The Week in Geek
Squares, Lames, and Bullies
Written while listening to : TRS-80's Backup:01, Swollen Members' Monsters in the Closet, & Definitive Jux presents Definitive Swim.
Finally, a Square gets all the Babes.
With the seemingly relentless waves of new smartphone apps do any of them really do that much good for us in the long run? Has my G1 really wowed me with anything other than gDocs, Twitdroid & Mobile Banking? Honestly, no. I can say that other than Yelp plugins and the scrabble game or two, iPhone users haven't seen anything real revolutionary lately. Well along came a spider, and he's caught us in his web before; Jack Dorsey (co-founder of Twitter) is introducing Square. This time, instead of giving us a way to annoy the hell out of anyone who will listen, he's giving us a new way to exchange money for goods. Debuting on Apple wunderkind iTouch/Phone, eventually any touch phone with an audio-jack will be able to read Magnet-strip Cards. Meaning if Mom doesn't carry cash and you need a quick 20 bucks to buy ramen for the week, you can swipe her card, she'll sign off on it, banks will talk, and you'll have your cash ready. People with square accounts can attach profiles and pictures to their user accounts, so business owners can get a feel for their clientèle. It also alerts you on landmarks like 10th purchase or 100th latte, letting retailers assign rewards programs in a more direct sense. Currently offering a digital signature process on the iPhone, your receipts arrive immediately, via e-mail and eventually SMS texts. Helping to go paperless and digital, while increasing the personal experience of a retail market is a huge step in the right direction for commercial technology. With the $10M start-up budget, they have no reason not to give this idea the legs it needs to take off running. Check it out!
Man marries video-game & humor doesn't translate.
It's hard to belive that this pearl didn't get around, as I'm sure it did. Over the holiday, Japanese video sharing site Nico Nico Douga played host to a live-cast of community member Sal9000's wedding. Sal is a contributing member to a website where pop culture commentary, art projects, inside-jokes and memes are all given life via video. It's probably even got it's own version of Chris Crocker; shit, this Sal guy might even be it. What Sal did was go overboard in every sense of the word. At a Make: Japan event Sally-boy married his fake girlfriend that lived inside his Nintendo DS game Love Plus. With groomsmen present, and even a chaplain to consecrate the marriage, it really appeared that Sal was serious. I think we've had the wool pulled over our eyes, or at least missed the joke. Allowing his "Bride" a speech at the wedding, he even had his best-man say a word or to, this event was really a stunt. Not as elaborate as say, Ow my balls, but a crafty ruse alltogether. Gaijins world-wide have been crapping their pants in confusion on why a man would marry a video game character and thats just what Sal wants. Not to mention he just boosted his popularity on Nico Nico Douga about a million percent but he also got attention of the world media; he also made a clever point about "Make" magazine. The underlying message is that Make's DIY culture is about bringing accessible technology into your every day life by either making it your own or modifying it to suit your needs. That's exactly what this guy did, he felt a little heart flutter when he beat the dating sim game, so he built something around it. Now he's got something to say when people ask him why they never see him with a girlfriend: Sorry, I'm married.
Stop the presses, cash-up-front, please.
Google has announced that several major news outlets have entered into a "First click free" arrangement with the web giant. After many complaints that Google was providing for free what news outlets are struggling to provide, Google has come to a middle-ground. Delivering a news search feature was no easy task so Google wasn't willing to give it up, instead they agreed to help filter all the traffic incoming from these searches. Google gets a good amount of ad revenue through most of their services, and the news industry feels entitled. This kind of news-subscription service is unsettling to the notion of a global free press and, will undoubtedly ruffle some feathers. At an industry conference early this week, all-around-nutcase Rupert Murdoch spoke on how news media had to adapt to modern times or perish. He also just happened to mention that good journalism isn't cheap, so in order to keep up pockets need to be lined and pages gilded. Other digital media outlets seem to put Murdoch in a more heroic pose, while Google is the evil syndicate now sharing it's rewards. Unfortunately, new technology can never keep up with modern economy, not everybody can afford a CNN subscription. What happens when the common man loses the ability to pay a vendor a pittance for the daily news? Many companies before them did it, and many people feel entitled to "free" news on the internet. So the conflict is many folded, do we help support a valuable institution and risk the manipulation of news? How much do those fees run, MSNBC? Do we tear down the "established order" and pray that technology fills in the gaps? Can Google pull a deus-ex-machina out of all of this?
Warhammer Weekend:
To all who were interested, the event turned out to be quite fun. I'll have a full account available in the near future.
Posted by Ben Kessell, Ben Kessell on Dec 04, 2009 @ 12:00 am
