Hello Everyone.

Im looking for a way to automatically change the color of a folder label whenever the folder has content in it for a certain amount of time. For instance Im sick of having a cluttered desktop so I have organized my desktop with 4 folders. Inbox, Actions, Continuous, and Archived. I would like to have my actions folder label itself red when it possesses any files for longer than, like 12 hours. Is this possible?

I just migrated from mac to pc , I found there is a cute utility is very useful for me. It is TrioXLabels, it can make files by colored overlay icon ,familiar to mac’s color label. You can get it from TrioXSoft

White Label Community – mixxt-Communities mit eigenem Branding; nandoo – ein personalisierbarer Nachrichtenaggregator; und Twittori – Tweets aus der Nachbarschaft.

Das Community-Baukastensystem mixxt lanciert mit White Label Community eine eigene Anlaufstelle für Unternehmenslösungen. Die White Label Communities haben alle Features normaler mixxt-basierter Communities – In dieser Rubrik stellen wir jede Woche einige kleinere Tools aus dem deutschen Sprachraum vor, die vor kurzem gestartet sind.Foren, Wikis, Blogs, Verwaltung von Bildern oder Dateien, User-Management oder die Einbindung von RSS-Feeds sind in Modulen organisiert, die man nach dem Baukastenprinzip zusammenstellen kann -, können aber komplett mit dem eigenen Branding versehen werden, bieten einige zusätzliche administrative Funktionen und können durch eine Templating-Engine flexibel in bestehende Webauftritte integriert werden.

nandoo ist ein weiterer Aggregator von Nachrichten mit einem eigenen Twist. Die Nachrichten speisen sich aus unterschiedlichen Quellen (Zeitungen, Blogs, Online-Nachrichtenmagazine) und organisieren sich automatisch in Themen, die auch von den Benutzern angelegt werden können. Themen von Interesse kann man auf einer Themenseite verwalten und sich so ein personalisiertes Nachrichtenbündel zusammenstellen. Wer will, kann die Artikel kommentieren und bewerten, sich mit anderen Benutzern vernetzen oder auch eigene Artikel schreiben. Eine iPhone-App gibt es auch.

Twittori ist ein kleines Mashup, das Twitter mit Geotagging kombiniert. Einerseits können Tweets mit Geodaten annotiert werden. Twittori verschickt den Tweet mit einer entsprechenden URL, die den Ort repräsentiert. Andererseits können Orte verfolgt werden. Alle Tweets der näheren Umgebung werden dabei aggregiert und man bekommt mit, was in der Nachbarschaft los ist.

White Label Community, nandoo, TwittoriFotostrecke starten: Klick auf ein Bild (5 Bilder)

Un internaute sur 2 utilise régulièrement un comparateur de prix avant de faire ses achats en ligne. Depuis lundi (29 juin), le label Charte Confiance accordé à une demi-douzaine de sites de comparaison de prix, indique qu'ils respectent un certain nombre d'engagements : mise à jour régulière des prix, affichage TTC.... Le Mag Numérique vous explique ce qu'est ce Label Charte Confiance.

Le premier album de l'anglaise Florence Welch, officiant sous le pseudonyme Florence And The Machine avec un groupe à géométrie variable qui compta notamment dans ses rangs un certain Devonte Hynes (Lightspeed Champion) - lequel lui aurait par ailleurs écrit quelques chansons après que Florence l'eut accompagné au sein du backing band de la tournée Falling Off The Lavender Bridge - verra le jour lundi outre-Manche via le label Island Records, en attendant une distribution officielle chez nous qui (...)

How To Create a Good Looking Form » View Demo » This tutorial explains how to design a great looking form using a clean CSS design with only the label and input tags to simulate an HTML table structure.

Konversation 1.2-alpha4
(KDE Chat Application)
Konversation is a user-friendly Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client for KDE.


--- What's new ---

1.2-alpha4:
Alpha 4 marks a significant milestone on the way to feature completeness for the v1.2 release of Konversation. New features in this release include UPnP NAT traversal support for DCC file transfers and chats, DH1080 key exchange support for Blowfish encryption and the ability to automatically split very long actions (i.e. usage of the '/me' command) into multiple messages conforming to the maximum length of an IRC message (this was already supported for regular messages for some time).

Many bugs have also been addressed, including an important fix for invitation dialogs causing disconnects by timeout if they were not dealt with quickly enough - and not only is the rewritten dialog non-blocking, it also allows for handling multiple outstanding invitations in a single dialog, rather than a new dialog being displayed for every additional invitation received. Other fixes include further interface polish and robustness and correctness improvements to Blowfish encryption, the Watched Nicks Online system and the storage of per-tab encoding preferences in the configuration file.

A closing note for packagers: In this release we have replaced our custom implementation of the Blowfish encryption algorithm with an optional dependency on the Qt Cryptographic Architecture (QCA) library in version 2 or higher. By implication, Blowfish encryption support is now optional: A QCA2-enabled build will have it; a build not using QCA2 will not.

1.2-alpha3:
This third alpha fixes a fair amount of annoying bugs encountered in day-to-day usage, as well as a serious bug in handling NAMES messages from IRC servers. We've also made some UI changes that we'd like to get your feedback on: We've changed the default tab completion mode to "Cycle Nicklist", and we've removed the frame around the tab widget when using the listview version of the tab bar.

1.2-alpha2:
After just under a week's worth of adding back some missing functionality, polishing the interface and, of course, of fixing bugs, we've decided to bring you Konversation 1.2-alpha2. While there were no major defects discovered in alpha1, this one should yield an overall more refined user experience, and brings us another good step closer to our first stable release for KDE 4.

1.2-alpha1:
We're happy to bring you this first public release of the KDE 4 version of Konversation.

Despite the "alpha" moniker we've settled on for this one, mostly due to not yet being feature-complete (see below), this port has already been used productively by a fair number of people for some time and should be stable enough for general usage. In fact, certain features, notably DCC file transfers and auto-replace, are expected to be more robust than in Konversation 1.1.

While this version largely achieves feature parity with Konversation 1.1 (and adds several new features on top), notable exceptions are the lack of support for marker lines as well as nick and channel context menus in the chat view. These are pending the merge of a rewritten chat view and will make a return before the final Konversation 1.2 release. Other known issues in this version include a lack of KDE 4 HIG compliance in the configuration dialog and various minor interface polish problems; these will be addressed as well.

Enjoy, and don't forget to report any bugs you encounter!

1.1:
We are extremely pleased to announce Konversation's newest major release, v1.1. Konversation 1.1 is a special release for us in multiple ways: It's our farewell to KDE 3, by way of being the last major release built upon that venerable platform. It's also our biggest release yet, in terms of the number and magnitude of the changes.

The additions and improvements in this release are both user-visible and under the hood. Some of the highlights are rewritten connection handling (robustness and correctness improvements, better support for IRC URLs, bookmarking and more), redone DCC with better UI and Passive/Reverse DCC support, a redone away system with the addition of auto-away support, redone and much more useful remember / marker line support, a new outbound traffic scheduler that is capable of aggressive throttling to avoid flooding while smartly reordering messages to improve latencies, great convenience additions like a "Next Active Tab" shortcut, and much, much more, along with a large number of bugfixes and tweaks to round things out. Note: All fixes made since RC1 are marked with a "[New since RC1]" label in the changelog.

We're confident that this release is the best and most robust version of Konversation published so far, and upgrading comes highly recommended to all users. Enjoy!


--- Essential links ---

Konversation's website: http://konversation.kde.org/
Wiki: http://konversation.kde.org/wiki/
Report bugs and wishes at: http://bugs.kde.org/
Older releases: http://developer.berlios.de/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2684

changelog:
Changes from 1.2-alpha3 to 1.2-alpha4:
* Changed links to KDE's (and hence our) bug tracker throughout the codebase to use https://bugs.kde.org/ rather than http://bugs.kde.org/
* Fixed the "Show Menubar" item not getting removed from the chat view context view after showing the menubar again. Also added a separator after the item (only visible when it is present).
* Switched the timestamps in log files to use KDE's locale settings for formatting the date and time, as the equivalent Qt API used previously seems to look at the value of LC_NUMERIC to detemine the format in Qt 4, which doesn't meet user expectations.
* Fixed the "Date" column in the topic history of the Channel Options Dialog not using KDE's locale settings to format the value.
* Fixed the "Date" column in the Channel Settings dialog's topic history sorting alphabetically rather than by date.
* Improved Windows support in the bundled 'media' script.
* Fixed the vertical alignment of the topic label when using Qt 4.5 (it's now top-aligned rather than vertically centered, i.e. making the topic area bigger than the topic by dragging the splitter down won't cause the topic to move down to stay in the vertical center anymore -- Qt 4.5 is needed because a method to retrieve the document margin from the chat view to use as the top margin for the topic label is new in that version).
* Fixed various chat view messages containing date/time values (channel created, topic set, online since, ban info) not using KDE's locale settings for their display format.
* Added support for using UPnP for NAT traversal for DCC file transfers (both active send and passive receive) and DCC chat. When UPnP is enabled in both Konversation and your router, Konversation now knows how to ask your router to set up the necessary port forward, and also how to to ask it to remove it later.
* Added support for the KDE 4 version of JuK to the bundled 'media' script.
* Fixed '/msg < channel > < message >' not displaying the resulting message in the target channel when the user is attending that channel.
* Made the appearance of the line informing about the message being sent with '/msg < nick|channel > < message >' consistent between channel, query and status tabs (it now looks like in the former in the latter two as well).
* Fixed the visualization of '/msg < nick|channel > < message >' (i.e. the '< -> target > message' line) being shown only after adding the resulting message to the target chat view (if present), causing an odd-looking order if the origin view and the target view are the same.
* Watched Nicknames Online now generally operates on networks by their internal unique IDs rather than names, enabling it to handle multiple configured networks with identical names properly.
* Konversation's custom implementation of Blowfish encryption has been replaced with an optional dependency on the Qt Cryptographic Architecture (QCA) library version 2.
* The '/setkey [nick|channel] < key >' command now recognizes 'cbc:' (cipher-block chaining) and 'ecb:' (electronic codebook) prefixes in the key field to set a particular Blowfish block cipher mode of operation, defaulting to the value of a config dialog preference (Behavior -> Connection-> Encryption -> Default Encryption Type, the default is Electronic Codebook (ECB)) when no prefix is given.
* Fixed crash when opening links with ' in them when the "Custom Browser" preference is enabled in Konversation's config dialog.
* Improved consistency of link opening behavior between the chat view, the topic label and the URL catcher (all three now use the new-in-KDE-4 KToolInvocation API to invoke the KDE default browser, whereas the topic label and the URL catcher were still using KRun until now).
* Fixed a bug that could cause the state of the spell-checking setting for the input line to be lost across application restarts.
* Added support for considering square brackets ([]) part of URLs.
* Fixed the code producing multiple JOIN commands for auto-join as necessary to stay under the 512 byte limit for a single command to take the length of the commas in the commands into account when calculating the distribution of the channels among the multiple lines, as well as not to list channels falling at the boundary twice, once in the current and once in the following line. In English: Fixed auto-join with a massive amount of channels possibly not joining all channels correctly.
* Fixed a bug causing re-joining of password-protected channels to fail on reconnects when those channels also had another mode with a parameter set.
* Fixed a bug that caused query lines written by the user that are so long that they need to be split up into multiple messages not to display in the query text color.
* Fixed a bug causing query lines written by the user that are so long they need to be split up into multiple messages for sending not to be displayed in the configured query text color.
* Fixed the status bar showing HTML data when hovering the contents of the info label area at the top of query tabs. The data was actually supposed to be displayed as a tooltip (just like the nickname list item tooltips in channel tabs), and is now.
* Fixed a bug causing the automatic away system to set the user away again on the next periodic activity check when no further mouse/keyboard activity occurs after unlocking the screen/ending the screensaver.
* Implemented splitting up of overly long actions (i.e. usage of the the '/me' command) into multiple messages to stay under the 512 byte message length limit (in raw format) imposed by the IRC protocol. As with the normal message splitting, this is aware of how multi-byte/variable-width text encodings and sender hostmask length (which is part of the message on the receiving end) factor into the matter. Note that only the first message is actually sent as an action, the other messages are sent as normal messages - intentionally, as this seemed to make the most sense formatting-wise.
* Fixed the dialog box appearing upon receiving an invitation to join a channel causing a disconnect by timeout when not being dealt with by the user swiftly enough.
* Multiple invitations to join channels are now being handled by a single dialog box per connection, so that receiving many invitations in short order no longer means getting flooded with dialog boxes.
* Implemented DH1080 key exchange support for Blowfish encryption. You can use the '/keyx' command to initiate a key exchange.
* The raw log now shows encrypted incoming and outgoing messages in their encrypted form. Previously, incoming messages were being decrypted before being shown, and outgoing messages were being shown before encryption took place, thus not capturing what was actually coming from or going to the network socket as is the intent of the raw log.
* Fixed a bug causing unrecognized channel mode characters being shown as their decimal value in the chat view messages announcing them having been set or removed.
* Per-tab encoding settings for tabs belonging to a connection to a configured network (i.e. one found in the Server List dialog) now reference the unique ID rather than the name of the network in the config file, making things work reliably across restarts even when there are multiple identically named networks. Encoding config file entries for tabs belonging to connections to servers that are not part of a configured network continue to reference the server hostnames.
* Fixed the "(away)" label in front of the input line, indicating away status, not showing up in query tabs.

Changes from 1.2-alpha2 to 1.2-alpha3:
* Worked around a Qt bug that has a text selection in the chat view that includes the last line in the view grow to include the new text when new text is appended to the view.
* Fixed Konversation exposing various signals on D-Bus that it shouldn't have.
* Fixed a regression causing '/names #channel' to end up duplicating the nickname list contents when already attending '#channel'.
* When using Qt 4.5, Konversation no longer paints a frame around the UI elements of a view (e.g. a channel) when using the listview version of the tab bar. Feedback on this change is appreciated!
* Fixed duplicated messages about DCC transfer failures in the chat view.
* When the menu bar is hidden, the top-most item in the chat view context menu is now the option to unhide it again.
* Fixed the OSD disappearing also cancelling the system tray blinking notification.
* Fixed a crash on quit by D-Bus / by KDE session logout.
* Fixed the tab completion nickname list sorting behavior for the "Shell-like" completion modes. The behavior now matches the "Cycle Nicklist" mode and the "Shell-like" modes of previous Konversation 1.x versions again: The last active nick for the given prefix is at the top of the list, with the rest of the list sorted alphabetically.
* The default tab completion mode has been changed to "Cycle Nicklist". Feedback on this change is appreciated!
* Changed the bundled 'bug' script to perform a quick search with the given parameter, rather than try to use it as a bug ID directly. The resulting behavior is unchanged for a numerical parameter, but with a string, much more useful.
* The 'mail' script, which was disabled in the build system up until now, is now getting installed again.
* Fixed a bug causing the "Set Encoding" menu not to work.
* Fixed a bug causing the bundled 'media' script not to work when used to retrieve song information from Amarok 2 for a song which has any of the following meta data fields not set: title, artist or album.
* Fixed the 'Self' field of the DCC transfer details panel not showing the port when available.
* Fixed DCC transfers showing an average speed of 1 TB/s in their first second.

Changes from 1.2-alpha1 to 1.2-alpha2:
* Fixed nicknames in action messages using the message text color when nick coloring is disabled rather than the correct action text color as the rest of the message.
* Added back the context menus for nicknames and channel links in the chat view.
* Fixed the topic/info area in channels, queries and DCC chats, the nickname list in channels and the listview variant of the tab bar not keeping their sizes when the window is resized.
* Added missing actions ("Reconnect", "Disconnect", "Join channel ...") back to the context menu for server status tabs.
* Improved the placement of the "Join on connect" channel tab context menu item (back under "Enable Notifications" as in v1.1).
* Added the use of some of the new irc-* icons found in recent updates to the Oxygen icon theme.
* Fixed crash when joining a channel after having been blocked from getting the topic for the channel.
* Made the initial size of the "Edit Network" dialog more reasonable.
* Improved vertical size of and text alignment inside the input line.
* Added back support for drag and drop reordering of views to the listview version of the tab bar.
* Added back support for "surfing" in the listview version of the tab bar by pressing and holding the left mouse button on a view and moving the mouse up and down in the list view.
* Fixed mouse handling for close buttons in the listview version of the tab bar.
* Added back support for showing tooltips for truncated view items in the listview version of the tab bar.
* Fixed crash when receiving lines terminated by LFCRLF from buggy IRC servers (such as the shroudBNC IRC proxy when it relays a private message received while no user was connected to it).
* Worked around a Qt bug that has a text selection in the chat view that includes the last character in the view grow to include the new text when new text is appended to the view.
* Sound notifications for highlights now reuse a single Phonon MediaObject by enqueuing notification sounds rather than instanciate a new one for every notification, improving resource efficiency and hopefully taking care of some high CPU usage reports that seemed to be linked to Konversation's Phonon usage.
* Fixed the enabling/disabling of the "Find Previous" action.
* Fixed several bugs in the Server List dialog (sort indicator disappearing while dragging items, stray pixel in the top-left corner of the listview, hover decoration while dragging not always showing).
* Improved handling in the Identity editor dialog: When Konversation complains about one or more required fields not being filled in, the dialog will now put focus on the field when it opens.
* Fixed the 'Self' IP field of the DCC transfer details panel not showing a value when on the receiving end of a DCC file transfer.
* Handle DCC REJECTs. A DCC SEND is now automatically aborted when the partner rejects it.
* Fixed a bug causing the ordering of views to be partially reversed when switching from the listview version of the tab bar to the regular tab bar.
* Improved consistency of the context menu for links between the topic area and the chat view.
* Fixed repeated searches for the same search pattern (i.e. "Find Next") sometimes not working reliably with the chat view search bar.
* Minor code cleanups and performance improvements.

Changes from 1.1 to 1.2-alpha1:
* Ported to KDE 4 (KDE 4.1 or higher is required).
* Enabled the (experimental, hackish) Amarok 2 support in the 'media' script.
* Fixed a bug that could cause channel notifications to be lost across reconnects.
* Removed the code to recreate hidden-to-tray state across application restarts. It was broken after the shutdown procedures were moved to a point in time after after the main window is hidden to cover quit-by-DCOP, and Konversation 1.1 features an explicit hidden startup option that fulfills user demands more accurately anyhow. This fixes a bug that made Konversation always hide to tray on startup regardless of the aforementioned option when the system tray icon was enabled.
* Added a network settings lookup fallback to retrieving the key of a channel. Previously, this relied solely on the channel's mode map. Closes the brief gap between a channel join and the server's reply to MODE where possible, so that e.g. reconnecting directly after auto-joining a channel with a key doesn't result in a failed rejoin due to not having the key by way of the MODE reply yet.
* Fixed opening URLs from the channel topic context menu in Channel List tabs.
* When connecting to multiple selected unexpanded network items from the Server List, don't also try to connect to the hidden server sub-items selected by implication, avoiding unwanted connection duplicates.
* Mask the password field in the Quick Connect dialog.
* Fixed a bug causing passive DCC file transfers to stall at 99%.
* Fixed "/leave" command in queries.
* Fixed auto-replace rules containing commas in the pattern not being loaded correctly from the config file.
* Fixed non-regex mode auto-replace rules containing regex special characters and character sequences not working correctly.
* Improved performance of non-regex mode auto-replace rules.
* Added option to open log files with the system text editor instead of the built-in log viewer.
* Made the Oxygen nicklist icon theme the default nicklist icon theme.
* Removed the bundled 'weather' script (it relied on a KDE 3 service no longer present in KDE 4; a replacement will need to adopt a new approach).
* Fix sending and receiving of files with names containing spaces
* DCC Protocol adjustment to proper handle passive DCC resume/accept requests (this breaks passive-resume compatibly with older Konversation versions).
* Send proper DCC reject commands when rejecting a queued receive.
* Improved error recovery during dcc send.
* Fix time left for transfers that finished in under 1 sec displaying infinite time left.
* Increased default DCC buffer size to 16384 to reduce CPU load while sending or receiving files.
* Added KNotify events for "Highlight triggered", "DCC transfer complete" and "DCC transfer error".
* Fixed Automatic User Information Look Up not being started upon channel join on some IRC servers (namely those that don't send RPL_CHANNELCREATED after joining a channel, such at those used by IRCnet).
* Updated the server hostname for the pre-configured Freenode network to the one given on their website these days, 'chat.freenode.net'.
* Added support for browsing the input line history by using the mouse wheel.
* Fixed problems the bundled 'tinyurl' script had with certain URLs by converting it to use the TinyURL API rather than screen scraping.
* Added initial support for the MODES parameter of RPL_ISUPPORT. When giving or taking op, half-op or voice to/from multiple people at once, Konversation will now combine as many of them into a single MODE command as the server advertises it supports (as long as it advertises an actual value; the value-less unlimited MODES case is not supported yet as it requires more work on limiting MODE commands to the 512 byte IRC message buffer limit for extreme cases). If MODES is not given at all by the server, the fallback is an RFC1459-compliant value of 3.
* Added support for formatting variable expansion in the replacement part of auto-replace rules.
* Rewrote multi-line paste editor, improving handling and appearance.
* Added button to intelligently replace line breaks with spaces to the multi-line paste editor.

Changes from 1.0.1 to 1.1:
See http://websvn.kde.org/*checkout*/tags/konversation/1.1/ChangeLog

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[Continuing a set of interviews by Game Developer magazine EIC Brandon Sheffield for GameSetWatch, he talks to Thatgamecompany's Kellee Santiago on a multitude of neat topics regarding downloadable games and the Flower creators' future.]

Kellee Santiago is cofounder of Thatgamecompany, known for genre-shaking downloadable titles such as flOw and Flower, which both push the boundaries of games and their emotional resonance, but also give Sony something to point to in the way of artistry in the PSN space.

Thatgamecompany has been growing, slowly but surely, to where Santiago can now step out of the defacto-production role she often held on top of her studio running duties, so that she can now look externally, to see how TGC can potentially help other smaller indies, or expand the company's offerings in targeted ways.

We spoke with Santiago recently about changes within the company, the potential of a Flower expansion, PSP Go and Project Natal, as well as the viability of a TGC game based on an emotion like rage:

Thatgamecompany's Next Steps

Can you talk a little bit about what's next for you guys?

Kellee Santiago: I have to admit that it's probably going to be a little frustratingly vague just because we're in the middle of just solidifying the details on our current PSN project.

But I think the last three years we've spent building up this brand of Thatgamecompany and what it is. We hope what people are getting from us is Thatgamecompany is about providing meaningful experiences and unique experiences through video games.

And as I see us going forward and growing as a company in the future, I think what we'd like is to bring more titles under that brand. Whether that's us growing an internal team to handle multiple projects or by going with more of like a label structure where we have "Thatgamecompany presents," and we're able to help other teams that we see and other projects that we see that we really want to see come to light, that would fit under that brand as well.

Interesting. So, not exactly like a publisher, but like a liaison or something?

KS: Hmm, a liaison? Yeah, I think it would be kind of... That's partially what we've been doing in some ways, and I think just formalizing that as a business plan maybe.

How would you say you've been doing it already?

KS: I think we've become involved with a lot of the other indie developers. I mean, we're all more connected now than we've ever been before thanks to venues like the Independent Games Summit.

What we've also tried to do in addition -- I mean, I always say that we're one of the few companies that hopes that other people copy us, because we don't want to be this little niche random thing. This is where we want things to go. We want a lot of games to be made like ours.

What we've also been trying to do is when we see stuff that's awesome, or if people come to us asking for advice or connections or something, we always try and set them up. In these interviews, I think we try and drop a lot of projects, you know, names, and try to gain exposure for the indie dev scene as a whole.

Talking about the next project I didn't realize that you were necessarily tied to PSN. I just knew it was with Sony. It didn't connect for me that it was PSN specifically.

KS: Well, the goal has always been digital distribution.

New Platforms

What do you think about PSP Go then?

KS: The PSPgo... It's interesting. I just remember Jenova saying that when he was in Shanghai, he saw a lot more people having PSPs than DSes. I mean, this is totally anecdotally, but that they were very much like fashion accessories, and that they would watch media on it or something or browse the internet but not really play games. And I could see the PSP Go continuing that, like being that. I don't know as a game system... $250 is a lot of money.

That's true.

KS: [laughs] I thought that was expensive, but...they're also putting out a lot of major franchise games on PSP, so it will be interesting to see if that helps more people on PSP playing games, checking out the new stuff that's there as well. Fat Princess is going to go PSP.

It's definitely been a piracy vehicle previously, so it will be interesting to see how the PSPgo does in that regard. I also wanted to ask you what you thought of Project Natal -- it seems like a Jenova kind of thing.

KS: Yeah, well, I was going to say, it certainly falls under a lot of the... Or touched on the things that I know he's been interested in as far as that. Especially when you think about accessibility, removing the controller completely.

I guess one of the major criticisms that I've heard the last couple of days is people saying, "Well, how are they going to first-person shooters on it?" It's like, "Well, maybe they don't do a first-person shooter."

And maybe it's about making new games, allowing for different kinds of games. We don't have to think about games that already and how they're going to translate to that control. I think what it is is it allows for new designs to emerge.

My question is how much of it is real.

KS: Yeah.

The New Hire

So you have Robin Hunicke (previously a design lead at EA) now. How did that come about?

KS: It grew really organically. I mean, as you probably know, we got her fresh off of shipping Boom Blox Bash Party. So, I think as she was wrapping that project, she was thinking about her next steps. She's just one of those people we also like to bounce ideas off of, so we started talking about some of the ideas we had for our current project, and it just seemed like a really great match.

I think that with our experimental game design process, one of the issues that we've had in the past is tightening up the production of that and tracking it and developing a better process for it. And Robin just really has a passion for designing a team experience around creating these kinds of games that we saw as a huge value.

My question will be how many incredibly strong personalities can Thatgamecompany hold without exploding? I know that even as a small team, it's difficult to get everyone to push in the same direction.

KS: Well... [laughs] I mean, part of that is Jenova growing as a director, and I think he has. I think that also allowed for this to happen on this project. I mean, hopefully we want there to be lots of strong personalities at Thatgamecompany because we want to be a company that attracts the best and the top talent.

You can find a lot of people who are willing to do whatever you tell them, but when you want to continue to create unique games and unique designs, you need people who will also step up as leaders and also champion their ideas and bring new ideas.

Flower

Certainly. Jenova talked a bit about whether there would be a Flower update. Can you talk about that at all?

KS: Again, there's nothing to confirm or deny right now. We're unfortunately still so small that it's hard to divide our resources effectively. Flower was certainly designed as a complete experience.

One of the ethical challenges we face as a company is that we really strive to provide meaningful experience to the player. So, in the past, when we've thought about developing expansions or developing downloadable content, it becomes very difficult because we really, really want to make sure that it's very meaningful, that we're not just trying to get more money out of people that love our games.

So, that's added to this challenge of Flower being a complete experience as well. So, when we think of what to add and what would be meaningful. It's very difficult. At the same time, it's regrettable right now that we haven't been able to support those fans and those players in a better way because the outpouring of expression after that game and the emails we get have just been amazing. We would really like show them that we care about that.

BIt's quite difficult when of course you sort of want to go on and do your next thing but people still want more of what you've already got.

KS: Yeah, yeah. Hopefully, part of that is satiated by just our next project, and that will be another Thatgamecompany project, and I think the players of Flower and flOw will enjoy it.

Right. But how long is that going to take?

KS: Right. [laughs] Yeah. And also, when we think about the projects, I mean, right now, as I was saying, it's like our current project is requiring an all hands on deck sort of approach, so it makes it difficult to then try and manage downloadable content or an expansion. But it's something we're trying to improve.

I guess you could go with like external help like you did with the PSP version of flOw, but I don't know if that's appealing.

KS: Yeah. I think that's also something where now that we've gained Robin as a producer, that will allow me to focus more on that stuff, hopefully opening up the opportunity of doing exactly that.

And certainly the code for Flower is a lot better, so in that way, it will be easier than flOw was. [laughs] Yeah, poor Supervillain had like the worst time, and I just really, really give them mad props for dealing with that.

I guess that's what happens with indie teams' early projects. It's like, "Well..."

KS: "No one's ever going to look at this ever again." [laughs]

As long as it works.

KS: Exactly. As long as we ship it.

On Rage

Are you going for a specific feeling for the next project?

KS: Yes, but we can't talk about it right now. But we always start with emotions, and this is no exception.

Well fine! I assume that... I always wonder what would you all do with an emotion like rage, or something like that, which I know is really outside of what Jenova wants to do. But I've always found that curious.

KS: Well, part of our mission statement is to create games that communicate emotions that aren't currently available on the video game apartment. Rage is well-covered.

Right.

KS: But that's not to say it's out of the realm of a Thatgamecompany game because if one day, we've moved well beyond, I don't know, the emotions that are communicated today, which I can't see because I think there will always be an audience for this -- I mean, I'm so stoked for God of War 3. I think it would be really interesting, that's all I can say.

I think it would be interesting to start a game with, you know... Well, maybe God of War, you know, that's what they captured so well, with that like visceral rage, and then designed everything around that.

I'm really interested with this Six Days in Fallujah project that keeps getting picked up and dropped and dropped...

Well... Have you actually seen the gameplay?

KS: Nah, I don't know.

That's the thing. A a lot of indies are coming out to stress the importance of Konami, but having seen it, it didn't look very complex to me -- like just another male power fantasy video game.

KS: I wonder, because I know some of the guys at that development studio, and their heart is in the right place. So, I guess I was excited by... Well, maybe partnering with Konami, they would have been able to get it to a very meaningful place.

But yeah, you're right. Intention isn't everything. There has to be execution behind it.

Case against father for drug dealing collapses after performers and production members challenge official story as witnesses

A black family wrongly prosecuted for assault after the father was falsely accused of drug dealing by police outside a London theatre has won "substantial" damages and an apology from Scotland Yard, four years after the case collapsed.

The Met commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, has agreed a payout to O'Neil Crooks, 45, his son Divanio, 25, his wife Patricia and a family friend, Yasmin Adbi. The only independent police witness failed to show up during the case, and the Crown Prosecution Service identified one of the four officers involved as an "incredible" or unreliable witness.

The Met said one officer subsequently received "words of advice" about failing to tell a senior officer of complaints from Crooks. The department of professional standards investigated the CPS allegation that the other officer had been deemed an "unreliable" witness but "concluded that this claim was unfounded".

The officer claimed she was assaulted by Adbi outside the Apollo theatre in the West End, but witnesses accused her of striking out with her baton. Mrs Crooks, who is partially disabled, was injured.

The encounter, which led to Crooks, his son and Abdi facing charges of threatening behaviour and assault, occurred in 2005 in front of performers and production members of the musical Big Life. Six witness accounts, including three from cast members, challenged the officer's version of events.

Bill Kenwright, the musical's backer, paid for the family's legal fees. Today he hailed the Met's decision to settle.

While the amount of compensation is not disclosed, the case is noteworthy because the Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation into the arrests initially found "no criminal or misconduct offences for officers to answer".

All fingerprints, DNA evidence and photographs taken at the time will be destroyed. Crooks, a builder from south London, has been asked to speak about his experience to police recruits at Hendon.

"It has been a horrific experience," he said. "It has devastated me, my family and Miss Abdi. I am not going to label every police officer, but the way we were dealt with was terrible."

Louis Charalambous, the solicitor who represented the Crooks and Miss Abdi, added: "Despite an IPCC report into this incident that ruled overwhelmingly in favour of the police, the Crooks family and Miss Abdi have at last received vindication. After four years of seeking redress, they can finally move on with their lives."The Big Life, about a group of West Indians who came to Britain on the SS Windrush, was nominated for an Olivier award and was the first black British musical to transfer to the West End.

Kenwright said: "I am pleased the Met has looked into it properly. The incident marred what should have been a joyous end to a joyous production.The West End is for everyone."

In a statement, Scotland Yard said it has apologised to the Crooks family and Miss Abdi and "regrets the upset and distress that this must have caused to all concerned."

• Police
• Race issues
• Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC)

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Anyone who has spent any time simply browsing the Internet for interesting things to read quickly realizes that while the Internet is certainly filled with interesting and fascinating websites covering all sorts of useful topics, it’s also overrun by countless rotten websites that promote things like racial hatred, anti-semitism and even encourages fanatical censorship.

Sound hard to believe?

While here at MakeUseOf, you’ll always find lots of great advice about cool websites, such as Aibek’s list of 40 unusual websites you should bookmark or his other article on 5 cool websites to procrastinate at work, in this article, we’re going to take a stroll down a few dark alleyways of the Internet; and carefully take a glimpse at the seedy underworld that exists there - like a growing, cancerous lump that you didn’t realize was there until it was too late. These are a list of 4 websites that you shouldn’t ever bookmark.

Taking Pot Shots at Rotten Websites

Revealing the slimy side of the Internet is dangerous business. Many people reading this may actually secretly hold some of the views or beliefs expressed on some of these websites. In the end, whenever you label anything as “rotten” - you’re going to tick certain people off. With that said, it’s also critically important in the world we live in to acknowledge and accept that hate exists in many forms all around us. And yes, some of us (myself included) have, at one time or another, allowed hatred toward a group of people to exist inside of us. Then, a day comes when you meet one person who falls within that category of people that you’ve built stereotypes in your mind about. That one person blows all of those stereotypes away - and suddenly you realize that the hatred you’d formed for that group is baseless and without any real foundation.

Here at MakeUseOf, writers are from a very wide range of nationalities, religions and other groups. Every day, we collaborate and work together to present readers and the Internet community with unique ways they can “make use of” the Internet. In the spirit of that borderless cooperation, it’s time to break down a few more walls and expose some of the hate-filled or fanatical content that exists on the Internet today.

Jew Watch - A Zionist Conspiracy or Anti-Semitism?

One thing I’ve noticed about most “hater” websites is that they try their hardest to come across as educated, professional and scholarly. It’s sort of like they think if they throw enough sugar on the whole mix, people won’t realize the level of rotten website they’ve just landed on. Jew Watch was founded by James Stenzel, and is touted by the site’s “librarian” Frank Weltner of St. Louis, Missouri, as an “oasis of news for Americans who presently endure the hateful censorship of zionist occupation.”

In reality, this is one of the worst rotten websites on the web, not so much a “news” site, as it is a conspiracy theory site filled with empty propaganda and some of the most shoddy research in history. While the primary publicist and author at the site, Frank Weltner, points out that he doesn’t believe “all jews” are bad -  Jew Watch is built around the strange theory that there is a well-organized, elite wealthy group of Jews trying to take over the world. This paranoid conspiracy theory mirrors other common ones such as MJ-12, the Illuminati, and many others. In the end, this fear-mongering does nothing more than encourage hatred toward an entire population based on nothing more than their heritage.

Hatebook - Like There Isn’t Already Enough Hate in The World?

We live in a world where there are shootings, domestic violence, child abuse and so many other atrocities, it seems inconceivable that someone would come up with the idea that what the world needs is a social network based on “hate.”  That’s exactly what HateBook is all about.

HateBook is a Facebook copycat social network where anti-social folks can join together and celebrate their hateful behaviors. On HateBook, they can either tell secrets (or even lies) about someone. The concept of this particular rotten website is that the “enemies of your enemies are your friends.” In other words, if you’re able to find out who else hates the person that you hate, you can essentially team up against them. They even have a label for such groups called “hate-clans.”  How lovely.

ChildCare Action Project - A Cover for Orwellian Style Censorship

As a writer and an avid reader, I have an especially strong aversion to censorship. I am, in fact, a religious person - but I also abhor zealous religious fanatics who turn spirituality into a badge of righteous indignation toward all things they deem “improper”. What is improper, exactly? By whose terms and by whose culture should those limits be drawn from? Certainly what’s considered moral in the U.S. may not be so in India or China - and vice versa. So, who gets to decide?  Apparently, the founders of the CAP Project have given themselves that honor regarding the movies that people watch.

This fanatically religious organization wouldn’t have made the list of rotten websites if it simply provided full reviews of the parts of movies that some parents may consider “objectionable” for their children to watch. However, this organization takes it a step further and also offers W.I.S.D.O.M. rankings. These are rankings on whether the film has wanton violence, impudence or hate, sexual immorality, drugs or alcohol, offense to God, or murder or suicide.  While these rankings sound semi-reasonable, the reasons they offer for degrading a film are ludicrous and a bit disturbing. For example, the site degraded the children’s film “Narnia” for attempted murder and planning of murder, a tame scene of childbirth, lying, and “unholy” mythical beasts and magical themes. Say what?  Look, when I was a kid, I stood up with all of the other children and clapped for Tinkerbell to magically come back to life, and I turned out okay! Sort of…

88Tube - Just Innocent White Pride or Tasteless Hate?

As usual, I saved the best (or I guess I should say “the worst”) for last. For those who don’t know about it, 88Tube is a white supremacy website where proud white dudes can express pride in their heritage by sitting in front of their computer watching such enlightening and uplifting videos as “Adolf Hitler talking to German Youth”, “The Revival of the Klu Klux Klan”, and “All Heil to the Great Nazi Power!!” Oh yeah - those sure make me proud to be white… Ugh.

Reviewing these rotten websites filled with either religious or racial fanaticism sure makes it apparent that we live in a very disturbing world, filled with people who are disillusioned - or maybe just delusional. In either case, the ease with which such ideologies can proliferate throughout the Internet is something every honorable citizen of the world should be concerned about.

Have you ever come across fanatical websites on the Internet? What were they and how did you feel about them? Share your own opinions in the comment section below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, App Review

When the fireworks stop and the smoke clears, it would be a great weekend to look at our beautiful summer skies. Pocket Universe [App Store] is a US$2.99 app that has been updated to make star finding easier for those that have a new iPhone 3GS.

The app uses the position sensors and the compass to orient your phone to match the real sky. As you turn or tilt the phone, the sky map changes to give you a very accurate picture of where you are pointing, with lots of labels and links to more information. This is one of the first examples of an augmented reality app to hit the platform since the introduction of the 3GS.

If you have an older iPhone or iPod touch running OS 3.0, you can tilt the phone to match where the real sky is, but you'll have to manually set the direction you're facing.

This changes everything for the novice astronomer. I tried the feature and it worked really well, even though I was near a large metal building. As I turned my phone the display of the sky changed very rapidly to keep up with my movement.

Other nice features from the last version are intact. You can tap the 'locate' button to find any object that is above the horizon. Select it and it centers on the map. Tap a pop-up for more info and you get a quick summary of the object. In the new version of the app a further tap gets you a Wikipedia entry.

You also get a list of meteor showers, lunar phases and a very nice 'tonight's sky' feature that tells you right away what's up and worth seeing.

Some things I'd like to see improved: The app could support finger-pointing to an object to identify it in addition to going to the locate menu, and the Virtual Sky feature is buried in an options menu. I'd like to see an onscreen button to turn it on and off.

The 3GS features are similar to a Celestron product called the Sky Scout that is a dedicated astronomical instrument. The Sky Scout has a lot more information, and audio tours of the skies, but it costs $200.00. If you're really serious about the stars and planets I'd give it a look.

Meanwhile, another favorite astronomy app, Distant Suns [App Store] has been updated recently, and is now on sale for US$3.99. It has added features to the wonderful tour guides and now includes more information about the objects displayed, including travel time at light speed to the planets. It also includes some breathtaking images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

This is the International Year of Astronomy, so it's a great time to get outdoors and look up. It's fun to do, and the iPhone apps really make it a more compelling and educational experience.

Here are some screen shots of Pocket Universe in operation:

Gallery: Pocket Universe screen shots

TUAWPocket Universe ups the astronomy app ante originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, App Review

When the fireworks stop and the smoke clears, it would be a great weekend to look at our beautiful summer skies. Pocket Universe [App Store] is a US$2.99 app that has been updated to make star finding easier for those that have a new iPhone 3GS.

The app uses the position sensors and the compass to orient your phone to match the real sky. As you turn or tilt the phone, the sky map changes to give you a very accurate picture of where you are pointing, with lots of labels and links to more information. This is one of the first examples of an augmented reality app to hit the platform since the introduction of the 3GS.

If you have an older iPhone or iPod touch running OS 3.0, you can tilt the phone to match where the real sky is, but you'll have to manually set the direction you're facing.

This changes everything for the novice astronomer. I tried the feature and it worked really well, even though I was near a large metal building. As I turned my phone the display of the sky changed very rapidly to keep up with my movement.

Other nice features from the last version are intact. You can tap the 'locate' button to find any object that is above the horizon. Select it and it centers on the map. Tap a pop-up for more info and you get a quick summary of the object. In the new version of the app a further tap gets you a Wikipedia entry.

You also get a list of meteor showers, lunar phases and a very nice 'tonight's sky' feature that tells you right away what's up and worth seeing.

Some things I'd like to see improved: The app could support finger-pointing to an object to identify it in addition to going to the locate menu, and the Virtual Sky feature is buried in an options menu. I'd like to see an onscreen button to turn it on and off.

The 3GS features are similar to a Celestron product called the Sky Scout that is a dedicated astronomical instrument. The Sky Scout has a lot more information, and audio tours of the skies, but it costs $200.00. If you're really serious about the stars and planets I'd give it a look.

Meanwhile, another favorite astronomy app, Distant Suns [App Store] has been updated recently, and is now on sale for US$3.99. It has added features to the wonderful tour guides and now includes more information about the objects displayed, including travel time at light speed to the planets. It also includes some breathtaking images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

This is the International Year of Astronomy, so it's a great time to get outdoors and look up. It's fun to do, and the iPhone apps really make it a more compelling and educational experience.

Here are some screen shots of Pocket Universe in operation:

Gallery: Pocket Universe screen shots

TUAWPocket Universe ups the astronomy app ante originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

What in the hell is LG Mobile’s president smoking because this is the most absurd thing I’ve ever read. Becoming the #2 mobile phone maker in three years is one thing considering the fact that Samsung could and would destroy them at any time. But a new Black Label device to compete with the iPhone? Or a luxe brand on par with Nokia’s Vertu? Keep dreaming, Ahn.

Three years ago, U.S. Department of Agriculture employees determined that synthetic additives in organic baby formula violated federal standards and should be banned from a product carrying the federal organic label. Today the same additives, purported to boost brainpower and vision, can be found in 90 percent of organic baby formula.     The government's turnaround, from prohibition to permission, came after a USDA program manager was lobbied by the formula makers and overruled her staff. That decision and others by a handful of USDA employees, along with an advisory board's approval of a growing list of non-organic ingredients, have helped numerous companies win a coveted green-and-white "USDA Organic" seal on an array of products.     Grated organic cheese, for example, contains wood starch to prevent clumping. Organic beer can be made from non-organic hops. Organic mock duck contains a synthetic ingredient that gives it an authentic, stringy texture.

Jive, le label notamment de Julien Doré, Ycare, Rim'K du 113, ou Archimède, ajoutera Alizée à son catalogue au mois d'octobre prochain, à l'occasion de la publication du quatrième album de la chanteuse, nouvellement ...

The decision to give something a name, whether that be your struggling rock band, your first dog, your only child, or your game development studio is no simple task. For better or worse, you might be stuck with it.

Names carry weight. They give a group of people and the products they create an identity. For companies like Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Sega and others, those names are associated with memories, even if those words have little meaning.

Sega, for example, is simply a portmanteau of the words "service" and "games." Nintendo, officially, a direct translation from the Japanese to mean "leave luck to heaven." And Sony, well, that's a fabricated word, a twist on the Latin word "sonus" and the familiar "sonny."

But how did video game developers decide upon the likes of Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Harmonix, and the recently re-christened Visceral Games? And what the heck is a Capybara, anyway? We asked game development studio founders to explain themselves.

The studio that started us wondering just how one settles on an identity was the young Capybara Games, a Toronto-based independent group of initially a dozen game developers. The team most recently had a double showing at E3 2009, with Critter Crunch for the PlayStation Network and Might & Magic Clash of Heroes for the Nintendo DS.

The studio is named for the world's largest rodent, the capybara, a relative of the guinea pig that can weigh more than 200 pounds. How exactly does one decide to identify oneself with a giant South American mammal?

"Unfortunately, with 12 very different opinions on what makes a cool name, coming to a unanimous decision was impossible," Nathan Vella, Capybara co-founder and Art Director said. "We bitched at each other for far too long before deciding on a fair and democratic process. Names of varying quality, from ‘surprisingly awesome' to ‘literally the worst name ever' were tossed out by members of the group, and each person chose their Top 3 from the pool."

No one, however, decided the name "Capybara" was "surprisingly awesome."

"In the end, Capybara was unanimously everyone's second or third choice... and so it won the name election," Vella said. "It was the name everyone thought was 'ok' but didn't really want to win. That's democracy for you... you're not picking the best, you're picking the least-worst."

There was an unintended metaphor in Capybara's "least-worst" choice, Vella says.

"At this point we had not yet realized the irony or accuracy that we were naming our 'guinea pig' of a company after the world's largest guinea pig. In hindsight we totally should have caught on to that earlier."

The developer informally calls itself Capy, as seen in its logo. But it employs a "modern day mustache hero" known as Hank Hudson as its official mascot, not a capybara—though Vella jokes it has flirted with taking an Argentinean agency up on its offer to open a capybara farm.

Another developer that didn't go with its first choice for a studio name was Resistance and Ratchet & Clank developers Insomniac Games.

Before the Burbank, California area developer shipped its first game—the first-person shooter Disruptor for the original PlayStation—it went by a trio of other names: Planet X Software, Outzone Software and Xtreme Software. That last name almost stuck, as the company had already incorporated itself as Xtreme prior to announcing Disruptor. Then it found out someone else, a database company, was already using it.

"We only had a few weeks to come up with something new," says Ted Price, president of what we now call Insomniac Games. "So we hung a whiteboard in the office and began writing down everything we could think of. There must have been 200 names on the list."

Some of the rejects? Ragnarok, Black Sun, Ice-9 Games and Blue Moon Turtle.

"Seriously, Blue Moon Turtle," Price admitted. "However, every name we liked was already being used by someone else. We actually got permission from Kurt Vonnegut's estate to use Ice-9 but someone else was already using it without permission."

Faced with the prospect of launching Disruptor anonymously, a last minute suggestion arrived—Insomniac.

"It was one of those rare moments when everyone looked at each other and said 'Yeah, that works,'" according to Price. "It definitely described us at the time. We sure weren't sleeping much."

From our discussions with game development studio founders, it seems like the best piece of advice they can impart about naming one's studio is to check early (and often) to see if someone else is using your descriptor of choice.

Such is the case with Harmonix, creators of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and, when it first formed, "music software technology."

Eran Egozy, Harmonix co-founder and Chief Technical Officer, says that he and general manager Alex Rigopulos debated over a key aspect of the developer's name, whether to spell it Harmonics or Harmonix.

"The 'ix' ending won," Egozy says. "Hey, it was the mid-90s." To be clear, the company's full name is, in Egozy's words, the "somewhat awkward" Harmonix Music Systems.

"Unfortunately, we did not check to see that harmonix.com was already taken when we named the company," Egozy says. "So our domain name is harmonixmusic.com. If we had checked, maybe the company would be called something else now."

One video game maker that did get an opportunity to change its identity was Dead Space and Dante's Inferno developer Visceral Games, once known by the more sterile EA Redwood Shores or, unfortunately and informally, EARS.

Glen Schofield, general manager of the newly re-branded Visceral Games explains.

"There were a bunch of names we threw away," he says, culling hundreds of ideas and concepts solicited from Redwood Shores team members. "I got tons of great ones but I really wanted a name that had a real meaning for our studio. Visceral just worked perfect as it is a term we use all the time to describe the feeling we want in our combat. It captured our more mature or action type games we make."

The developer's very web site is behind an age-gate, highlighting its mature focus.

The name change had support from the top, with president of EA Games label Frank Gibeau and CEO John Riccitiello supporting a more autonomous model, already seen at individually named EA developers like Criterion, BioWare and Pandemic.

"They welcomed the idea of studios having a distinct identity," Schofield says. "Once I mentioned it to Frank he kept asking me when we were announcing the name. He wanted it changed right away, it was pretty funny. But obviously once you have a name you then have months of creative and legal wrangling before you can go live with it."

Visceral's coming out party, as it were, was a little different from start up studios who sometimes choose their names under the gun. It had time to plan, hire an outside brand agency, and build a style guide for the new identity. Then it went public with a studio-wide meeting, press release, site launch and a tasty visceral treat.

"We painted the walls and hung up mounted artwork from our games," Schofield says. "We had posters, decals and a shirt for everyone. There was even a huge Visceral skull cake waiting. It's the only time we've ever had to have a cake maker sign an NDA!"

And that was that. "When the meeting was over the entire place was now changed and we were ready to move on as Visceral Games."

That sense of identity is something that Uncharted developers Naughty Dog share, with employees (positively) referred to as "the Dogs." The explanation for that choice is much simpler than some of the other stories we'd heard.

The company, formerly known as JAM—hey, it was the mid-80s—when it shipped its first game Ski Crazed for the Apple II, was changed to Naughty Dog the next decade. Founders Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin were "dog lovers," with Rubin often taking his puppy to work.

That continues today, with current co-presidents Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra giving their dogs a second home at the Naughty Dog offices.

And the names of their dogs? Pogo and Trumpet. How those names came to be, we'll just have to wonder.

[Photo Credit]

Disconnected, premier album des bruyants Grey Machine, projet né de la collaboration entre Justin Broadrick (Jesu, Godflesh) et Aaron Turner d'Isis, paraîtra le 4 août chez Hydra Head. Deux autres membres de Jesu, Diarmuid Dalton et Dave Cochrane, complètent le line-up. Le label décrit l'album comme "à la fois discordant et éthéré" et le compare à un "cyber-harcèlement à travers l'esprit d'un enfant sévèrement autiste vivant dans un paysage infernal et mouvant, grouillant de militants décérébrés, ponctué (...)

p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Jon, just wanted to fill you in on this,” said Ottawa Gal a little earlier today. “New CRTC filing in reply to Bell’s non-reply to reopen the ‘throttling case’.”

Re-opening the throttling case?

She’d have been on this. But she’s taking a holiday break –” Not at my computer, can’t get to my computer, can’t get to Email and don’t have your email etched in memory … ”

So »»»

• CAIP et al. via PIAC: http://www.dslreports.com/r0/download/1445389~572b62733237bb57791279c632e847e0/2008-108_RV_Reply_2July09FINAL.pdf
• J.F. of Vaxination: http://www.dslreports.com/r0/download/1445390~f25d06fcfee813f8c1d16ddaaa08843d/vaxination_r%26v_final.pdf

In his document, Vaxination Informatique’s Jean-François Mezei says he’s in receipt of comments from:

• CAIP et al
  
• Distributel Communications
  
• Bell Canada/Bell Alliant
  
• CIPPIC representing Campaign for Democractic Media
  
• Union des Consommateurs
  
• Canadian Film and Television Production Association
  
• Coalition of Internet Service Providers
  
• Many personal comments sent to the CRTC on this issue

“Sympatico” refers to Bell Canada’s retail ISP service, he says, noting, “Despite branding changes, this term is still more recognised and provides clearer distinction between the retail ISP business and Bell Canada’s commercial network services, and going on »»»

Errors in scope

In paragraph 4, Bell Canada states:

4. These comments fail to acknowledge the fact that the CAIP Proceeding was limited in scope to a wholesale tariff dispute between Bell Canada and some of its wholesale ISP customers.

3.  If  Bell now agrees that the scope of the proceeding should be limited to the nature of the GAS service, why did it spend so much time and effort during the proceedings (both in its filings and with the media) trying to paint GAS as a white label reselling of its retail Sympatico service ?

4.  One can also challenge Bell Canada’s use of the word “wholesale”.  Wholesale is defined in the dictionary as the bulk selling of a product/service to be retailed by others.  GAS service just one of many commercial building blocks needed to create a complete solution, it cannot be resold in retail, and cannot be purchased by individuals. GAS does not provide connectivity to the internet. In fact, it is closer to a commercial telecommunications service purchased by banks linking their branches and ATMs to their data centres.  As such, the Commission must consider how precedents set by its GAS decision would apply to other commercial service such as those purchased by banks.

5.  GAS is completely different from Sympatico.

6.  In writing the 2008-108 decision  the Commission failed to recognize the true nature of the GAS service: a commercial, PPPoE based telecommunications service on which Bell Canada was applying retail throttling.  The Commission failed to recognize the differences with Sympatico and this lead to the Commission excluding valid arguments while including arguments applicable to Sympatico but not to GAS.

7.  The CAIP.vs.Bell process was about the use of throttling of P2P  by Bell Canada on traffic flowing on a commercial telecommunications service used by independent ISPs using the PPPoE protocol. Discussions  on throttling as well as its applicability on a commercial PPPoE service were not only within scope, but also required to reach a proper decision.  Discussions about individual ISPs (such as Sympatico) using DPI equipment on their retail customers was outside the scope of  the process.

8.  The 2008-19 process retained the discussion on throttling of P2P (and did not widen the scope of discussion to encompass additional capabilities of DPI equipment), and widened applicability to the retail ISP industry.

9.  However, the way with which the 2 processes were linked, as well as interviews given by senior CRTC officials gave the strong impression that the CRTC had rendered a decision before having fully studied the issue and was going to complete the study of throttling with the wider scope of 2008-19.  This is an image problem which the Commission needs to correct.

Safeguards are necessary

10.  Furthermore, while  reviewing this decision, the Commission must incorporate necessary safeguards to ensure that Bell Canada does not deviate from the revised decision. This was a major flaw in the original 2008-108 decision.

11.  In paragraph 21, Bell Canada classifies as being outside of the scope some of the text provided by Vaxination in 2008 which described various capabilities of DPI equipment. While Bell Canada states that none of those are enabled, the Commission failed to include any safeguards in its 2008-108 decision to ensure that Bell Canada does not enable DPI features beyond flow control.

12.  In paragraph 70 of the 2008-108 decision, the Commission imposed a notification requirement only where DPI equipment changes result in material impact on performance.  Bell Canada remains free to change/enable other features which do not have performance impacts.

13.  Having knowledge of the full capabilities of this DPI equipment,  the Commission failed in its duty to uphold article 7(i) of the Telecommunications act because it did not add any text to prevent Bell Canada from enabling features which would cause serious privacy violations without having to notify anyone since such feature would not have material impact on performance.

14.  The Commission based its 2008-108 decision largely on the fact that GAS and Sympatico were equally throttled, yet, the Commission failed to add any text in the decision to ensure that the throttling parity persisted and that Bell Canada could not eventually remove/change throttling from the Sympatico offering while maintaining it for GAS.

Discrimination cannot be ignored

15.  Contrary to what Bell states in its paragraph 16,   Vaxination’s submission did not imply Comcast’s implementation of throttling was a form of blocking. Vaxination’s submission  quoted an internal CRTC powerpoint slide, obtained via Access to Information, which showed in black and white that the Commission was aware that the FCC considered Comcast’s traffic management to be discriminatory.

16.  There are two issues to be considered independently when comparing Bell against Comcast:
· How the throttling is implemented (blocking issue)
· What  traffic is throttled (discrimination issue)

17.  Differences in how throttling was implemented do not deter from the fact that Bell discriminates just like Comcast did  by targeting only certain types of transmissions. Therefore, the comparison with Comcast is valid since both discriminate between transmissions based on whether they found certain data patterns in the payload of packets.

18.  Comcast was forced to and has implemented  non-discriminatory network management, showing that  Bell’s solution is not the only solution.

19.  The Commission publicly admitted in a CBC Interview  that it based its 2008-108 decision largely on the Bell Canada argument that there was no discrimination because Sympatico and GAS were equally throttled.  But,  the second paragraph in the introduction to the 2008-108 decision states:
The Commission’s determinations in this Decision relate solely to Bell Canada’s traffic-shaping practices in relation to its wholesale GAS, and are based on the evidence filed in this proceeding.

20.  Why then did the Commission place so much weight on a comparison with Sympatico which doesn’t use the tariffed GAS service, has different network interconnection to the ADSL cloud and more importantly, has an undisclosed internal business relationship with Bell Canada that makes any meaningful comparison impossible ?

21.  More importantly, in its decision, the Commission avoided the real discussion on discrimination, namely the fact that certain transmissions were targeted for discriminatory treatment based on some signatures found inside the payload of packets.

22.  The Commission failed to consider the real issue of discrimination which was raised by many parties, as well as the FCC’s own clear conclusion that the throttling of only certain transmissions was discriminatory.  This this a critical omission since the Commission rendered a decision which made throttling legal without actually analysing whether it was legal.

How is throttling implemented ?

23.  In both the CAIP.vs.Bell and the 2008-19 processes, the Commission conveniently avoided requiring the carriers to disclose exactly how they performed the throttling of certain transmissions only.

24.  In the November 20th opening of the 2008-19 consultation process, footnote 3 states:

3 In the context of CAIP’s application, throttling referred to the practice of slowing down the transfer rates of traffic by delaying certain data packets at certain points in the network.

25.  Delaying packets cannot be done because an overdue packet would simply trigger a retransmission because the original packet would be declared lost. The Commission, on the day it rendered 2008-108 and began 2008-19, showed that it did not understand what throttling really was.

26.  How can the 2008-108 decision be allowed to stay when it is clear that the Commission had not even looked at the way throttling was accomplished and whether it was legal within the context of the Telecommunications Act ?

27.  It is clear that the Commission rendered 2008-108 without having studied and understood exactly how throttling was accomplished, and that Bell Canada did not provide any information on how its equipment acted on packets to reduce throughput.

28.  Coming back to paragraph 16 and 17 which discuss the RST technique, Bell Canada, which had refused to confirm until now ANYTHING about how throttling was accomplished, finally agrees to state that it does now use the RST technique.

29.  At this point in time, it is necessary to inject a few facts into this discussion. The “Reset” (RST) technique is essentially the carrier forcing one side of a communication to hang-up and not telling the other side about it so the other side will wait and wait and wait. This is the technique that had been used by Comcast. This is described with more detail in  Appendix 2.

30.  My own experiments in the spring of 2008 (documented in my July 3 2008 submission, page 23) seem to point to Bell Canada’s DPI equipment dropping between 20% and 30% of packets in flows it has targeted for throttling.  See Appendix 1 for a brief description of how TCP manages flow of packets and how it relates to Bell Canada discarding packets.

31.  It must be noted that Bell Canada’s response, while confirming it does not use the Reset bit technique, does not confirm what technique it does use.  The Commission should have never rendered a decision granting the right to throttle before knowing what throttling really involved.

32.  It should also be noted that in the only interrogatory for the 2008-19 process (December 4th 2008), the Commission asked question 8 (c) in such a way as to allow Carriers to answer without having to reveal exactly how packets were treated by their DPI equipment. Knowing how thorttling affects packets  is important to ensure compliance with the Telecommunications Act.  Modifications of packets during transit with the purpose of disrupting communications may not be something the Commission would desire.

33.  Therefore, should the Commission insist on finding a way to allow Bell Canada to continue to throttle GAS service (since the scope of this process is limited to GAS service),  it must first get public confirmation from Bell Canada on how its equipment treats packets to force a reduced throughput in a transmission.

Does throttling block traffic ?

Block: [verb]
· make the movement or flow in (a passage, pipe, road, etc.) difficult or impossible
· put an obstacle in the way of (something proposed or attempted) :
· restrict the use or conversion of (currency or any other asset).
· Sports hinder or stop the movement or action of (an opponent).

34.  Bell Canada has stated many times in this process that it did not block P2P.  In Bell Canada’s comments, paragraph 16, the issue of blocking is brought up again. And in the CBC interview on the day the 2008-108 decision was rendered,  the CRTC co-chairman stated:Katz: The [U.S. Federal Communications Commission] situation is very different. Comcast was actually blocking traffic that was coming across the network. What they may have agreed to do is something totally different. We’ll look at what we think needs to be done in Canada, but Bell was not blocking at all. All they were doing was managing traffic on their network without impacting or influencing the content at all. Big difference.

35.  It must be noted that at the time the decision was rendered, Bell Canada had not confirmed nor published what technique was used to slow traffic down, and thus, the Commission was in no position to state that Bell Canada was not blocking at all. On that same day, the Commission had issued the 2008-19 letter in which they thought that in the context of CAIP’s process, throttling involved the delaying of packets, which is an error in fact.

36.  In the case of Comcast, they were randomly forcing disconnection of TCP flows, allowing eventual reconnection between two peers.  This reduces throughput. But requires the application compensate by re-opening new links to replace those terminated by the DPI equipment.

37.  Assuming that Bell Canada’s technique consists of dropping 20 to 30% of  TCP packets, this force peers
to stop sending while they wait for acknowledgements, reducing throughput.

38.  In both cases, the DPI equipment provide an impediment to the efficient flow of packets, hence one can use the term “block”.  In both cases, the application will eventually be able to reconstitute the contents that was intended to be transferred, albeit with many retransmissions, overhead and orders of magnitudes more time.

39.  Therefore, the Commission erred when it ruled that Bell Canada’s throttling was different enough from Comcast to escape the “blocking” and “discriminatory” labels.

Bell Canada’s real motives

40.  Because Bell Canada throttles specific types traffic 40% of the day, every day of the week, whether there is congestion or not, and because Bell Canada does not throttle other types of traffic which generate equal or greater loads on the network,  the Commission failed to consider whether Bell Canada had goals other than mere congestion management.

41.  In the context of GAS, if an ISP  purchases sufficient GAS/AHSSPI capacity to support its customers accessing innovative leading edge services, Bell Canada should have no reason to claim that users of this ISP are creating congestion problems. Bell Canada insisting on throttling such end users should have raised competition alarms at the Commission.

42.  When a GAS customer purchases a telecommunication service of a certain capacity, the carrier as no business decide what type of traffic can and cannot flow unimpeded on those links. This is a core concept in telecommunications which the Commission failed to uphold.

43.  It is outside the purview of this process to discuss what Sympatico can and cannot do as this process is limited to the GAS service.   And it is exactly because of this that  the Commission must keep GAS and Sympatico totally separate and not allow service features imposed on Sympatico customers to also be imposed on GAS end users. As long as a GAS customers purchases sufficient capacity to support the usage generated by its end users, there should not be any complaints by Bell about some users negatively impacting others.

44.  The Commission failed to uphold the basic need to allow each service provider to independently define its service offering to maintan a competitive environment. Allowing Sympatico, a retail service outside the scope of this process, to impose service features on individual links inside a commercial GAS service is extremely anti competitive.

45.  Therefore, the Commission must send a strong signal to Canadians that it will uphold basic principles of telecommunications which require a carrier to be content agnostic, manage a service according to the protocol which defines that service and not impose any discrimination on certain contents just because it has unilaterally decided it doesn’t like them.

46.  The Commission must also uphold the core principle that if you buy a certain amount of capacity from a common carrier, the later should be made to provide this capacity.

Other Notes

47.  In paragraph 9 of Bell Canada’s June 22nd submission, Bell Canada contents that both CAIP and Vaxination are repeating arguments already presented in the original proceeding, that Bell Canada had already answered those in its 85 page submission of July 11th and that the Commission had already ruled on.

48.  As part of a Review and Vary process, once needs to outline those failures to consider a basic principle which had been raised in the original proceeding . It is the duty of the Applicants in an R&V to point to those issues which the Commission failed to properly address in its decision.  The fact that so many points could be raised again between the 2 Applicants shows how many issues the Commission had chosen to ignore, despite those issues being relevant within the scope of a thorttled GAS service.

49.  In paragraph 10, Bell Canada refers to its  85 page submission of July 11th. Unfortunately, those with enough technical background to tackle the enormous amount of misleading statements and errors contained in that submission did not have the opportunity to submit comments due to the structure of the process, and it was extremely worrisome to see that not only had the Commission chosen to believe all of Bell Canada’s statements and failed to challenge even the most blatant errors, but it included many significant errors in the final decisions, including the most serious one, the assertion that Bell Canada’s DPI equipment did not look at packet contents.

50.  The Commission committed a grave error in fact when it decided to believe Bell Canada’s statement that its DPI equipment did not look at packet contents, despite the overwhelming evidence presented to the Commission to this effect, and despite the very definition of Deep Packet Inspection equipment.

51.  Once the Commission agrees to the truth on this issue, it will be forced to admit that this type of network management is discriminatory, just as the FCC had been forced to admit.

52.  Overall, in Bell’s 85 page submission, the majority of blatant errors were caused by Bell Canada treating GAS as if it was just a resold Sympatico service.  It is ironic to see Bell Canada complain about scope here when its own 85 page submission was guilty of being so far out of scope.  This 85 page document was unfortunately successful at influencing the Commission into comparing GAS with Sympatico and  concluding there was no discrimination.

53.  It is therefore important that the Commission realise and admit that the GAS service is a PPPoE service which is extremely different from Sympatico and take corrective actions to eliminate all comparisons with Sympatico in its analysis, as well as removing all Bell Canada arguments that portray the GAS service as being the same as Sympatico.

About ATM and purchased capacity

54.  In paragraphs 12-15, Bell Canada discusses upgrades to Ethernet switches and ancient ATM DSLAMS.

55.  The Commission is faced with many GAS related files at the moment. Most of them include complaints by Bell Canada about congestion in its ATM lines causing problems etc. The appearance given is that Bell Canada is no longer upgrading capacity in its ATM network. It is understandable that a carrier would want to stop upgrading ancient technology and seek to migrate to current technology.

56.  What is not understandable is why Bell Canada has not upgraded the all of the  GAS infrastructure to Ethernet yet.  American ADSL networks have long ago converted to ethernet.  There are still a number of ISPs in Ontario/Québec whose AHSSPI links are limited to ATM technology because apparently, this is all Bell can  offer in certain wire centres.

57.  Why is this related to this R&V ? Because the Commission failed to do due diligence before rendering its 2008-108 decision and blindly accepted Bell’s statements that there was congestion. It failed to investigate whether Bell Canada had misused funds generated by the GAS service to upgrade portions not used by GAS, and then restrict GAS with throttling because of congestion due to lack of capacity increases on the old segments still used by GAS.

58.  This is the reason my Application had mentioned that the Commission should consider the upcoming costs analysis to be filed by Bell Canada on July 10th to ensure that funds generated by GAS over the last few years have been re-invested in GAS infrastructure upgrades.

Appendix 1

Description of TCP flow control

59.  The 2 peers in a TCP session adjust packet sending rate based on measured round trip time and by detecting undelivered packets. To use a telephone conversation analogy, when the line is good, one speaker will say a complete telephone number without pause and then wait for the other to acknowledge he got all 7 digits. When line conditions are bad, he may say the first 3 digits and wait for acknowledgement and then proceed with the last 4 digits and wait for acknowledgement, And when line conditions are very bad, he will wait for acknowledgement after saying each digit. How many “digits you can say” without an acknowledgement is called a window size.  The lower the window size, the more “pauses” are inserted on the line while the sender waits for the recipient to acknowledge.

60.  TCP was designed to make most efficient use of available capacity. This is not a P2P characteristic, it is a characteristic common to all applications that use TCP, including the web (HTTP),  mail (SMTP) etc.

61.  The flow control is done at the TCP software level, which means that all applications that use TCP as session layer will behave exactly the same way on the Internet in terms of using all available bandwidth and managing congestion and line condition problems.

62.  When the sender detects that it has packets that have been unacknowledged for too long, it will resend the unacknowledged packet(s). (there are other ways to cause sender to resend a packet).  As well, the sender will reduce its window size. This will result in suboptimal use of the line, reducing throughput because the sender will have to pause regularly to wait for acknowledgements.

63.  After an “event” where the window size was reduced, the sender will slowly increase the window size again to test the waters in case line conditions have improved. If this was a temporary “blip”, the transmission eventually resumes at its optimal throughput. If the line conditions have not improved, further packet losses will be encountered which will keep the window size low and thus keep the throughput low.

64.  In spring of 2008, I performed packet traces and found that BitTorrent flows had sustained packet loss rates between 20 and 30%.  To prevent peers from raising throughput after a dropped packet (since there is not much actual congestion), the DPI equipment must constantly drop packets to simulate a permanently poor/congested link.

65.  HOWEVER, for every packet that the DPI equipment purposefully destroys and which never arrives to destination, it means that the sender must eventually resend that packet, and this increases the amount of data that needs to be transmitted. If 25% of packets are destroyed by Bell’s DPI equipment, this increases the amount of data the sender has to send by 25%.

66.  Bell Canada’s actions can also impact some innocent sender in another continent. If he had intended to send 1 megabytes of data to a Canadian user, but Bell Canada’s DPI equipment forces him to send 1.25 megabytes, he may  incur higher  transmission costs (especially if sent from a mobile phone).

67.   It must be noted that on the Internet, dropping packets is the accepted practice to handle congestion. HOWEVER,  on the internet, a transit provider that would have a sustained  a 25% rate of packet loss for 40% of the day every day of the week would quickly lose all its customers and go bankrupt. Only a monopoly would survive such under-provisioning of lines because customers would have nowhere else to go. Congestion problems are normally temporary in nature.

Appendix 2

How the Reset bit works

68.  On the subject of the CAIP et al.’s  question of   “RST injection”.  The Comcast implementation achieved
its goal of slowing down traffic by simulating one peer having “hung up” without warning.

69.  This is done with the DPI equipment modifying the RST bit field in the packet header.1 This tells the packet’s recipient to abruptly end any communications using this TCP session and that it must be torn down unilaterally without handshake.

70.  Consider  computers A and B having setup a TCP session between port A-3000 and B-5000.  All is fine and dandy and packets flow in both directions. But B crashes and reboots.  At that point, B is no longer aware of the former link to A. And when A sends it a packet from its port 3000 to B’s port(...)

Michael Jackson reportedly used several variations of his name to apply for loans because his credit history was so poor and financial institutions were reluctant to give him money.

In 2007, the ‘Thriller’ singer - who was raised in the Jehovah’s Witness faith - allegedly applied for loans under the names President Mr Michael Jackson, Michael JJJ Christ-Jehovah, Michael J Jackson ChristJeh, Michael Jackson Jehovah and Mike J Jackson. He also reportedly used alternative spellings of Michael - Micheal and Micheel - in a bid to trick bank managers.

According to Britain’s The Sun newspaper, leaked financial documents linked to some of Michael’s properties show the failed applications. It is illegal to give a false name to a financial institution for money for the purpose of influencing the bank’s decision and anyone found guilty could face fines of $1 million, 30 years in prison or both.

Despite being one of the most successful musicians of all time, Michael has struggled financially in recent years and was reportedly desperate for monetary help.

A source said: “Michael Jackson’s financial affairs were beyond a mess with county court judgements and taxes owed all over the place. No bank was prepared to bail him out.”

Meanwhile, Tommy Mottola, the former boss of Sony music - who own the distribution rights to Michael’s music - has revealed the label has “dozens” of unreleased tracks in storage which could guarantee the pop legend a place in the charts for the next 30 years. He said: “There are dozens of songs that did not end up on any of his albums. People will be hearing a lot of that unreleased material for the first time ever. There’s just some genius and brilliance in there. The releases could go on and on for years - even more than Elvis.”

According to record sources, the collection of tracks includes recently recorded material with Black Eyed Peas singer will.i.am and singer-and-producer Akon. Tommy also said the collection includes singles left off Michael’s earlier LPs, including ‘Bad’ and ‘HIStory’.

It is believed Michael - who currently holds nine out of the 10 top US album chart spots - kept the unreleased tracks back to ensure financial security for his three children Prince Michael, 12, Paris, 11, and seven-year-old Prince Michael II.

Does embattled music streaming site imeem think it can take on iTunes? For the most part, nearly every streaming song on the site has a download button which links to both iTunes and the Amazon MP3 store. But it is quietly testing its own music download store which bypasses iTunes and Amazon and sells MP3s directly. For instance, this is the case with some Sub Pop artists, such as Iron and Wine and The Shins. When you hit the download button on songs for those artists, a window pops up showing the album where that song came from with with the option to download the entire album or any individual song for $0.99 (see screenshot above). You can then pay imeem directly by credit card or Paypal and download the song to your computer.

This imeem music store is obviously an experiment. The vast majority of songs still direct users to iTunes or Amazon for downloads, and you’d expect imeem to provide its own lightweight desktop client to manage and store the downloads, or at least place them directly into iTunes instead of a download folder on your computer. But it is also likely a sign of things to come. After nearly running out of cash because it was paying out too much money to the music labels for streaming rights, imeem went through a sever recapitalization. Warner Music ended up taking a $20 million hit to write down its investment and bad debt from imeem. Instead of walking away, however, Warner renegotiated its deal with imeem to get new shares without putting in any new money.

Imeem is doing everything it can right now to cut costs and find new sources of revenue. Last week, it announced it will soon stop storing user’s photos and videos, an expensive remnant from its earlier strategy to compete with Facebook and MySpace as a larger social network. Now, imeem is focusing on being a music site. It was one of the first sites to strike streaming deals with all the major labels and for the most part has renegotiated those on more favorable terms. Its iPhone and Android apps, which also offer streaming music, are taking off and driving even more downloads.

And that’s where the imeem music store comes in. Currently, imeem gets a dinky 5 percent affiliate fee for every song its users buy from iTunes or Amazon. As part of its renegotiations with the music labels, it is getting download rights along with its streaming rights I’ve been able to confirm. Instead of getting a few pennies for each song from iTunes and Amazon, imeem can capture the roughly $0.30 per song that doesn’t go to the labels. What is more likely, however, is that it is giving the labels more than the 70 percent cut they get from Apple. Even if it splits its share with the labels and takes only $0.15 per song, imeem still stands to triple its download revenue. Add in ringtone sales and its existing advertising revenues (imeem attracted 25 million unique visitors worldwide in May, according to comScore), and imeem might just have a chance to survive. But if it does survive, it probably won’t be because of its advertising model alone. It will be because the free music is driving enough sales of actual music downloads.

Update: Imeem has confirmed that it is planning to roll out this store more broadly, but says that when it does it will continue to offer iTunes and Amazon downloads as an option.

Below are screenshots of the new post-payment window for songs imeem sells itself and the regular affiliate link window which still pops up for most downlods:

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Ten years ago today, Mark Sandman died on stage during a Morphine concert at the Giardini del Principe in Palestrina, Italy. His music and its impact has not always received the type of attention normally given to rock stars tragically struck down in their prime, let alone one this brilliant.
Sandman’s legacy is hard to measure, although some have tried. Frontman of both Treat Her Right and Morphine, as well as many side projects, he always seemed on the cusp of making the leap from critically acclaimed darling of college radio to major recording star (watch a live performance of Cure for Pain here). Treat Her Right (listen) toured with Bob Dylan, although once signed to RCA, never quite made to mainstream success (as Sandman put it “"RCA decided that if our little basement tape could do so well, why not spend fifty times more money and it will be fifty times better!”). Sandman died touring in support of Morphine's latest release, The Night, released by Dreamworks, the latest attempt by a big label to promote the band (listen).

Sandman’s music continues to impress, including a collection of his previously unreleased solo work issued after his death (selections can be heard here). Somewhere between proto-alt-country and swamp rock, one major aspect of Sandman’s work was innovative usage of bizarrely tuned basses, including the use of a two-string slide bass, an instrument of his own creation and one later used by collaborator Chris Ballew in his other band Presidents of the United States of America (who would write Gone Again Gone in Sandman's memory).

Perhaps more important than his musicality, Sandman’s lasting influence was the development of a local music scene in Cambridge that continues to this day. While the Pixies may be the best-known band to come out of the Boston/Cambridge scene in the 90s, as measured by their impact nationwide, Morphine may have been equally if not more influential locally. Sandman’s own record label, Hi-n-Dry has become the home of many local artists, including local favorites Dennis Brennan and Session Americana (featuring Treat Her Right harmonica player Jim Fitting, as well as others who’ve played with Sandman over the years. See them at Hi-n-Dry here). Furthermore, Sandman regularly promoted shows at the Middle East, helping develop the space from a neighborhood restaurant that occasionally rented out a stage into a major venue. Indeed, the intersection of Mass Ave and Brookline Street in Central Square, the location of the Middle East and TT The Bears has been officially named Mark Sandman Square. Even these landmarks don’t do justice to the community that he fostered and which continues to this day. Finally, Sandman was also a graphic artist, creating a comic called The Twinemen, which would later become the name of a band named in his memory.

Every week, Hi-n-Dry is offering downloads of Sandman's compositions. Or, if you're in the neighborhood, stop by any of Sandman’s old haunts, such as Toad and Lizard Lounge in Porter to the Middle East, TT’s, Plough and Stars in Central. If you’re lucky, or if you do your homework, you’ll find a band of old Cambridge regulars, playing roots standards, with a few Sandman hits thrown in.

Entré en vigueur le 1er juillet, le label Energy Star 5 durcit les critères qui permettent de valider l’efficacité énergétique d’un PC. A la clé : 30 à 60 % d’économies d’énergie.

Sega of America has announced the release date for Obsidian's Alpha Protocol, whatever that is. Oh, it's "The Espionage RPG." How helpful! That game will be out on October 6.

In addition to the date announcement, Sega released the North American box art, which can be found in our gallery. We must warn you, however, before rush into the gallery, full of hope for a more exciting, distinctive box art image: it's exactly the same as the UK box art seen yesterday, with the "PAL" label changed to "NTSC" and the PEGI rating box changed to an ESRB box. It's still the same Pseudo-Bourne standing up in front of geography class.

Gallery: Alpha Protocol

Alpha Protocol: The Espionage RPG: The Release Date originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Sega of America has announced the release date for Obsidian's Alpha Protocol, whatever that is. Oh, it's "The Espionage RPG." How helpful! That game will be out on October 6.

In addition to the date announcement, Sega released the North American box art, which can be found in our gallery. We must warn you, however, before rush into the gallery, full of hope for a more exciting, distinctive box art image: it's exactly the same as the UK box art seen yesterday, with the "PAL" label changed to "NTSC" and the PEGI rating box changed to an ESRB box. It's still the same Pseudo-Bourne standing up in front of geography class.

Gallery: Alpha Protocol

Alpha Protocol: The Espionage RPG: The Release Date originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

The EFF's ringtone jihad is cynical and synthetic

Comment Why are the EFF and Public Knowledge ganging up with their traditional adversaries - big telecomms companies and major record labels - to screw songwriters?...

Web threats: Why conventional protection doesn't work

LG is taking on Apple’s iPhone with a new designer phone as part of their Black Label series in Q4, probably in time for the holidays. CEO Ahn Seung-kwon told Korea’s Yonhap News Agency that the company wants to be in 2nd place in the market by 2012. He also mentioned that their Prada phone line is so successful they are working on another and that they will have their own “extreme premium brand” like the Nokia Vertu.

Tags: black label series, cell phones, cellphones, iphone, lg, prada, premium, smartphones,

LG Wants Number 2 Phone Manufacturer Spot, Working On Premium Line originally appeared on Gear Live on Fri, July 03, 2009 - 2:33:08

Une compilation de reprises enregistrées par le groupe durant toute sa carrière va voir le jour à l'automne prochain sous le label Spinefarm Records. 3 reprises inédites seront tout de même proposées sur ce nouveau CD intitulé "Skeletons In The Closet".

Voici les (très peu) différentes track-lists proposées selon les territoires de distribution :

Europe :

01. Lookin' Out My Back Door (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
02....

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons; Piazzolla: The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires
Lara St. John, violin; Eduardo Marturet, Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela
Violinist Lara St. John also serves as chief executive of her own Ancalagon label, and she takes an interest in unusual and challenging couplings. It seems every violin player has to come to terms with Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons at one time or another, but rather than mate it with other Vivaldi concertos or similar Baroque fare, here she combines Vivaldi’s oft-recorded cycle with Astor Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires in a shimmering arrangement for violin and strings by Leonid Desyatnikov. She is not the first to do so — that may have been I Solisti Italiani back in the 1990s — but it remains a striking combination in the face of the usual fare that comes along for the ride with most issues of The Four Seasons.
Read the rest of the review by Uncle Dave Lewis
 
Lara St. John, violin; - Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Op. 8

Lara St. John, violin - Piazzolla: The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires

 
 
Marc Blitzstein: First Life
Sarah Cahill, piano; Del Sol String Quartet
Marc Blitzstein makes a significant impression from first contact, whether through his songs, the Airborne Symphony, his theatrical work The Cradle Will Rock, or the opera Regina; a composer who is “in the American grain” — to borrow a phrase from William Carlos Williams — yet who is not of the hay bales, prairie lands, and rodeos of Aaron Copland, but of cities, sophistication, and late nights spent in conversation, cigarettes, and a glass or two of whiskey on the rocks. The Cradle Will Rock — the earliest Blitzstein piece longer than a song that has previously circulated — comes to us so complete and fully formed that one might wonder if the back story is genuinely necessary. But if one is as passionate about Blitzstein as other trailblazing American composers of his generation, who wouldn’t be curious as to what went before; after all, Blitzstein never suppressed his early works, he just couldn’t find a publisher for them, and ultimately fell out of sympathy with their style and baggage. San Francisco’s Other Minds has worked with Blitzstein’s estate to raise First Life: Marc Blitzstein, the first substantial peek into Blitzstein’s pre-1937 output that recordings have provided to the general public.
Read the rest of the review by Uncle Dave Lewis
 
Sarah Cahill, piano - Scherzo “Bourgeois at Play”

Del Sol String Quartet - Serenade for String Quartet

 
 
Source Records 1-6, 1968-1971
Various Artists
In the late ’60s, a fair amount of avant-garde and electronic music was being recorded in the United States, even on major labels; in addition to the old standbys like CRI, which had represented some measure of experimental music in addition to the straight, modernist orchestral stuff that had been its main bread and butter. However, there was a stratum of experimental music beyond that which even CRI wouldn’t touch, owing to its heightened political rhetoric, seeming artlessness or perceived sense of experimentation for the sake of experimentation. Enter Source Magazine, a spiral-bound periodical featuring music scores, photographs, and articles on experimental music, and, from Vol. 2/2, 10″ LPs. Despite their somewhat smaller size, the 10″ LPs could hold a lot of music and — in addition to adding a lot of value to the periodical itself — delivered works drawn from that substrate of experimental musicianship, introducing to records composers like Robert Ashley, Alvin Lucier, Lowell Cross, Alvin Curran, and Allan Bryant to records for the first time. The main compilers at Source were composers Larry Austin — the only artist represented twice on Source — and Stanley Lunetta, and both have cooperated with this Pogus Productions retrospective of the label.
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Robert Ashley: The Wolfman

Lowell Cross: Video II (B)/(C)/(L)

 
 
Music for Violin & Piano by Ferruccio Busoni & George Enescu
Nurit Stark, violin; Cédric Pescia, piano
Claves’ Ferruccio Busoni/George Enescu, featuring Israeli violinist Nurit Stark and Franco-Swiss pianist Cédric Pescia visits two towering violin sonatas from the early end of modernism; Busoni’s Sonata No. 2, Op. 36a (1898) and George Enescu’s Sonata No. 3 “dans le caractère populaire roumain,” Op. 25 (1926). What these two works mainly have in common is that both are insanely difficult for both players; Enescu takes as his point of departure characteristics of Gypsy music, down to the cimbalom-like piano part, whereas Busoni draws inspiration from Johann Sebastian Bach, thought not exclusively so in this early work. These pieces have enjoyed a respectable number of recordings already, but Stark and Pescia manage to raise the bar on both in this wonderful Claves recording.
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Nurit Stark, violin; Cédric Pescia, piano - Busoni: Violin Sonata No. 2, Op. 36a

Nurit Stark, violin; Cédric Pescia, piano - Enescu: Violin Sonata No. 3 “dans le caractère populaire roumain”

 
 
Cyril Scott: Complete Piano Music, Vol. 5 “Lotus Land”
Leslie De’Ath, piano
With Cyril Scott: Lotus Land, Canadian pianist Leslie De’Ath reaches the fifth volume of his complete survey of the piano music of British composer Cyril Scott for Dutton’s Epoch series. The conventional wisdom about Scott is that he was a composer of light, insubstantial music for salon pianists and that his compositions are not worth the countless printed pages that they occupy. However, what has proven so impressive about De’Ath’s project thus far is that it makes clear that Scott’s music is serious, and it plays a significant role in the development of early modernism. De’Ath’s series also opens a window upon a composer who was a greatly imaginative musical thinker and a pictorialist on a par with Edward MacDowell.
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Leslie De’Ath, piano - Lotus Land

Leslie De’Ath, piano - Tarantula

 
 
Antonio Bertali: Prothimia Suavissima, Parte Seconda
Ars Antiqua Austria; Gunar Letzbor, cond.
Not too long ago, musicologists treated the 17th century as a period where instrumental music barely existed, as though there wasn’t anything really noteworthy in terms of instrumental music before Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi apart from early English keyboard music. The revival of interest in Heinrich von Biber beginning in the 1960s brought about a revolution in that regard, and by the opening of the 21st century the names of figures such as Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Giovanni Felice Sances, and Johann Kasper Kerll are reasonably familiar ones to those who follow music of the early Baroque. Considerably less well known is that of Antonio Bertali, a musician in the Viennese royal chapel from the 1620s and, from 1649 until his death in 1669, served as kapellmeister in the Viennese court. In Arcana’s Antonio Bertali: Prothima Suavissima Parte Seconda, Gunar Letzbor leads the Ars Antiqua Austria though the posthumous 1672 print indicated in the title in its entirety.
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Gunar Letzbor, cond. - Sonata No. 5 á 3

Gunar Letzbor, cond. - Sonata No. 11 á 3

 
 
Ravel: L’Enfant et les sortilèges; Shéhérazade
Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Alastair Willis, cond.
Given the number of very fine recordings of Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, it’s perhaps surprising that one of the very finest, most stylish, and idiomatic performances should have its roots firmly planted in the American heartland. Alastair Willis, leading the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, members of the Nashville Symphony Chorus, members of the Chicago Symphony Chorus, and the Chattanooga Boys Choir, conjures up a truly magical version of the opera. This is the result of a happy confluence of all the necessary elements: exceptional soloists who may not yet be international superstars, but who sing beautifully and are fully invested in bringing their roles to life, a thoroughly responsive chorus, exquisite orchestral playing, extraordinarily fine, nuanced engineering, and above all, Willis’ loving attention the details of the score and his ability to bring an exhilarating musical and dramatic coherence to an opera that in lesser hands can seem quaintly episodic.
Read the rest of the review by Stephen Eddins
 
Alastair Willis, cond. - L’Enfant et les sortilèges - Votre serviteur humble, Bergère
Alastair Willis, cond. - L’Enfant et les sortilèges - Il est bon, l’Enfant, il est sage
 
 
Brahms: Ein deutsches Requiem
Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester, Sergiu Celibidache, cond.
Sergiu Celibidache’s 1957 recording of Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem easily ranks among the most thrilling and satisfying on disc, which is no small recommendation, given the multitude of outstanding versions. The conductor’s grasp of the work’s architecture, both as a whole and in each movement, makes this a riveting performance; the Requiem has rarely sounded so vividly dramatic. The opening movement, “Blessed Are They That Mourn,” seems slow at first compared to common performance practice. There is no slackness in Celibidache’s approach, though; the sense of ethereal equipoise that the stately tempo induces beautifully evokes the serenity that the text describes, and it doesn’t take long before this relaxed pace is entirely convincing, even revelatory.
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Sergiu Celibidache, cond. - Ein deutsches Requiem, Op. 45 - Selig sind, die da tragen Leid
Sergiu Celibidache, cond. - Ein deutsches Requiem, Op. 45 - Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen
 
 
Adès: The Tempest
Royal Opera House Chorus and Orchestra, Covent Garden; Thomas Adès, cond.
Thomas Adès’ 2004 version of The Tempest has been acclaimed as one of the outstanding operas of the new century, so it’s a pleasure to have it available in such a fine recording, taken from the 2007 Covent Garden revival, featuring many of the principals from the premiere. Librettist Meredith Oakes has not only effectively distilled the play so that the opera lasts less than two hours without seeming overly-condensed, but she has rewritten and simplified the text. Something is lost when Shakespeare’s poetry is altered, but Oakes’ verse, if more mundane, is easily singable and easily comprehensible. The change in Shakespeare’s language may the biggest hurdle for purists, but for those who can make the leap and accept the libretto as an independent work of art, Oakes’ version makes strong and coherent dramatic sense.
Read the test of the review by Stephen Eddins
 
Thomas Adès, cond. - The Tempest - Act 1. Scene 3. Fear to the sinner…


Thomas Adès, cond. - The Tempest - Act 3. Scene 2. Murder!

 

Handel: Alcina
Il Complesso Barocco, Alan Curtis, cond.
It’s a pleasure to have such an abundance of excellent recordings of Handel operas that were long virtually unknown or available on CD in a single version, if at all. Alan Curtis’ stellar recording of Alcina, which joins a respectable number of very fine recordings of the opera, is remarkable for the supple liveliness of his conducting and the outstanding performances of the soloists. The elasticity of his performance, leading Il Complesso Barocco, should dispel any misconceptions about Baroque music being rigid and metronomic.
Read the test of the review by Stephen Eddins
 
Alan Curtis, cond. - Alcina - Act 1. Scene 4. No. 12. Aria. Di te mi rido
Alan Curtis, cond. - Alcina - Act 2. Scene 3. No. 23. Aria. Mi lusinga il dolce affetto
 
 
Bernstein: West Side Story
Patrick Vaccariello, cond.
The much-anticipated 2009 Broadway revival of West Side Story was notable for the decision of Arthur Laurents (the author of the show’s book and the director of this production) to make it bilingual; the sections where the Puerto Ricans would have naturally spoken Spanish, such as when they are interacting independently from English-speaking characters and when the gangs are facing off, are now in Spanish. It’s a bold, brilliant move and it makes complete sense for creating the most naturalistic dramatic experience. The impact is not as pronounced on the recording; only a few musical numbers, such as “I feel pretty” and “A boy like that,” and some of the Sharks’ scenes are changed. Those moments are genuinely effective, though, and tantalizingly suggest the production’s authentic flavor.
Read the test of the review by Stephen Eddins
 
Patrick Vaccariello, cond. - West Side Story - Act 1. Scene 8. Tonight (Quintet)

Patrick Vaccariello, cond. - West Side Story - Act 2. Scene 1. Me Siento Hermosa (I Feel Pretty)

 
 
Michael Jarrell: Cassandre
Ensemble InterContemporain; Susanna Mälkki, cond.
It’s stretching the conventional, technical definition of the term to call Swiss composer Michael Jarrell’s spoken monodrama Cassandre an opera, but that’s the composer’s description of it, and as such, it ought to be respected. It does consist of a musical narrative accompanying a verbal narrative, so even though it doesn’t involve singing, it comes closer to standard opera than some pieces that are so designated. Also, the fact that it is so compelling as a unified musical and dramatic entity makes its definition seem less consequential; it’s fully successful in using music and story to draw the listener into the protagonist’s world.
Read the test of the review by Stephen Eddins
 
Susanna Mälkki, cond. - Cassandre - Hécube, ma mère...

Susanna Mälkki, cond. - Cassandre - Oui, ce fut ainsi…

 
 
Hindemith: Klaviermusik mit Orchester; Dvorák: Symphony No. 9 “From the New World”
Leon Fleischer, piano: Curtis Symphony Orchestra; Christoph von Eschenbach, cond.
It’s not too often anymore that we get a world premiere recording of a work by a composer as well-known and widely performed as Hindemith. The circumstances surrounding the recording as well as the artist make this album a real find. Composed in 1921 for wealthy pianist

Alors que se profile la plus grosse manifestation française autour de la culture manga, nous ne pouvions faire autrement que vous présenter quelques uns des invités les plus marquants de la Japan Expo cru 2009.

Si l'une des têtes d'affiche les plus attendues, Aï Yazawa, auteur adulé de Nana, a finalement dû décliner l'invitation pour des raisons de santé, 2009 restera malgré tout une excellente année en termes de rencontres : seront présents, entre autres, les quatre filles du studio CLAMP (X, Tsubasa reservoir chronicles, XXX holic...), Natsuki Takaya (Fruits Basket), Tetsuo Hara (Hokuto no Ken, Keiji) et Benjamin (Remember).

Commençons par notre coup de cÅ“ur, le Chinois Benjamin. Révélation et fer de lance de la maison Xiao Pan, Benjamin est un jeune artiste de la très récente BD chinoise. Peintre de formation académique, il s'est lancé assez tôt dans la narration graphique, avec des Å“uvres très abouties au dessin remarquable et aux couleurs fortes. Remember, le premier opus publié chez l'éditeur occitan, est aussi son chef-d'Å“uvre pour le moment. On y suit la rencontre de deux jeunes bédéistes chinois (la part autobiographique est difficile à cerner, mais bien présente) qui, confrontés aux difficultés, aux choix et aux nécessaires renoncements qu'imposent un régime politique particulier et une société aux codes rigides, s'aiment et se déchirent. Les couleurs très froides qui dominent renforcent d'une profondeur glaciale la narration au scalpel. Suivie d'une autre nouvelle, également sur la condition des artistes chinois, Remember est complétée par une galerie d'illustrations remarquablement fournie et des commentaires de l'auteur qui permettent d'en cerner un peu plus la personnalité et les motivations.

Aux antipodes de ce courant très novateur, propre à la bande dessinée chinoise, Tetsuo Hara est un des grands noms du manga japonais « classique ». Ses Å“uvres sombres et violentes sont destinées à un public adulte, comme l'a largement démontré le tollé autour de la diffusion de l'anime Ken le survivant adapté de son Å“uvre majeure, Hokuto no Ken. Initialement diffusée sur une plage nocturne au Japon, la série animée se trouve proposée le mercredi après-midi sur les petits écrans français par le Club Dorothée à partir de septembre 1988. Largement inspirée de Mad Max, cette série n'est pourtant évidemment pas destinée à tous les publics : les corps déchiquetés qui abondent dans l'anime ne pouvaient que heurter la sensibilité des plus jeunes, et surtout de leurs parents qui obtiendront l'arrêt de la diffusion avant le terme de la série. Le manga, quant à lui, après une première parution catastrophique chez J'ai lu, fait actuellement l'objet d'une nouvelle édition chez Asuka beaucoup plus fidèle à l'original. Il serait dommage de s'arrêter à la violence de l'Å“uvre, rendue nécessaire par le propos central lui-même : dans un monde postapocalyptique, les hommes revenus aux instincts les plus primaires se battent pour leur survie. Au milieu du chaos, une figure charismatique va se lever en la personne de Ken. Très loin du manichéisme de la version française de l'anime, le manga développe toute une réflexion sur ce qui définit la quintessence de la nature humaine lorsque l'homme est confronté au pire. Outre l'intérêt du récit, il est également servi par un graphisme très soigné, dû aux problèmes de vue de l'auteur qui l'obligeaient à retravailler chacune de ses planches pour compenser les erreurs d'origine.

Après le réalisme social et la science-fiction analytique, place au shôjo, manga pour filles aux saveurs de rose et de guimauve... en apparence au moins. À première vue , Fruits basket est une bluette sentimentale comme il y en a tant, où une jeune fille un peu niaise est confrontée à des circonstances difficiles et soutenue par des garçons un peu froids, mais bien présents... Rien de nouveau sous le soleil, si ce n'est que lesdits garçons sont frappés d'une malédiction qui les fait se transformer en animaux du zodiaque chinois dès qu'ils entrent en contact physique avec une fille. En deux tomes, Natsuki Takaya pose le décor d'un manga qui en compte23 au total et qui dépasse de très loin les codes classiques du shôjo pour se ranger dans les Å“uvres cultes, lisibles par tous les publics. Mine de rien, elle interroge, à travers un contexte fantastique un brin farfelu, la question fondamentale de l'éveil de la sexualité, des chaînes parentales qui nous en éloignent et de la prise d'autonomie et de liberté, nécessairement difficile et douloureuse, que constitue le passage à l'âge adulte. Si le graphisme peut paraître simplissime, pour ne pas dire simpliste, il a le mérite de permettre une réelle évolution des personnages au fil des tomes, transformant en adultes les quasi-enfants du début avec une subtilité remarquable. Touchante, émouvante, drôle, dynamique, riche en action et en rebondissements, cette série nous fait passer par toute la gamme des émotions et peut ainsi être lue par tous les publics avec un égal plaisir. Une des belles réussites d'Akata, le label mangas de Delcourt.

Et pour clore ce long article, le studio CLAMP, qui fera l'objet d'une exposition dans les bibliothèques de la ville de Paris, du 3 juillet au 27 septembre, en parallèle de leur venue à la Japan Expo. Est-il encore besoin de présenter ces reines du manga, auteurs prolixes dont chaque série est culte ? Touche-à-tout de génie, elles excellent aussi bien dans le shôjo que le shônen, dans les Å“uvres pour les plus jeunes que pour les adultes. De Card Captor Sakura à Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, de X à Chobits, de RG Veda à XXX Holic, elles dessinent un univers étrange, parfois amusant, parfois inquiétant, mais toujours emprunt de poésie et de complexité. Certaines de leurs Å“uvres se font écho, enrichissant le propos par une mise en perspective des plus intéressantes. En filigrane se pose toujours la question de la liberté individuelle et de la destinée, de la part que chaque humain prend dans le cours des choses. Le dessin, principalement assumé par Mokona, parfois relayée par Nekoi Tsubaki, varie fortement d'une Å“uvre à l'autre, pouvant aller d'un style extrêmement épuré (Trèfle, Chobits) à une minutie dans le détail qui rend les décors très chargés (RG Veda, X). L'Å“uvre qui réalise le plus grand équilibre entre les deux tendances est XXX Holic, qui allie la finesse de tracés précis à un souci du détail quasi maniaque. On voit ainsi la devineresse Yûko parée des plus somptueuses tenues au-dessus desquelles flotte un visage très pur, simple et gracieux comme un lys. Ce soucie du dessin explique le rythme de parution plus lent de cette série, toujours en cours, par rapport à d'autres (le studio a l'habitude de travailler sur plusieurs projets en parallèle).

Vous l'aurez compris, ce qu'on en commun les auteurs présentés ici, c'est une universalité, une capacité à parler à tous les publics, à des niveaux différents, par la qualité de leurs Å“uvres, ce qu'elles renferment d'intelligence et de subtilité... Alors n'hésitez pas à aller les rencontrer : les venues d'auteurs japonais en France sont rarissimes, en raison des coûts exorbitants, évidemment, mais surtout des rythmes frénétiques de travail qu'imposent les modes de production du manga au Japon.

Site officiel de la Japan Expo 2009 : http://www.japan-expo.com/

Benjamin :
http://www.xiaopan.com/francais/cat...
http://www.xiaopan.com/francais/ind...

Testuo Hara :
http://www.asuka.fr/catalogue_serie...
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetsuo_Hara

Natsuki Takaya :
http://www.akata.fr/manga.php ?id=1

CLAMP :
http://www.pika.fr/new/node/1170
http://www.infoclamp.net/
http://www.bdangouleme.com/actualit...