When I was a kid I used to love the Fighting Fantasy choose your own adventure books. I’d spend all my allowance on each new book that came out and there were a lot. No wonder I was always so broke as a kid. Anyways, I can easily attribute my love of reading to those books alone. Well through my internet voyages, I’ve come across an emerging trend lately that I hope continues. The rise of the YouTube interactive video.
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This week I’m focusing on some great TV shows available to Netflix users, in particular Crime and Action shows. There are some true gems that you may have missed when they originally aired, didn’t know about or just simply couldn’t find the time to watch what was otherwise a great show. I know there are a few on this list I hadn’t even heard of that have turned out to be some of the best shows I’ve actually ever watched. So lets get to it.
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The Internet? We are not interested in it.
Bill Gates (1993)
Wow Bill, glad you came around.
It’s hard to believe how quickly things have changed in such a short amount of time in the immense world wide web. From the terrible neon coloured pixilated sites of the late 90′s to the crazy Flash boom in the early years of the new millennium, it’s easy to say we’re now living in somewhat of a Golden Age of interactive experiences. Amazing new sites pop up daily on the web and 20 or 30 years from now we’ll look back at this time as a truly pioneering period in the history of the web.
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Since Netflix expanded it’s reach into Canada in late 2010, more then 22 million subscribers have signed up for the service in North America. That’s no small feat. I like many Canadians eagerly anticipated the launch of the service in this country and the day I received notice that the 30 day free trial period had begun, I ran to my computer like a cartoon character with their pants on fire, smoke trails and all.
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This is part 3 of a 3 part article about stereotypes in modern video games. Original essay written in 2004.
It is clear that we have only begun to scratch the surface of what is going to become a reality within the game industry over the next few years and decades. Game developers will continue to find new ways to interact with their legion of users, and take them to places that movies and television can only dream of. The potential of what can be done is unquestionably so much greater, that it becomes impossible to compare with anything that has come before it.
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This is part 2 of a 3 part article about stereotypes in modern video games. Original essay written in 2004.
Although females have not always been represented within the game industry as the influential and clever opposites of males that they are, strides have been made in the last few years to empower the female protagonist within the digital realm. Lara Croft of the phenomenally successful Tomb Raider series changed the standard in the way that females are portrayed and viewed within video games. The major shift from the female character no longer needing rescuing, won over male and female gamers the globe over.
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This is part 1 of a 3 part article about stereotypes in modern video games. Original essay written in 2004.
Video Games take us to places and worlds beyond our mundane lives. Places where we can have extreme experiences and there is no doubt that there is a tremendous potential to expand our consciousnesses. Many people, however, have suggested that we keep a number of questions in our minds as we journey to these new and fantastic worlds. Who will be our guides? Whose eyes will we see the world through? Whose fears and nightmares will we experience, and ultimately, whose imaginations will we be trapped inside?
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Anyone who’s known me for any amount of time quickly becomes aware that I’m a big video game advocate. That’s my way of saying I’m a big game nerd 
. It’s pretty clear that my love of games, like so many others, stems from being a product of the eighties. I grew up with Pong, Atari 2600, Intelivision, Colecovision, Commodore 64, NES, arcade games and everything else in-between. I know many of us have endearing memories of worlds traveled to, friends met and old 8-bit tunes that still resonate somewhere in your head. Do do do dooo do doot.
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This is part 3 of a 3 part article about the future of gesture based interface interaction and it’s impact on society.
Arguably the biggest player entering the GUI space is Microsoft, who revealed to the world at the latest Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angles this year, a new add on device to their popular XBOX 360 video game system currently named Project Natal. The demonstration that followed their announcement during the press briefing, which was introduced by Steven Spielberg himself, was to say the least, jaw dropping. The demo was the closest thing to what was seen in Minority Report then any other real world consumer technology that has come before it.
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This is part 2 of a 3 part article about the future of gesture based interface interaction and it’s impact on society.
Human nature drives us to bond with everything around us: we want to feel connected. Even when current user interfaces hit the nail right on the head with regards to usability, the connection to the device running the application can be immediately lost with a simple CNTL-C or a click of the ENTER button. As intuitive and natural as we make our current interfaces (see some amazing examples here), the unnatural way that we interact with them via soon to be archaic devices such as keyboards, mice or game controllers/joysticks holds us back from the much more intimate experiences that GUI’s promise to deliver.
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