Wonderland

BarbieOS

Hilarious. BarbieOS.

"Most girls up through adult women become frightened and confused, often hysterical when presented with a traditional command prompt," Cesterino explained, "therefore the console program available through the B-Menu in BarbieOS features pink text on a flowered background so as to not intimidate or threaten females, and all windows are circular instead of the usual square, since most females unconsciously associate a circular shape with inclusiveness and the womb."

I played CounterStrike tonight, much to the general amusement of the coding team.

And on a similar note

There's a call for comments in a BBC News article on music filesharing. Reading through them, I'm 2/3rds of the way through and only 3 mildly negative views on filesharing.. the overwhelming majority are in favour, and then some. Quite incredible - if this is a decent snapshot of consumer belief (and you would think it could be), then those dear media behemoths are going to have to sit up and listen. Really they are.

This is encouraging, because there are days when you can see it all going to pot just because they're powerful and the masses aren't loud enough, and on those days I have trouble getting the energy up to continue to repeat the same message.
Come on you broadcast assassins. Get out of bed. Get on the blower, take your 50 quid, or just have your say. The commercial lot are too scared: make the public service lot spend your money the way you want 'em to.

These are, of course, goes without saying, my personal opinions and not necessarily, yet or otherwise, those of my employer, etc, ad infinitum.

Calling all media junkies

..at least the student types (because you'll get 50 quid for your efforts) or ones who - for instance - would like to help speed up the advent of things like the Creative Archive or the iMP ... hop on over to Tomski's and apply to become a 'broadcast assassin'.
G'wan.

The television was talking to me..

Over 70% of toys have microchips, according to this article in the NYTimes (requires reg), and get this:

"In the same vein, Mattel and Warner Brothers Animation have teamed up to produce a series of Batman toys - a hand-held communicator, action figure and Batmobile - that will use a wireless technology called video-encoded invisible light to respond to minute pixel changes embedded in a new animated television series.

Jim Wagner, senior vice president for marketing at Mattel, said the wireless signals would be undetectable to viewers, but not to the Mattel toys made to sense and respond to them. The Batmobile, for instance, the most expensive of the interactive toys at $52, can be prompted to turn on its lights, deploy its fins and make sounds as if its motor is running, all by receiving signals from the television screen."

Yikes.

Hmm

Just sat in a panel about Home Entertainment Media: and the normericans seem to think VOD will be significant in 5-10 years; that TiVO isn't mainstream enough to matter yet, no mention of iTV, that tv-over-broadband is also not-worth-mentioning, and that videogames for kids is a sagging market (because of the internet).

At the same time though, apparently households with VOD and kids show huge consumption, whereas in those with no kids, the consumption is far lower. Finding Nemo sold BIG. In the UK, iTV games are hugely popular, and often as important as the shows themselves in value and reach proposition, but no mention of them here. Hong Kong has recently launched subscription television over broadband, and the PSX and Windows Media Centres shipped late last year, all three of which are all about choice - but again, no mention of this technology or distribution.

I'm assuming that the 5-10 year mark is for video (all types) on demand and anywhere, and at significant market status, rather than just beginning to make an impact... either that, or the normericans are just way behind the game again.

I'm in Manhattan

I got flung on a plane last night to come to Kids Screen Summit 2004, and perhaps represent the red button. I'll make notes when I can, but no wifi! So far - one rather interesting talk on infants and media consumption (yes, they do), and one delegate reedily warbling a song she remembered from a US show from her childhood. All four verses of it.

Plus all four men in the lift last night were wearing makeup. NYC is surreal, and I haven't even left the hotel yet... thangyewww and I'll be here till Sunday.

Linkage.

MSN reports on a rent-a-coder who managed to publish data onto a site and leave it there, detailing some hundreds NYC kids' whereabouts and movements.

Re: my previous post on Sony taking over the world, well.. Sony owns j00.

And more on ETCon, via foe, laughing my eyes out via the hilariously bitchy Trevor.

Hugging Pillows.

Microsoft ship hugging pillowswith x-box Dead Or Alive Beach Volleyball. Brilliant!

By the way

... what is the sodding point in making social software link further than two or (at VERY MOST, for dating or job purposes ONLY) three degrees?

Having a huge social 'circle' ("you are connected to the whole world via 56 friends!") is not cool, unless you're 14. Getting random dating messages from complete strangers is useless. No-one who's a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend is going to give you a job via that connection. The only reason to have more than three degrees is ... to make pretty network pictures or for those "dollhouse pleasures" (you so got it, Clay) in seeing it grow. Initially.
But useful? No.

There, one venti spleen with extra whip.

New DVDs

..are so very lickable. We watched 'Resident Evil' tonight (P: "Oh, has this got zombies in it?? Excellent!") and I got disproportionately excitable at seeing the Train. Had to explain to P that getting on the train in Resi 2 is a Really Thankful Bit Of The Game. She didn't look that impressed, being too busy iChatting with one eye at some fella in Oz (hello Greg!), the other eye on the telly, like the lizard in the Budweiser ad.

Meanwhile - and forgive me for bundle-posting like this, but I'm lazy - this phrase in a Grauniad news article I'm reading at the mo just seems to sum up so much about that which is wrong in the world of channels ...

"It is only in the last 10 days that the BBC has raised its objections. It's trying to banish the channels to the digital ether and anyone in multichannel knows how vital the EPG is," said one source close to the negotiations.

Isn't that interesting? More channels is so clearly not the way to go, and recently I have been musing over two things: when Telewest will get with TiVo, and/or the idea of downsizing back to free telly (keeping the broadband, OBVIOUSLY). £35 quid a month for 400 channels of guff is really.. well, boring.