and William Stillings claim they served for DARPA in the 1980s, and witnessed a young Barack Obama sent to explore Mars as a top secret CIA project.
I would love to say we're making this up; but this fantastical story, which we're not surprised doesn't come complete with it's own Tinfoil hats, is one of such absurdity it's actually a pretty fascinating story to read. Reported by Wired's Danger Room, Basiago and Stillings told of how Obama has been lying about his identity and military service, revealing the shocking truth to be the president participating in a CIA intergalactic program, which was hosted at a California community college in 1980.
Happy New Year from New Rising Media!
So we wanted to wish everyone a happy new year, as we stumble into the year that the Mayans have been speculating about.
With our re-launch, the main objective was easy to define: establish the brand and start to build a readership. The result has been beyond anything we ever predicted, making us feel like the luckiest bunch of writers on this crazy planet called Earth.
The New Rising Media Top 10 Games Of 2011
2011 has been a great year for gaming. Granted, we feel it may not have been one of the best; but there's still been a generous handful of dilectible experiences for both experienced and newcomers to video games alike. Now we know how this works: create a list to perpetuate discussion and disagreement, as to generate a buzz around your site. We understand that risk going into this; but there's also the urge in the more opinionated of us in the office to tell you exactly which are our favourites. So Happy New Year, here is out Top 10 games of 2011.
An Interview With Vivec Entertainment
Horror not only remains relatively untapped within the videogame industry, the sheer scarcity of genuinely frightening horror games is quite alarming.
While the spine-tingling genre tropes remain one of the most popular cinematically – it seems we're treated to another 'Scariest Film Of [Insert Year Here]' movie every other week – there is just a handful of truly memorable, scary experiences on this side of the interactive spectrum. Of course, they're certainly there if you look for them, beneath the copycat military FPS clones and third-person space marine shooters - we're talking Doom, Call of Cthulu, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Condemned, F.E.A.R, Amnesia – but nevertheless it's a sad state of affairs when one of the most visceral, unnerving and engaging genres still sits largely absent from store shelves.
An Interview With Shed Muzak
Take a moment to purvey YouTube's 'Music' category and there's considerable odds that you'll stumble across one of two things. The first of which will be all-too-familiar with regular viewers of music videos on the video-sharing website: the presence of VEVO and traces of the music monopoly it has built through the site. The second is the wealth of renditions of popular music by artists largely unknown outside of subscriber-bases and online fans. Shed Muzak might very well fit into the latter category, but it'd be remiss to take the group for granted as yet another band whom methodically recreate songs word-by-word, beat-by-beat, such is the large proportion of videos therein.
Tweet complaints about presents received show us Christmas spirit is dead
Christmas was a thoroughly cheerful, festive time for the majority of us. The exception would be the people who didn't get what they want, going to Twitter to publicly exclaim their ungrateful disappointment: hating life, parents and all things Christmas.
We would say 'quit your bitching;' but they are downright hilarious, as comedian Jon Hendren’s Twitter account has been retweeting some of the best outcries. The good majority of these have been complaints around not getting an iPhone or an iPad, others didn't want Kindle Fires, some even had the audacity to moan about not getting a car!
An Interview With Atomic Productions
With their slick, stylish, creatively-inventive spoofs of two of last years most accomplished and masterfully-made films, Atomic Productions' parody trailers of Inception and The Social Network – respectively known as Inebriation and The Brocial Network – have together grossed just under 2 million views on YouTube.
Not bad considering their combined production takes up but a small portion of the group's already highly impressive filmography, they're made on a shoe-string budget and came out of a challenge by creative director Andrew Adam's college professor who urged the group to try “something funny with that sort of grave seriousness” that they knew so well.