Monday, September 20, 2010
Human joystick
As part of a multimedia campaign to get people more involved with its Web news content, MSNBC.com has launched a game, called NewsBreaker Live, that plays in movie theaters. A motion-sensitive camera in the front of the theater measures how the audience is moving its arms. The camera then translates that collective motion to an onscreen paddle that players use to bounce a ball back up to the top of the screen to knock out blocks.
NewsBreaker Live is a version of a Web-based video game, NewsBreaker, that MSNBC.com is presenting on its site. In that game--a play on the old title Breakout--MSNBC.com headlines float to the bottom of the screen. When players hit 25 of the headlines with their paddle, they gain another life.
In the theater version, instead of a single player moving a paddle left and right with a keyboard, the entire audience controls the paddle together, moving it around by waving their arms.
MSNBC.com launched the game in conjunction with the communications firm SS+K. The technology is currently installed in a theater in Los Angeles, and will soon move, for short stints, to Philadelphia and White Plains, N.Y.
According to Sam Mazur, a creative director with SS+K, the system records the audience's NewsBreaker Live score and compares it with those of previous audiences, thus providing each group with an incentive to try for the high score.
The game is being run in place of the advertisements that usually play before film previews, and if a video posted on YouTube of the game being run in L.A. is any indication, it seems audiences are responding enthusiastically.
The technology behind the theater game was created at Carnegie Mellon University, Mazur said.
Catherine Captain, vice president of marketing for MSNBC.com, said the game is playing in theaters showing summer blockbuster films--Spider Man 3 and the like--because it was believed that audiences attending those sorts of films would be more likely to get energetically involved.
While the game is only expected to play in three cities now, Captain said she hopes to expand the campaign in the near future.
"I'd like to see it go a little more broadly," she said. "Now that we've seen the buzz, it seems a little unfair not to share it with the rest of the country."
NewsBreaker Live is a version of a Web-based video game, NewsBreaker, that MSNBC.com is presenting on its site. In that game--a play on the old title Breakout--MSNBC.com headlines float to the bottom of the screen. When players hit 25 of the headlines with their paddle, they gain another life.
In the theater version, instead of a single player moving a paddle left and right with a keyboard, the entire audience controls the paddle together, moving it around by waving their arms.
MSNBC.com launched the game in conjunction with the communications firm SS+K. The technology is currently installed in a theater in Los Angeles, and will soon move, for short stints, to Philadelphia and White Plains, N.Y.
According to Sam Mazur, a creative director with SS+K, the system records the audience's NewsBreaker Live score and compares it with those of previous audiences, thus providing each group with an incentive to try for the high score.
The game is being run in place of the advertisements that usually play before film previews, and if a video posted on YouTube of the game being run in L.A. is any indication, it seems audiences are responding enthusiastically.
The technology behind the theater game was created at Carnegie Mellon University, Mazur said.
Catherine Captain, vice president of marketing for MSNBC.com, said the game is playing in theaters showing summer blockbuster films--Spider Man 3 and the like--because it was believed that audiences attending those sorts of films would be more likely to get energetically involved.
While the game is only expected to play in three cities now, Captain said she hopes to expand the campaign in the near future.
"I'd like to see it go a little more broadly," she said. "Now that we've seen the buzz, it seems a little unfair not to share it with the rest of the country."
The Wildrness downtown / Html 5
An HTML5 experiment with Arcade Fire
Now the band Arcade Fire has jumped in with search giant Google to create an interactive video for the song We Used To Wait aimed at answering the question "What would a music experience designed specifically for the modern web look like?"
Aaron Koblin said that Google Creative Lab's answer was to devise a "project built with the latest web technologies [which] includes HTML5, Google Maps, an integrated drawing tool, as well as multiple browser windows that move around the screen".
Billed as the Wilderness Downtown, you are asked to insert your childhood address. As the video plays, a window pops up zooming into the area if it has been mapped by Google Street View.
"These modern web technologies have helped us craft an experience that is personalised and unique for each viewer, as you virtually run through the streets where you grew up," said Thomas Gayno, Google Creative Lab.
No sitting back and just absorbing the music, then.
Is this the future of music video? As an artistic endeavour, it is fun and compelling and clearly illustrates what is possible withHTML5 technology.
Now the band Arcade Fire has jumped in with search giant Google to create an interactive video for the song We Used To Wait aimed at answering the question "What would a music experience designed specifically for the modern web look like?"
Aaron Koblin said that Google Creative Lab's answer was to devise a "project built with the latest web technologies [which] includes HTML5, Google Maps, an integrated drawing tool, as well as multiple browser windows that move around the screen".
Billed as the Wilderness Downtown, you are asked to insert your childhood address. As the video plays, a window pops up zooming into the area if it has been mapped by Google Street View.
"These modern web technologies have helped us craft an experience that is personalised and unique for each viewer, as you virtually run through the streets where you grew up," said Thomas Gayno, Google Creative Lab.
No sitting back and just absorbing the music, then.
Is this the future of music video? As an artistic endeavour, it is fun and compelling and clearly illustrates what is possible withHTML5 technology.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Pantone 3015 or Process Cyan?
Michael Johnson, founder of Johnson Banks said:
"I have to say I think the Barclays-branded cycle lanes is one of the most cynical and inappropriate bits of affinity branding I've seen for a while."
"It's like someone has said in a meeting 'We're hard up, the lanes are blue, let's go to Barclays'. Awful. As a cyclist myself, I'll do everything I can to avoid them. Why it has to be 'sponsored' is beyond me."
A spokesman for the bank said:
"The strategy is to have really strong branding on the bikes and across the whole scheme, and all the communications are clearly branded with Barclays."
"It's like someone has said in a meeting 'We're hard up, the lanes are blue, let's go to Barclays'. Awful. As a cyclist myself, I'll do everything I can to avoid them. Why it has to be 'sponsored' is beyond me."
A spokesman for the bank said:
"The strategy is to have really strong branding on the bikes and across the whole scheme, and all the communications are clearly branded with Barclays."
At the same time, some members of London's cycling community
have criticised the branding for being heavy-handed:
"If this is true, exactly how does it work? How is Barclays getting any kudos from this. And then the all too-painful truth hit me. The superhighways are being painted the Barclays blue. Please, someone, tell me this is not true? Or is this the start of a new trend. Virgin will obviously get the red bus lanes and why stop at roads? Morrison’s can have the amber lights, Lloyd’s the green ones. There are endless possibilities: road crossings will have to change their name from Pelican to Penguin so that they can be sponsored by the chocolate bar, and only destinations on road signs that can support advertising will be repainted when they fade.
It’s Boris’s big plan: London is for sale. Silly me for not realising it. Or someone please tell me that the superhighway blue is a coincidence?"
http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/news/1019546/Barclays-defends-branding-London-cycle-hire-scheme/
Target Barclays
Anti Arms Trade activists worked overnight to cover London's new Barclays Bikes with stickers stating the Banking giant's involvement in the global arms trade.
Almost 4000 of the stickers were placed on bikes all over the city last night. They were in the same shade of blue and in the same font that Barclays use and were so designed to blend in with the shameless advertising disgracing every single one of the bikes.
The messages were
INVESTS IN CLUSTER BOMBS. OFFERS LOANS FOR NEW LIMBS
£20M INVESTMENT IN BIKES. £7300M INVESTMENT IN BOMBS
FUNDING DEPLETED URANIUM BIRTH DEFECTS IN IRAQ
INVESTS £7.3 BILLION IN THE ARMS TRADE
A spokesperson for Transport for London (TfL) claimed that only around 100 bikes had been targeted but activists say this is a gross understatement, claiming to have distributed almost 4000 stickers.
The bikes, which were launched in August and operate on a pay-as-you-go scheme, are covered in Barclays branding. The new wider cycle lanes launched across London recently are called 'Barclays Cycle Superhighways' and are painted in Barclays trademark cyan. Campaigners feel that, though the bikes are a step in the right direction, Barclays have exploited the scheme to be one big advertising campaign. No other city worldwide with similar schemes has been fully sponsored by one company. It is hoped the stickers will raise awareness of Barclays position as the largest investor in the arms trade in the world.
Almost 4000 of the stickers were placed on bikes all over the city last night. They were in the same shade of blue and in the same font that Barclays use and were so designed to blend in with the shameless advertising disgracing every single one of the bikes.
The messages were
INVESTS IN CLUSTER BOMBS. OFFERS LOANS FOR NEW LIMBS
£20M INVESTMENT IN BIKES. £7300M INVESTMENT IN BOMBS
FUNDING DEPLETED URANIUM BIRTH DEFECTS IN IRAQ
INVESTS £7.3 BILLION IN THE ARMS TRADE
A spokesperson for Transport for London (TfL) claimed that only around 100 bikes had been targeted but activists say this is a gross understatement, claiming to have distributed almost 4000 stickers.
The bikes, which were launched in August and operate on a pay-as-you-go scheme, are covered in Barclays branding. The new wider cycle lanes launched across London recently are called 'Barclays Cycle Superhighways' and are painted in Barclays trademark cyan. Campaigners feel that, though the bikes are a step in the right direction, Barclays have exploited the scheme to be one big advertising campaign. No other city worldwide with similar schemes has been fully sponsored by one company. It is hoped the stickers will raise awareness of Barclays position as the largest investor in the arms trade in the world.
What is Indymedia?
The Independent Media Center is a global participatory network of journalists that report on political and social issues. It originated during the anti-WTO protests worldwide in 1999 and remains closely associated with the global justice movement, which criticizes neo-liberalism and its associated institutions. Indymedia uses an open publishing and democratic media process that allows anybody to contribute.
According to its homepage, Indymedia is a collective of independent media organizations and hundreds of journalists offering grassroots, non-corporate coverage. Indymedia is a democratic media outlet for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth.Indymedia was founded as an alternative to government and corporate media, and seeks to facilitate people being able to publish their media as directly as possible.
According to its homepage, Indymedia is a collective of independent media organizations and hundreds of journalists offering grassroots, non-corporate coverage. Indymedia is a democratic media outlet for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth.Indymedia was founded as an alternative to government and corporate media, and seeks to facilitate people being able to publish their media as directly as possible.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Soundtrack to war
Soundtrack to War is a 90 minute documentary by Australian war artist George Gittoes. Filmed throughout 2003-2004, Gittoes bypassed the U.S.military's media lockdown on the war in Iraq to capture an authentic account of the human experience of the war. Gittoes interviewed American soldiers deployed in Iraq to create an account of the role of music in the contemporary battlefield.
The documentary offer unvarnished insights into the complex meeting of youth culture and the American military machine. Here, music matters and Soundtrack to War homes in on its use in combat.
Wikileacks.org
WikiLeaks is an international organization that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of otherwise unavailable documents while preserving the anonymity of sources. Its website, launched in 2006, is run by The Sunshine Press. Within a year of its launch, the site claimed a database that had grown to more than 1.2 million documents.
WikiLeaks has won a number of awards, including the 2008 Economist magazine New Media Award. In June 2009, WikiLeaks won Amnesty International's UK Media Award (in the category "New Media") for the 2008 publication of "Kenya: The Cry of Blood – Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances", a report by the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights about police killings in Kenya. In May 2010, the New York Daily News listed WikiLeaks first in a ranking of "websites that could totally change the news"
In April 2010, WikiLeaks posted video from an incident in which Iraqi civilians were alleged to have been killed by U.S. forces, on a website called Collateral Murder. In July of the same year, WikiLeaks released Afghan War Diary, a compilation of more than 76,900 documents about the War in Afghanistan not previously available for public review.
WikiLeaks has been credited with inspiring the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, a bill meant to reclaim Iceland's 2007 Reporters Sans Frontieres ranking as first in the world for free speech.
The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI) is a parliamentary proposal intended to create a haven in Iceland for freedom of information, speech and expression. Once forged into law it will create a supportive and attractive jurisdiction for the publication of investigative journalism and other threatened online media. It was adopted unanimously by parliament on 16 June 2010.On 18 February 2010, the project entered a parliamentary resolution proposal into the Icelandic Parliament Alþingi, proposing that Iceland "strongly position itself legally with regard to the protection of freedoms of expression and information".
WikiLeaks has won a number of awards, including the 2008 Economist magazine New Media Award. In June 2009, WikiLeaks won Amnesty International's UK Media Award (in the category "New Media") for the 2008 publication of "Kenya: The Cry of Blood – Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances", a report by the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights about police killings in Kenya. In May 2010, the New York Daily News listed WikiLeaks first in a ranking of "websites that could totally change the news"
In April 2010, WikiLeaks posted video from an incident in which Iraqi civilians were alleged to have been killed by U.S. forces, on a website called Collateral Murder. In July of the same year, WikiLeaks released Afghan War Diary, a compilation of more than 76,900 documents about the War in Afghanistan not previously available for public review.
WikiLeaks has been credited with inspiring the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, a bill meant to reclaim Iceland's 2007 Reporters Sans Frontieres ranking as first in the world for free speech.
The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI) is a parliamentary proposal intended to create a haven in Iceland for freedom of information, speech and expression. Once forged into law it will create a supportive and attractive jurisdiction for the publication of investigative journalism and other threatened online media. It was adopted unanimously by parliament on 16 June 2010.On 18 February 2010, the project entered a parliamentary resolution proposal into the Icelandic Parliament Alþingi, proposing that Iceland "strongly position itself legally with regard to the protection of freedoms of expression and information".
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