After the disaster that was the Jawbone Up, Nike has thrown their hat in the ring in the world of life-counting wristband. This morning, the Beaverton titan announced the Nike+ FuelBand which will track all types of movement and use stats to keep you accountable. The popular Nike+ device has been a
This promo video for the Zurich Chamber Orchestra is somewhere between the thrills of Audiosurf and the fun-fun-fun compositions of Mario Paint. The production studio Virtual Republic notes: The notes and bars were exactly synchronised with the progression in the animation so that the typical moveme
Head over to Mental Floss for all of them. Proof that play has not always been fun, and/or that it used to take a really long time to pose for a picture. [via] -Drew Millard
Do you listen to Rihanna or Bjork? Watch Transformers or Tree of Life? Play Braid or Mortal Kombat? More and more often, I’m find myself saying, “both.” (Except in the case of Transformers or Tree of Life?, in which I say neither!) If the mass audience was good enough for Shakespeare, it’s good enou
Unlike Angry Birds, Angry Brides gives players a chance to strike at chauvinist pigs. The game protests the (long outlawed) dowry in Indian culture. “The Angry Brides game is our way of throwing a spotlight on the nuisance of dowry,” said Ram Bhamidi, senior vice president and head of online marketi
To get a film into Sundance Film Festival is to represent some part of our Zeitgeist, manifested as a story, a form, an issue, or really anything that provides some insight on what people will be talking about this coming year, in film and beyond. This year’s Sundance will have people talking about
Welcome back to the Rap Map, where we speak with rappers about videogames. Today we’re talking with Mr. Don Trip, whose Stepbrothers, a collaborative mixtape with the rapper Starlito, won heavy acclaim throughout the rap world. What games do you play? Mostly sports. NBA2k, Madden, NCAA. Other than t
There is a difference between Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report and “Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report.” Surely you are aware of this-one is a fictional character, and the other is a real person who would probably find his fictional self a total idiot. Recently, though, the difference betwee
James Cameron’s Avatar proved the awesome potential of 3D technology for entertainment today. But in a recent interview for The New York Times, director Baz Luhrmann said he hopes new films will embrace the technology’s potential for experiences beyond sheer spectacle: He spoke of using 3-D not to
Dutch developers GameOven has been touting their IGF-nominated iPad puzzler Fingle as the “Barry White of videogames.” I had a chance to try it out this weekend with my girlfriend on the train and as a word of warning, do not play this game with anyone other than a significant other (real or potent
Are politics still the “strong and slow boring of hard boards” Max Weber once called them? Some new advances in the realm of political games throws Weber’s comment into sharp relief: “What’s happened over the last few years is that politicians, political parties, non-profits, and lobbyists have real
Filling your house, apartment, or general TV-area with countless consoles can often descend into a chaos of mismatched wired and scratched discs. Needless to say, it doesn’t look too pretty. Now thanks to Etsy seller BiscottoCotto and the popularization of the fine art of spriting, you can adorn you
It’s no wonder all those hours fly by in front of your console: your brain is wired to avoid distraction. Graduate psychology students at UC Davis have found that the brain, rather than working harder to stay focused, actually constructs new pathways for information dissemination “so that task-relev
Student John-John Skoog has designed beer packaging that doubles as a drinking game. That’s because the box folds out into a board game. Here’s his description: 6 beers and a boardgame – yet same weight as before. Simply flatten the box into the game, and use your bottle-caps as the game pieces. Dic
EA Canada have turned to an unlikely source for help building tracks in the new SSX title; namely, NASA. Data from the Aster Global Digital Elevation Map, a joint project between NASA and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade have been uploaded into EA Canada’s Mountain Man level building
The well-walked paths of our childhood leave a lasting impression on us. This seems true of the virtual spaces we moved through too: A new tumblr blog, Mapstalgia, showcases videogame maps drawn from memory. They range in detail from crude to mathematically exacting, but all show a tenderness for th
The Independent Games Festival, the videogame equivalent to Sundance, except without all the stars, has recognized 13 innovative games made by students last year. These include a game in which you play as a magic moth (Dust), a game about ballroom dancing in outer space (Once Upon a Spacetime), an i
Synthpop band New Look shot the new music video to their very ’80s single Nap on the Bow using a Kinect motion-capture camera. The results are startlingly creepy and very cool. It looks better in motion, and the song is kind of catchy. I swear! [YouTube] -Jason Johnson
It’s tough competing with the supremely cool United States, what with our Hollywood films and sleek videogames. Paramount Chinese leader Hu Jintao has warned his communist party that the proliferation and popularization of American culture, not the American military, was the greatest threat to the
Simple: get your mom to play Skyrim and record the things she says. Bethesda’s community manager Nick Breckon did just that and the results are amazing. – Lyndsey Edelman [link] [image]
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times is working on a new Facebook game that does some good for once. Players will be able to buy virtual goods in the game with real currency that will then go to NGOs and aid organizations around the world. Burak said that players will also be able to contribute to
The Writer’s Guild of America is a somewhat elusive entity to those unfamiliar with the entertainment industry, although you may recall the 2007-2008 WGA-lead writers’ strike that left us watching terrible movies and TV for two or so years after. (Remember Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen?) But f
In this double review on updated franchises, Jason Johnson writes on how Aliens: Infestation happily conjures the memory of watching his first R-rated movie, while Filipe Salgado suggests that Space Marines conjures nothing at all.
This arcade-inspired urban art is a project of Woodward Gallery in Manhattan, who also deals in limited edition prints of New York pop artists such as Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol. [Rhisome] -Jason Johnson
Since the relatively lukewarm introduction of Microsoft’s Kinect into the gaming community, the motion camera’s most interesting projects have arguably been user-made hacks that have nothing to do with Xbox games at all. And of those hacks, this is arguably one of the coolest. Design I/O have desig
