Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant
‘Twisted Metal,’ PS Vita games hit shelves this week
New video games this week:
“Twisted Metal.” — It’s been ages since the original “Twisted Metal” games made vehicular combat thrilling in the mid-90s. With a team led by game design legend David Jaffe, this attempt to revive the franchise for Sony features 17 vehicles, co-op and multiplayer modes and of course characters like the terrifying clown Sweet Tooth? Rated M for Mature. $60 for PlayStation 3.
“Uncharted: Golden Abyss.” — The barrage of launch games for the new PlayStation Vita portable console (which officially debuts next week) includes this premiere title, an offshoot of the popular PS3 “Uncharted” games. In this edition, which includes touch-screen controls and gyroscope-powered motion challenges, Nate follows the trail of a 400-year-old Spanish expedition that ended in a massacre. Rated T for Teen. $50 for PlayStation Vita.
Also out this week: “Rhythm Heaven Fever” (Nintendo Wii), “Wipeout 2048” (PS Vita), “Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational” (PS Vita), “UFC Undisputed” (Xbox 360, PS3), “Tales of The Abyss” (Nintendo 3DS), “Lumines: Electronic Symphony” (PS Vita), “Rayman Origins” (PS Vita), “Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3” (PS Vita), “ModNation Racers: Road Trip” (PS Vita), “BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend” (PS Vita, PS3, Xbox 360), “EA Sports FIFA Soccer” (PS Vita), “Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom” (Sony PSP), “Grand Slam Tennis 2” (PS3, Xbox 360), “The Sims 3: Hidden Springs” (PC, Mac, Linux), “Little Deviants” (PS Vita), “Dungeon Hunter Alliance” (PS Vita), “Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympics” (3DS), “Tekken 3D Prime Edition” (3DS), “Jagged Alliance: Back in Action” (Windows PC), “Vacation Quest: Australia” (PC), “Asphalt: Injection” (PS Vita), “F1 2011” (PS Vita), “Zumba Fitness Rush” (Xbox 360 Kinect), “Dear Ether” (PC), “Warp” (downloadable for Xbox 360 and PS3), “Mountain Crime Requital” (PC), “Kids Learn to Think: A+ Edition” (Nintendo DS), “Ben 10 Galactic Racing” (PS Vita), “Chuzzle: Giant Furball Edition” (PC, Mac), “Crazy Machines Elements” (PC), “Michael Jackson: The Experience” (PS Vita), “BioShock 2” (Mac), “Alan Wake” (PC), “Reality Fighters” (PS Vita), “Army Corps of Hell” (downloadable for PS Vita), “Worms: Ultimate Mayhem” (downloadable for PS3), “The Token Empires” (downloadable for PC).
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TEDxAustin 2012: the next level
It’s rare, if not impossible, for a new Austin cultural event to arrive fully formed in its first year and get everything right. It’s even rarer for an event to go from good idea to an essential part of the city in just two years.
When TEDxAustin debuted in 2010, it broke several rules for new, unproven events; the speaker’s list wasn’t released in advance, attendance was by application and invitation only, and it wasn’t free.
But despite an uneven mix of local celebrities and live performance, it was well received. The 2011 edition, dubbed, “Right Now” was even better. The first year’s semi-hippie-dippy, stargazing vibe was replaced by a more focused set of speakers and spectacularly curated videos. It soared in spots despite one or two speakers who were more self-promotional than inspirational and one genuinely offensive clunker of a presentation. Overall, it was very good.
The 2012 TEDxAustin, “Beyond Measure” was on Saturday at the Austin Music Hall and it took the annual event to another level. The presentations were, as a whole, more consistently surprising and inspiring, the lunch segment (carefully crafted restaurant areas instead of last year’s boxed lunches) wowed and the video segments were even more mindblowing. The mix of speakers, live musical intro, dance performance, a lesson in mixing from DJ Spooky and even an end-of-the-day sing-along led by Conspirare’s Craig Hella Johnson, left many attendees (myself included) alternately tickled, teary-eyed and blown away.
TEDxAustin has found its voice and this year hit a high note that’ll be tough to top in 2013.
The first thing attendees noticed was a visual update to the cavernous Austin Music Hall. What last year was called the “Black box” was this year infused with color, from chairs with blue-lit backs to orange-hued hanging lanterns and purple lights in the balcony areas. The stage was simple with two chairs that were unused and a large screen. As is tradition at TEDxAustin, the use of electronic devices was discouraged; unlike most conference, there weren’t a sea of laptop, iPad or smart phones screen lit up through the day’s presentations.
A video intro explained the concept of a licensed TED conference, leading in to a musical performance by Jeff Lofton (trumpet) and Graham Reynolds (piano) accompanying photos by Dan Winters and text from the applications of attendees on what things they believe are “Beyond measure.”
Organizer Nancy Giordano explained at the start that many of the day’s themes were about size, scale, numbers and growth. The themes of “Wonder,” “Explore” and “Jump” would divide the day,
The day’s first talk, from Chris Riley, a former Apple executive who now travels extensively and explores the changing role of media narratives in the world, set a challenge that would be repeated throughout the day: stop talking or viewing and start acting. He showed off provocative photos that belied the myth that there’s no joy in war-torn countries and encouraged attendees to help create new narratives that could transform media, “many voices” and “complex stories” to supplant the homogenization of the stories we’re fed.
David R. Dow, founder of the Texas Innocence Network delicately avoided discussing the morality of the death penalty but presented the idea that murder cases may be prevented entirely if governments can intervene earlier in the lives of at-risk kids headed for a life of crime. He earned the first of the day’s many standing ovations.
One of the day’s only talks focused primarily on technology, Todd Humphreys of the University of Texas discussed the ways that GPS technologies, which came into their own starting in 2000 with more precise measuring, are heading for a collision course with privacy (say if you’re being stalked by someone who implants a GPS device on your car, which is not illegal) and new technologies allowing for jamming or spoofing a geo-positional signal. Such tech could be incredibly disruptive, even deadly, as the so-called “GPS dot” (a very tiny GPS sensor that could be implanted anywhere) becomes a reality. A provocative, scary and sobering TED talk.
A great TED Talks video from Deb Roy about an MIT research project to record hundreds of thousands of video in his own home to study how speech is learned blew my mind. You can watch it here:
16-year-old Austinite Ellie Audet showed off paper fashion designs she created, including a dress she designed specifically for TEDxAustin (pictured below).
Food photographer Penny de los Santos told two touching stories, one about trying to capture the photo of Iraqis breaking a Ramadan fast when the power suddenly went out. The lighting of candles produced a beautiful photo she shared with the audience. Her other story, about the death of her mother and their last meal together, again proved her theme, “Food connects us.”
It was a great lead-in to a lunch organized by Jennie Chen, who, impressively, coordinated six separate restaurant areas. I was lucky enough to be seated in the Uchi/Uchiko area and the meal was phenomenal, a big step up from last year’s sandwiches and chips.
Ballet Austin got the afternoon sessions started with a high-energy dance performance of a DJ Spooky composition.
Comedian Chris Bliss spoke about his crazy journey into joining an effort to create a Bill of Rights plaza at the Texas capitol. He spoke about the power of monuments in an age of apps and Internet ephemera and asked attendees to get started on whatever moves them that can be turned into action. “Begin it now,” he urged.
By far my favorite talk of the day was from IT consultant and arts activist Jason Roberts of The Better Block, who took some of the uglier parts of his Oak Cliff neighborhood in Dallas and transformed it with the help of friends. His hilarious, manic presentation detailed the ways he broke antiquated city codes and created real change in some of the most architecturally soulless places in Oak Cliff. His description of how he created the fictional Oak Cliff Transit Authority website (which, eventually, became a real thing) earned huge laughs as did the photos of transformed theaters and plazas. Eventually his group won a $43 million grant to make his dream of bringing back the Dallas streetcar a reality. His three rules for making real change: Show up, give your dream a name so people take it seriously and set a date and publish it to blackmail yourself into not backing out giving up. Amazing presentation, a prototypical, perfect TED talk.
Craig Hella Johnson of choral ensemble Conspirare spoke on music, enchantment and finding love in our own voices, especially in moments of crisis. Accompanying himself on piano, he sang pieces of music including Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” and pieces of “The Rose,” which seemed a little too nebulous and ephemeral for the day, but Johnson more than made up for this at the end of the day with a more fully realized sing-a-long.
Military widow Taryn Davis, who started the American Widow Project, detailed the process of starting a documentary and a non-profit for women widowed by war after losing her husband to the Iraq war. It began, she said, with a Google search for the word “Widow” that returned the result, “Did you mean ‘Window?’ ” Moving and emotional.
Michael McDaniel of Frog Design spoke about his efforts to create an inexpensive, durable structure that can be used to house people displaced by natural disasters. The design, which has been prototyped and was viewable outside the Austin Music Hall (see photo below) could also be used for music festivals (hello, ACL Fest?) and for any other housing uses. The buildings are stackable, have electrical outlets and can be connected to created larger living spaces.
A great, exhausting (in a good way) video showed how artist Shea Hembrey created a 100-artist biennial; the catch is that all the artists were fictional and all the art was created by Hembrey himself:
William Eggers next spoke about his book “If We Can Put a Man on the Moon” and the idea that there are no longer big projects on the scale of the lunar mission. Eggers spent his time disproving this idea by showing examples of health care, recycling and education projects where big things are happening, but the presentation wasn’t as convincing or as focused as some of the others. Its conclusion, “Make the change we want to see” seemed pat and redundant given what else attendees saw the rest of the day.
If Eggers wasn’t completely convincing, the next speaker, Jeremy Courtney gave a talk so emotionally attuned that it brought many audience members to tears. Courtney spoke about his experiences coordinating surgeries for children in Iraq where there are disproportionate number of heart birth defects, detailing several wrenching stories of sick kids in peril and the rewards of bringing non-Muslim doctors together with Muslims in need to break down barriers between cultures. The concept of “Preemptive love” appeared to strike a chord with the audience, which gave him one of the longest standing ovations of the day.
Next, Paul Miller (AKA DJ Spooky) gave a short talk on sound in the 21st century, which, truth be told, was a little too densely packed with quick-hit references and big ideas about the history of music. The intellectual blast about music was a little hard to follow (Spooky jumped from photo to photo on an iPad he used to present), but his message seemed to be that music isn’t just music, it’s information that can be manipulated, remixed and distributed without limit. If the audience wasn’t sold on the talk, it was enthralled by what came next, a musical demo of his iPad app, accompanied by a violinist and cellist. The eight-minute performance (hear an MP3 of it here or play it below) was stunning; on screen, audience members could see the iPad’s screen as Spooky did live remixing of the performance.
Another mind-blowing video, this one featuring Luis von Ahn, was about the creation of the CAPTCHA system (which makes you type in words to make sure you’re not an automated bot) and how that system was repurposed to translate books. (Watch it below)
The day’s last talk was by Tanya Streeter, who was thrown off her game by a malfunctioning prompter that wasn’t displaying her notes. She referenced the problem several times, making the presentation more nerve-wracking than it needed to be, but Streeter otherwise seemed a polished and confident presenter, telling the story of breaking the “No limits” freedive world record, her struggle with post-partum depression and participating in a documentary, “Plastic Oceans,” a video for which, unfortunately, took up too much of her presentation time.
TEDxAustin 2012’s programming concluded with the return of Craig Johnson, but this time he brought an entire chorus to stand amid the crowd and lead a big sing-a-long of songs like, “If I Only Had a Brain” and “Seasons of Love” from “Rent.” It was the end of the day, people were perhaps tired of sitting, but getting everyone int he room to stand and sing worked some kind of magic over the proceedings and ended the day on a (literally) full-throated, positive, charming vibe. If there were doubts about Johnson after his solo talk, they were completely dispelled by the thunderous applause that followed the end of this segment.
Attendees I spoke to after the event uniformly praised the increased quality of TEDxAustin. The consensus (which I share) was that there was a more consistent level of quality and inspiration to the talks this year and that the various art installations, well-organized and delicious lunch and production design of the event took it to another level.
When I spoke to Giordano in the hallway, she told me that next year they may try to go the opposite direction and make the theme about simplicity and scaling down. I wasn’t sure if she was joking or serious, or if that was just the exhaustion of putting such a top-notch event together. Whichever it may be, it’s clear that the creative team behind the event has earned the complete confidence of its audience. Wherever TEDxAustin goes, it deserves to be followed. They cracked the code for making a must-attend (or must-watch-online) event in Austin and we’re all the richer for all the hard work that goes into making such an event look so natural and effortless.
Other takes:
- Jack Holt on how he’d give up his space next year to let someone else experience the magic.
- Professional speaker Thom Singer came away impressed. He’s also writing up individual sessions on his blog.
- Photos from Eugene Sepulveda.
- Shawn Collins calls it “Transformative.”
- Amy Temperley of H.A.N.D. writes on the experience.
- Jennie Chen’s behind-the-scenes report.
- Matt Fangman posts his highlights from the day.
- Dennis Jackson writes about big questions and big solutions.
Got blog entries or photos you want to share from the event? Post links in the comments and I’ll add them to the entry.
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A map of all the SXSW Interactive 2012 campuses
One of the biggest challenges of navigating South by Southwest Interactive last year was actual navigation: knowing where panels were being held and planning ahead to give yourself enough time to walk, bike or shuttle there.
Though the official SXSW site offers a list of the venues, you’ll find above a map the American-Statesman created. Click on it for a larger version and use it for reference this year. We’ll be linking to it often as the festival approaches and it will run in print as well the week of the festival.
How will you be getting around SXSWi? Let us know in the comments. We could really use the tips.
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TEDxAustin to stream live online Saturday
Above: one of the best talks from TEDxAustin 2011, featuring Gilbert Tuhabonye.
TEDxAustin, a licensed conference of TED, returns for its third year on Saturday. The Austin Music Hall event is closed for registration, but if you want to see the programming, it’ll be available as a free live stream on Saturday on the TEDxAustin website. The event runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. You can read more about the live stream here.
Last year’s event was held before an audience of about 550 and most of the talks were pretty inspiring. This year’s theme is “Beyond Measure” and as is TEDxAustin tradition, the speaker’s list is secret until the event happens.
We’ll be writing our thoughts on the event in a blog post Monday. If you attend, feel free to share your own thoughts (or links to your own blog post) in the comments.
Edited to add, Saturday morning: A full list of speakers has been posted.
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10 conversation starters you can have handy for SXSW Interactive
Attendees at SXSW Interactive 2011. Photo by Jay Janner / AMERICAN-STATESMAN
South by Southwest Interactive — the gigantic tech culture festival that has gone from spring break for geeks to spring break for anyone who uses a smart phone or Twitter — is a month away.
Starting March 9, downtown will be transformed into the epicenter of Wi-Fi-draining devices with screens, entrepreneurs hoping to strike it Facebook-rich and old-school hippie-techies complaining about everyone else.
It’ll be fun!
If you plan to attend the fest or at least lurk around the edges of it, you may be wondering what people will be talking about. Contrary to pop-culture portrayals, the tech-savvy are pretty social, especially when there’s lots of alcohol and karaoke around. We’ve come up with a list of 10 conversation-starters.
1. “So, when do you think this whole tech bubble’s gonna burst?” Perhaps you’re not afraid to be blunt or spoil the party. A tech crash reminiscent of the dot-com bust is one of the greatest fears of many attendees. It’s also the topic of the panel “Internet Bubble the Sequel: 1999 All Over Again?” And there are panels about “The Power of Fear in Networked Publics” and whether social media is ruining the way we communicate. It turns out terror can be a real motivator for tech innovation!
2. “My mind is getting a great workout, but boy, could I go for some yoga and a 10k run after all this is over!” The myth of the sedentary, unhealthy geek is due for a Jillian Michaels-style working over. An abundance of panels focus on health and fitness, from “Fit Together: How Fitness Goes High Tech + Social” to a panel featuring rapper Paul Wall and Quincy Jones III called “Feel Rich: Health is the New Wealth.” Popular speaker Jane McGonigal will talk about her new fitness game “SuperBetter,” created as the result of a brain injury she suffered. And there’ll be daily yoga sessions at the fest. Namaste!
3. “After SOPA, geeks can change anything with a good web protest!” The battle over piracy legislation between tech companies and online advocates that erupted recently will be much-discussed, with panels such as “American Copyright: Will Government Go Too Far?,” “Why Doesn’t Congress Grok the Internet?” and “Content As a Means for Social Change.” featuring Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.
4. “We need to get involved with some real-world protests, too!” One of the best panels I saw at 2011’s fest was about social media’s impact on the Arab Spring movement. There’ll be lots more panels on that topic, as well as sessions about stateside hot-button issues like, “Occupying Media: 24 Hour Protest People,” “Internet Power: After Cyber-Optimism and Pessimism” and the very timely “Stand with Planned Parenthood: A Crisis Response.”
5. “You know what’s gonna be big this year? Second-screen TV watching.” It’s never easy to predict what technology will have the most buzz at the fest, but there are enough panels around the trend of second, third, even fifth screens, that it’s worth keeping an eye on. “Second screen” could mean using a device with a screen (like an iPad or smart phone) while watching TV or having a screen in your car. Panels like “Integrating Brands into Social Television,” “3 Screen Minimum: Convergence of TV & Social Media” and “Why Your Car Will Be the 5th Screen in Your Life” will explore the trend.
6. “Did you see (name of celebrity) on that panel today?” It won’t be hard to spot stars at Interactive. Look for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” creator Joss Whedon, Tom Colicchio and Andy Cohen on a panel about TV’s “Top Chef,” actor Rainn Wilson, filmmaker and podcaster Kevin Smith, Segway inventor Dean Kamen, director Morgan Spurlock, actress Lisa Kudrow, Gawker’s Nick Denton and food celebrity Anthony Bourdain.
7. “I sure am hungry. Any food events going on at this thing?” In addition to lots of panels related to food trucks, food quality and regional cuisine, there’s also a Bacon Takedown cooking contest, a Taco Experiment competition and food blogger meetups. Food writer Addie Broyles has the details on her blog Relish Austin.
8. “Hey, nice canvas bag! Who designed it?” This year’s SXSW Interactive goodie bag, given to all registrants, was designed by Yiying Lu, who created Twitter’s iconic “Fail Whale” graphic. It features a cartoon mouse holding a tablet and it’s absolutely adorable.
9. “So many emails and status updates! I am so overloaded and could use a break!” It’s not just you. Lots of people feel overwhelmed by the amount of data we’re exposed to every day. Panels like “The Cloud as Skynet: Conquering Digital Overload,” “Digital Detox: Revealing Life Unplugged” and “Tech Detox: Can You Survive a Day Without Technology?” will offer tips and commiseration.
10. “I wonder if techies will affect in the 2012 elections.” Politics isn’t always a huge topic at SXSW, but this year it’s everywhere, from panels about tech in government (“Do People Really Want Participatory Government?,” “The Human Cost of Failed Government Technology,” “Sunspots: The Promise and Pitfalls of Gov 2.0”) to panels addressing the presidential race (“How Social Media Imperils Political Parties,” “Big Data: Powering the Race for the White House” and “Socializing the Presidency: Digital Politics 2012,” among others).
Other things to talk about: The Interactive Hall of Fame award, presented to web design pioneer Jeffrey Zeldman, is new this year. The Interactive Awards will be hosted by comics Jenny Slate (“Marcel the Shell With Shoes On”) and Gabe Liedman. There’s a proliferation of panels about sports and sportswriting. The ScreenBurn video-gaming track of the conference has been rebooted and relocated to Palmer Events Center. You can job hunt at the official SXSW Tech Career Expo, watch start-ups compete at the Accelerator event and hang out at the new Startup Village area. If all else fails, you can whine about how many campuses there are for the fest (14) and how much walking you’ve doing to get from place to place.
Let’s hope the real-world conversations are as lively and interesting as the ones that’ll surely be happening online during SXSW Interactive.
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Microsoft Store coming to Austin, finally
Image via Microsoft Store site
As reported in today’s American-Statesman, Microsoft is finally bringing its retail store experience to Austin with a location at The Domain to be opened at some point in the future (most likely after South by Southwest).
It’s the second Texas location after the one in Houston at The Galleria.
We’ve been talking about what these stores might be like since 2009 when we wrote a (slightly snarky) piece on what the experience at these stores may be like. Bear in mind, this was in the Windows Vista era; things have improved considerably since Windows 7 came to be.
Will you be visiting the store once it opens?
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‘Reckoning’ RPG and ‘Darkness’ sequel top video game releases
New video games this week:
“Kingdoms of Amular: Reckoning.” — The runaway success of “The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim” shows that there’s a huge market for single-player fantasy games. But will this new game franchise, basedon the talents of author R.A. Salatore, artist Todd McFarlane and “Elder Scrolls” veteran Ken Rolston make for a winning formula? Why not pic up a sword and find out? Rated M for Mature. $60 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PCs.
“The Darkness II.” — The original “Darkness,” based on the Top Cow comic book series, was an intriguing mix of action gunplay, supernatural powers and a noir storyline. The sequel allows players to dual-wield guns, more challenges using darkness and light in the environments and a four-player cooperative mode. Rated M for Mature. $50-$60 for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.
Also out this week: “Resident Evil: Revelations” (Nintendo 3DS), “Jak & Daxter Collection” (PS3), “Zumba Fitness Rush” (Xbox 360 Kinect), “Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition” (Xbox 360, PS3, PC), “Jewel Link Chronicles: Mountains of Madness” (Nintendo DS), “Inversion” (Xbox 360, PS3), “Myst” (3DS), “ThinkSMART Chess for Kids” (DS), “Ferrari: The Race Experience” (Nintendo Wii), “Jagged Alliance: Back in Action” (downloadable for PC), “Shank 2” (downloadable for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3), “Smash ‘n’ Survive” (downloadable for PS3), “House of the Dead III” (downloadable for PS3), “The Simpsons Arcade Game” (downloadable for Xbox 360 and PS3), “Gotham City Imposters” (downloadable for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3).
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The Linkdown for Monday, Feb. 6
The new SXSW Interactive swag bag, designed by Yiying Lu (of Twitter Fail Whale fame). Photo by Shawn O’Keefe, courtesy SXSW Inc.
The Linkdown engaged in some rare business travel last week, but is now caught up enough to provide you with a carefully curated list of events, links and SXSW Interactive news. Hey, wait a minute… this is that list! What a coincidence!
Events:
- Austin Forum on non-profits and social media with a focus on South by Southwest, Tuesday night.
- Wednesday Austin Technology Council event features Austin’s HomeAway.
- Kurt Lancaster HD DSLR workshop happens Friday at Austin School of Film.
- TEDxAustin 2012: Beyond Measure is on Saturday. I’ll be there!
- Accessibility Internet Rally, a web design competition, is open for registration. Deadline for submitting a URL is Feb. 15.
- FIRST Tech Challenge Robotics Tournament (qualifying round) happens on Feb 18.
- ProductCamp Austin 8 happens on Feb 18.
- ONA Austin meeting on broadcast TV and new media happens on Feb. 27.
- Austin Photowalk happens on Thursday.
- Next Juegos Rancheros meetup: Sunday.
- Girlstart has announced info for its 2012 summer camps.
Internet goodness:
- New CEO takes over at Micron after the tragic death of CEO Steve Appleton.
- Wired presents 100-word versions of the EULAs we all sign off on when using Twitter, Facebook and other services.
- Redbox finally announces plans to take on Netflix video streaming in a partnership with Verizon.
- Did the IRS contact you via email or social media? It’s a scam!
- How Twitter did during the Super Bowl.
- In anticipation of SXSW’s big lineup of comedy podcast shows, a New York Times piece on the phenomenon of shows like “WTF” and “Comedy Bang Bang.”
- Apple deletes a bunch of cloneish games from the App Store.
- There was a “Nurse-in” outside Facebook’s Austin offices today.
- Austinite Lyssa Myska Allen’s new website, DailyHap.
- Technology trends on the toilet.
- Pinterest is nearly matching Twitter and Google in referral traffic.
- New educational games from NASA (for iOS and on Facebook).
- RIP Peek email and Twitter devices.
- Every new HDTV: compared.
- Book or iPhone charger? How about both?
- “Breaking Bad”: the 8-bit RPG!
- “EverQuest” will go free-to-play in March.
- The male equivalent of Pinterest is called Gentlemint.
SXSW-related
- Check out the Interactive swag bag design, by Twitter Fail Whale creator Yiying Lu! (The bag is pictured at the top of this blog entry.)
- Social media and food at the fest, via Addie Broyles.
- Accelerator finalists were announced. They include six Austin companies.
- SXSWedu schedule is live.
- New late-breaking panels that have been added to the Interactive schedule.
- You can vote for the Interactive Awards’ People’s Choice here.
Got a Linkdown item we should include in a future update? E-mail it to us with “LINKDOWN:” in the subject line.
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A Force-ful recommendation for ‘Old Republic’
In this week’s Digital Savant column (appearing in Monday’s Austin American-Statesman), I take a closer look at the gigantic, Austin-developed “Star Wars: The Old Republic,” a game that we’ve written about before a lot in this space.
In my review/impressions piece, I talk about my relative inexperience as a player of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMOs), but how much I’m enjoying the game anyway. (That’s a picture of my character, Maumouchowchow, a Jedi Consular, up at the top of this blog entry.) It’s been a while since I’ve been hooked on a game like this, and I give full credit to BioWare’s ability to make me care about this virtual world and the characters within it.
Have you been playing the game, too? Let us know what you think of it in the comments.
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Austin-developed ‘Zynga Bingo,’ still in closed beta, is already controversial
“Zynga Bingo,” the first game to be released by the social gaming powerhouse’s Austin studio, has a lot riding on it. It will join the company’s long running “Zynga Poker” as part of a new franchise called “Zynga Casino.”
Members of the Austin team traveled to California to be at the company’s San Francisco’s headquarters for the launch of the game last week, when the game was released in closed beta to invitees for testing before it goes wide to the rest of the gaming world.
Like most of Zynga’s game, this Facebook title will allow players to interact with their online friends, boost up the game with power-ups and kill time in an easy-to-play, tough-to-master format.
But before the game has even gone into public release, it’s already attracting attention in ways Zynga can’t be enjoying. It has been accused by a company called Buffalo Studios of plagiarizing the design of a game called “Bingo Blitz.”
It’s the second time the company has been accused of aping someone else’s game design recently; another company called NimbleBit said that Zynga’s game “Tower Heights” bears quite a resemblance to that company’s “Tiny Tower.”
On Venturebeat today, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus fired back about the copycat accusations, saying that gaming companies like his typically build upon the successes of existing games, improving the formula to make better gaming experiences. Venturebeat also printed an email Pincus sent to Zynga employees about the controversy.
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‘Soul Calibur V’ fights back in new sequel
New video games this week:
“Soul Calibur V.” — Taking place 17 years after the events of “Soul Calibur IV” (we don’t remember what happened either, don’t worry), this fighting game continues the long-running series, which is known for its beautiful visuals, crazy characters and outsized weaponry. The new version includes more ways to personalize your own fighters, more online fighting features and a variety of fighting styles to master. Rated T for Teen. $60-$80 for Standard and Collector’s Edition, for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Also out this week: “Final Fantasy XIII-2” (PS3), “Puddle” (downloadable for PS3), NeverDead (PS3, Xbox 360), “Bookworm Wordy Wonder Bundle” (PC), “Pro Evolution Soccer 2012” (Nintendo 3DS), “House of 1,000 Doors: Family Secrets” (PC), “BioShock 2” (Mac), “Captain Morgane and the Golden Turtle” (downloadable for PC, PS3, Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS), “Rhythm Party” (downloadable for Xbox 360.
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Declutter to digital
Illustration by Don Tate II / AMERICAN-STATESMAN
In case you missed it on Saturday, the American-Statesman ran a story I wrote about people who have made The Great Digital Transition from physical media (books, CDs, DVDs) to digital.
It can be a painful process, fraught with copyright issues and very little money you’ll get back, say, selling your precious, dust-attracting CD collection. Personally, I am way behind on this (my overstuffed home office shelves are a testament to that) and I plan to spend more time decluttering, purging and converting, especially in books and DVDs.
How are you managing the transition? Let us know in the comments.
Also in the American-Statesman, this week’s Digital Savant column was about differences between two hot social networks, Google+ and Pinterest, which also ran here in the blog last week.
Permalink | | Categories: Computers, Gadgets, Internet, Movies & DVDs, Shopping
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Doug -- it is open to the public, but there's an application process. The deadline for this year's event to apply was in November. Once you're accepted, it's $100 registration cost (which includes lunch and breakfast snacks, coffee, etc.). The video
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This sounds terrific. Is it open to the public? How can I get tickets next year?
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