i recently went out to paris for a mean 30 hours on a briefing for a pitch we’re working on. it was a whirlwind tour but i had a blast and look forward to the next trip over the pond.

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Something I found that, I think, illustrates everything that is wrong with First Person Shooters (FPS for those who saw the title of this post and when ‘Huh?’) on consoles and in general. I was into FPS like when I was younger and when they were the strict domain of the PC Gamer. I have played and do own some FPS on consoles and find them to be inferior to the their PC counterparts, a game pad will never replace a keyboard and mouse when it comes to responsiveness and intuitiveness. I don’t want to have to practice for hours on end trying to nudge a crosshair over a moving target using analog stick. A mouse does need a learning curve. I know PC gaming is nearly dead, except for the MMORPG (’Huh?’) and that FPS on the consoles have given us all some really great gameplay and stories, but I don’t care. When I hand money to my local Gamestop, BestBuy, Walmart or whatever I want something more than just good gameplay, but, something innovative as well. Lately they do all seem to be of the same genre and gameplay. I would prefer to play a sub-par game that had innovation beyond ‘hide behind the wall and shoot’ or put me in a world that was different than the ‘Earth turned war zone by Alien invaders’. The video game industry goes through these phases where one innovative game spawns a plethora of copycats, (some really good, some really awful). For the FPS it was Halo. I played Halo I on the PC (cause it is better) and was entertained. Then I just didn’t care to continue. Gears of War, great copycat, but I got it on the X-box 360 and couldn’t get the controls down. I am done with FPS until I can get a really good FPS on a console that has a different story type and or makes use of a light gun of some type (wireless please), but still allows you to move freely, no rails. Hopefully I can get what I want on the Wii, it may not be as pretty, but it will be fun. I know there are ones like that, but need a good game (I already beat Resident Evil 4 on the PS2 I don’t need to do it again).  I don’t know about you but I am too tired of wasting money on crap or the same old same old.  PC FPS 4ever.

Future of web design.

HERE

Cool article I saw on CNet.com. Article Link

Google’s ever-active search bots, which scour the Web constantly for new pages, have begun a new, more active phase of their indexing jobs.

In a blog post Friday, Jayant Madhavan and Alon Halevy of Google’s crawling and indexing team said the company has begun an experiment in which its indexing software experimentally enters text in Web site forms to see what previously undiscovered pages may appear.

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This video makes you feel the plight of girls with older brothers. I almost called my sister afterward to just apologize for the past 26 years… Almost.

Good article from TrendWatching on pop culture and some of the hot topics that brands and consumers are gravitating to these days. Print it out and read it when you poop.

After a long time wait, Adobe AIR is in it’s first real version.

Adobe AIR 1.0

If you don’t know what it is, or have never heard of it, or just don’t know anything.Go to the image link above to just read about it even if you aren’t sure about downloading it.

I will not explain everything about it here, as Adobe has done a fine enough job themselves describing their application.Basically, if you think the iPhone SDK was a big release. Read about this, think about the possibilities, then think about AIR and iPhone getting intimate… ooh oh

EDIT:
Here is what a possibility might be.

One of the first video pieces we produced back in ‘03, a tongue-in-cheek jab at the Microsoft creative during the dot com years. I still can’t believe we shot this for under $1000. Those were the days.

As you know, for about as long as I (and you) can remember, I have been working on a technology called Sociocast. From the onset, the premise of the technology was to facilitate passive information delivery to individuals by leveraging the dynamics of social networks and by applying social network analysis. For it is true, or it can be shown, that the natural characteristics and network properties of social networks are ideal for information filtering and acquisition. Such properties as power law distributions, small-world clustering, etc allow for “searchability” in networks and, on the flip-side, “findability” (things can find you just as much as you can find them). In fact, studies show that 98% of what we know is derived from passive information delivery (i.e. monitoring, browsing, or just being aware), of which a significant portion is attained by participation in social contexts. And while Google has captured the search market, they certainly have not tapped the find market which may be far more significant. (more…)

I found this on ThinkGeek.com and I couldn’t resist sharing it will the masses out there. A Japanese import game for the Wii called “Super Pii Pii Brothers”, just put on the Wiimote harness and ready set aim. To see some action video, or perhaps place an order check out Super Pii Pii Brothers on ThinkGeek.com. I don’t know about you but I think it is a good day to pick one up for yourself or a loved one, I did, so click “Add To Cart” and enjoy.