Want healthier concession options at your local multiplex? You're not alone, and in fact an entire movie studio is with you on the idea. At ShoWest, the annual theater owners convention, Sony Pictures Chairman and CEO Michael Lynton addressed the topic yesterday in his keynote address, claiming that studies show a majority of moviegoers are interested in substitutes for the regular old popcorn and candy offerings. Reportedly two-thirds of people surveyed would buy healthier concessions if available while 42% of parents would buy movie theater snacks more often if there were healthier options to give to their kids.

This isn't shocking, but really what kind of options can there be? I remember back when moviegoers were first requesting such alternatives -- this was 1995, when I worked at a multiplex that attempted to introduce pre-packaged bags of "light" popcorn. They didn't sell. Not because they weren't a good idea, but because the bags were tiny and still way overpriced. And while bottled water is now a very lucrative item for cinemas, I don't understand why more people aren't just filling their own aluminum canteens with drinking fountain water, as I do. Speaking of bringing your own alternatives, are people really going to simply stop bringing in their own cheap, specifically favored healthy options once the multiplex begins selling apple slices and carrot sticks?

Filed under: Sony, Exhibition

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Clearly, there must be a demand for legalized inhalants, as a company known as Le Whif has made inhalable chocolate. This company has also invented a coffee inhaler.

I suppose that this product is for those who like what coffee can do, but don’t want to drink it. I must admit that I fall under this category of people, and this is why I drink Mountain Dew. What you are seeing here is the bhong that holds lipstick-like containers that are then pulled open, inserted in the mouth, and then inhaled.

The sticks can deliver 100 milligrams of caffeine, which is the drinking equivalent of a cup of espresso. Apparently, you can get nine hits on an individual stick, but this is “depending on how hard they inhale”. I wonder what happens if you don’t inhale?

Okay, enough Clinton jokes. Still, are we looking at an age where we are inhaling coffee? I mean, the early nineties brought us over-priced coffee franchises like Starbucks, and several people can’t live without these franchises. However, I must admit that these coffee whiffs are probably cheaper. They are sold individually for $3 or three for $8. I don’t have a price for the inhaler itself, but I’m sure you could probably get something similar in a back alley.

Source

Introducing Foolish Gadgets because not all gadgets are cool
[ Coffee Inhaler can keep you awake, without the percolator. copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Random Thought! A special edition of random thoughts this week, people! It's random thoughts time! Get excited!

Link Thought! Quickie Reviews (Mar 10 2010) (The Unwritten makes a small comeback!). Is it Just Children? (or is it okay to kill everyone?). High Road/Low Road on Chris Jericho/Edge at WrestleMania (I really love this, but still have to argue against it... dammit). Wrestling 4Rs featuring my review of the first edition of TNA Impact in its new semi-live Monday night timespot (spoiler: I thought it was shit). Fuck Me? (people who comment on wrestling sites are much funnier than those who comment on comics sites). Wrestler of the Week (only two weeks left...). Art Discussion Month 2010 (it passes the halfway mark today... I'm mostly done! Also, check out Frank Teran's comment in my discussion of the Hellblazer issue he drew... it's all gossipy and fun!). The Splash Page Podcast Episode 8.1 (Tim swears, but I had to bleep it out to keep the podcast clean). The Splash Page Podcast Episode 8.2 (I swear, but I had to bleep it out to keep the podcast clean). An interview with Keith Champagne on WWE Heroes (yes, it's on this blog, but people miss things...).

Random Thought! I'm oddly comforted by the thought that, if I lived in Russia, comics would be reviewing me... (Taken from my Twitter feed on Sunday.)

Random Thought! I have no interest in that Young Allies book beyond how awesome the name Bastards of Evil is. That's not just a good bad guy team name, it's a Joe Casey-esque bad guy team name, and no one does supervillains who revel in their villainy as well as Casey these days, so nicely done, Mr. McKeever.

Random Thought! Because it gives me focus, the rest of the column will be my "I'ds of March" to follow-up on Brian's annual posting. Sure, that was yesterday, but I don't want to step on his toes, let him do his thing and I'll keep mine in this column. If I remember next year, the 15th will be on a Tuesday and mine will actually go up on the day. I did this previously, on my blog, two years ago. (Linking to that so I won't repeat myself...)

I'd... have ended Secret Invasion with Noh-Varr helping to turn the tide against the Skrulls and, then, turning on the heroes, because he intends to take over the planet himself and remake it in Hala's image. Not taking over then, Norman Osborn could still be in charge and Dark Reign happens mostly as planned, but Noh-Varr is set up as a threat, someone who isn't working for the same goals as anyone.

I'd... have brought Steve Rogers back in Captain America as a regular arc with Butch Guice as the artist, kicking off his run on the book. Not necessarily as smart a sales/business move, but I think it would have worked artistically better.

I'd... have not marketed Joe Casey's tenure on Superman/Batman as a follow-up to "Our Worlds at War" and would have also let people know that was writing the book when the first issue came out in October and made it clear what was going on.

I'd... hire Jim Starlin to take over one of the Marvel cosmic books. With Thanos coming back, all we need is Starlin. It would lighten the load for Abnett and Lanning a bit and also give the line a little bit more diversity in writing. I've enjoyed the unified vision, but, come on, DnA and Starlin writing those characters? That would be amazing.

I'd... have hired J.M. DeMatteis to write Spider-Man: The Clone Saga. Or, at least, a back-up strip to give the series a little more flavour and breathing room. I'd have also included some extra material like one-page interviews on the story throughout the series. Small things to make it a better experience.

I'd... have not made Wednesday Comics exclusively 12-part serialised stories. Do some one-offs and short serials, mix things up a bit, play with the newspaper format.

I'd... have released the "Final Crisis Aftermath" book in a different manner, maybe not all at the same time nor with such similar titles. They all sort of blended together that way when they might have done better by making their differences more obvious and trying to target each book's specific audience more directly.

I'd... release Paul Jenkins's Hellblazer run in trades. Plus, I do a trade or two of the remaining uncollected issues from that series. The one- and two-parters that popped up over the years.

I'd... have hired almost any other artist than Philip Tan for the second Batman & Robin arc. That arc sticks out like a sore thumb and DC could have found someone much better suited to Morrison's writing -- and someone whose work doesn't look ten times worse in the middle of Frank Quitely- and Cameron Stewart-drawn arcs.

I'd... have hounded Chip Zdarsky to contribute to Strange Tales... because he's great.

I'd... hire Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk to do a second Dark X-Men mini-series later in 2010 to explore what happens to the characters without Norman Osborn in charge. That could be very interesting and act as a nice sequel to the recently-concluded mini.

I'd... have hired a writer with sensibilities much more in common with Grant Morrison than Keith Giffen to write The Authority: The Lost Year. A cool idea for a book that went wrong by hiring the wrong writer to do it. That needed someone much more in tune with the way Morrison writes.

I'd... have chosen more Spider-Woman over the motion comics animated thing.

I'd... have made those Dark Reign: The List issues actually... you know... mean something...? Like, made them count for something lasting and important within the "Dark Reign" story rather than just coming out and... not really doing much of anything.

I'd... hound and pester Craig Ferguson until he agrees to write an Aquaman comic, dammit!

Random Thought! That was fun.

***

Random Comments! Your comments. My replies. Rather obvious. Trying something new by replying to portions of comments directly. If it's confusing or people don't like it, let me know.

Bill Reed said: People actually watched Corner Gas? Really? Did they enjoy it? Does one have to be Canadian to enjoy it? Some station or another here in God's United States aired it for a bit there, and I stumbled upon it one day... it's like some kind of terrifying black hole of quality.

Corner Gas is a decent, middle-of-the-road sitcom. It only produces a couple of chuckles in an episode, but gets the odd big laugh. Or, it did when it was on. I don't think it's a uniquely Canadian thing, but who knows with you Americans?

I'm tired of this shtick already. Deadpool isn't that overexposed. I proved it with maths. Still, he does have a surprising amount of solo titles, more than I think the market will be able to support. In a year's time, he'll probably be back to one, unless the movie comes out.

Just because other characters appear in more books, doesn't mean Deadpool isn't overexposed. Something like that is relative to the character and how much exposure is too much. Spider-Man and Batman appear in more books? Fine, but we're also used to them appearing in a lot of books. There's a longtime demand for them to appear in numerous books. As of yet, there's an apparent shortterm demand for Deadpool that could easily turn against the character like happened to Punisher and Ghost Rider. Your math, while interesting, doesn't tell the whole story.

CW said: The whole 'Deadpool overexposure' thing is really weird for me. Not because I hate the character, or I'm offended by the character being rammed down my throat, but I guess I'm from the time when Joe Kelly and Ed McGuness couldn't buy readers for his solo series. I grew up with Deadpool as a third-rate Wolverine knock-off (violent guy with an attitude) fighting second-rate characters (Black Tom?) from a second rate X-book (Leifeld-era X-Force, you suck!). That Joe Kelly was able to take the character and make something truely moving and halarious is nothing short of miraculous. The book was constantly fighting cancelation, and although it never really recovered after McGuness left the book, it was still one of the best books Marvel was publishing at the time.

Everything being published today featuring the character is a pale shadow of what was done in that first series. I don't believe that later work of any creator or of any character can diminish the original work, but what's being published as Deadpool comics these days makes me almost say he's been ruined. As it is, I see those books as being the one shining gem in a big pile of turd. And it makes me realize just how funny and vindictive the fates must be to make *now* be when Deadpool is at his most popular among the hoi poi. It's almost like something... Deadpool would come up with.

Agreed. Having read Deadpool books for reviewing purposes at CBR, I can vouch for the lack of funny. They're cute. There's maybe one funny moment per issue. Then again, humour is relative, so maybe lots of people are finding the current books very funny. I did enjoy Deadpool's recent guest-spot in Amazing Spider-Man by Joe Kelly and Eric Canete. That was great.

Mecha-Shiva said: Frisky Dingo, man... what a great show. I ran into Adam Reed at my mechanic's (I had no idea what he looked like, but he started talking to someone at the counter and I'm wondering why this guy sounds like Xander Crews then he said his name and it made sense) but lacked the balls to say hello or anything. I don't understand why Frisky Dingo (or the all-too-brief Xtacles spinoff) never got the same kind of attention as the Venture Bros. Not to take anything away from the Venture Bros., which is great, but... other than the crappy animation, I see nothing not to like about Frisky Dingo. Ka-kow.

I can understand why: The Venture Bros. do self-contained episodes. Frisky Dingo opted for episodes that told one big story, much like a comics storyarc written for the trade. That doesn't make it less good, it just makes it harder for people to get into it. That, and The Venture Bros. is better. Sorry.

Mario said: People who don't like Deadpool or constantly whine about his overexposure are simply in denial of their desire to read a comic that will have no "serious" long term effect. Deadpool comics are all about enjoyment (in the best and worse ways possible).

No, I'm all for those books. I've read recent Deadpool books and they're just not good. Not funny or entertaining.

Jason Arron's Wolvering doesn't suck.

No, Jason Aaron's Wolverine book doesn't suck. That's what made me realise that I just don't care for the character. I'd read an issue here and there and enjoy what I've read, and, yet, I felt no desire to read another issue.

FunkyGreenJerusalem said: That's because it's by an Australian director Gregor Jordan, who makes the most empty and souless films of all time. He won a big short film competition in Australia with a clever short... although apparently it's VERY similar to another short, or scene from an old film. He then made a crime film which wouldn't have gone anywhere, except it had Bryan Brown swearing a lot, and was the breakthrough (in Australia, which led to US work) of Heath Ledger. That got him signed up to a five picture film, and it's been a slow and steady output of dribble ever since. (I know his career because I keep thinking every film will be his last, and am just shocked at watching his mediocrity continue to live). Having seen The Informers the other week, don't stress Chad, just about every character in it will die of AIDS soon after the credits. (Although I think we're supposed to ignore that by combining the stories, and making them all happen at once, nearly every character had, presumably, unprotected sex with someone who had slept with another character, all leading back to the girl who dies of AIDS at the end... AIDS of course being added in, as it's not in the novel, to give the film some kind of ending).

I haven't read the collection in a while, but, yeah, I don't remember AIDS being in any of the stories. Hell, the girl doesn't even die necessarily in the book. Thanks for the background info. From what I read, the director really fucked with the script and cut it down considerably.

I loved when that book hinted that Xavier was in their heads and manipulating the X-Men the whole time. That never went anywhere.

That was very frustrating. Xavier was perfectly happy to alter Magneto's memories and mind, but wouldn't act on a larger scale to solve the problems with mutants and humanity -- or, at least, influence the minds of the right people to move things along. Again, small-scale, status quo-feeding bullshit.

So you're praising Ellis for writing a nice outline of a story, and then publishing it as a story? From memory, the book has a scene where the main characters - all of whom have nothing original or distinguishing about them - are standing in a warehouse. The police are intercut with the heroes talking, surrounding a warehouse, and they kick down the door... but they have the wrong warehouse. That's Chuck Austen level of writing.

No, Ellis wrote a conclusion to his story, but part of it was introducing ideas that could be more fully explored in the future. And that scene happened, but it, you know, made sense in context and wasn't bad. But, I'm not going to change your mind.

Willie Everstop said: Random Thought! What the hell is up with comic characters leaving the word what out of the phrase "What the hell" lately? Is it a creator quirk or just some weird way to avoid censorship? It always seems out of place to me.

I say 'the hell?' or 'the fuck?' Just a variation on the phrase that some people use.

TimCallahan said: Hey, I was an English major and I read ALL the assigned books. (Problem was: I usually didn't read them until the day before the final, and Chaucer isn't really all that great when you read him like that. He may not be great for other reasons -- the jury is still out on that.)

I did that with Moby-Dick since it was the one book in my American lit class in undergrad that we had to discuss in an essay on the final exam. By the halfway mark, I was skipping the chapters on whales, sticking to the narrative. Good times.

Rome said: BTW, did you like the new Iron Man 2 trailer? Any thoughts on the Suitcase Armor?

Looks decent. No real thoughts or judgements since the first movie was good enough to earn the sequel a viewing. So, I'm trying not to care too much, preferring to leave my thoughts until I see the finished product with everything in its proper context.

Jack Norris said: As soon as the words "hero's journey" pop up in an argument, I automatically feel less obligated to read on in a respectful manner. It's become the fans & critics (oh, and let's not forget some creators as well) version of "because, uh... because Jesus, God and the Bible, that's why!" in the way that it's just an empty appeal to authority.

Agreed. But, the endpoint of Peter's progression into adulthood is leaving Spider-Man behind and learning about real responsibility. Just the way it is.

Mike Loughlin said: My problem with JMS' better comics (Midnight Nation, Rising Stars, Supreme Power) is that he spent an awful lot of time on set-up, and very little on delivery. I read all 18 issues of Supreme Power, but got the impression that the story JMS wanted to tell would have taken at least 50 more. Rising Stars started out great (although the art was sub-par), but ended limply. Midnight Nation is a self-contained story, at least, but they seemed to spend most of the issues lurching toward a rather predictable conclusion (I liked it, despite its flaws). I think JMS is good at world-building, but falters when it comes to structuring.

Yeah, that's why Babylon 5 was so great: he had the room to set up plots and characters and world build without it cutting short the eventual payoffs. Comics are limited by page-count and the speed at which they come out and JMS seems to need more room to work. He hasn't adapted to the medium as much as he should have by this point.

That's it. Thanks for reading. Later.

Okay, so North America's limited edition Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker PSP pack doesn't include an exclusive camo PSP, or a stand thingy, or a snakeskin-like carrying case. But it does include a "Spirited Green" PSP-3000, a color previously unavailable in America. It doesn't include a PSP Go, so we're guessing the "relaunch" hasn't begun yet.

Launching alongside the standalone game on May 25 June 8, the pack includes said green PSP, a copy of the game on UMD, a 2GB Memory Stick Pro Duo, and vouchers for both an unidentified movie download (for US residents only) and exclusive in-game items in Peace Walker, for $199.99.

[Update: the game, and the bundle, are actually coming out on June 8.]

North America getting its own Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker PSP bundle [update] originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Okay, so North America's limited edition Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker PSP pack doesn't include an exclusive camo PSP, or a stand thingy, or a snakeskin-like carrying case. But it does include a "Spirited Green" PSP-3000, a color previously unavailable in America. It doesn't include a PSP Go, so we're guessing the "relaunch" hasn't begun yet.

Launching alongside the standalone game on May 25 June 8, the pack includes said green PSP, a copy of the game on UMD, a 2GB Memory Stick Pro Duo, and vouchers for both an unidentified movie download (for US residents only) and exclusive in-game items in Peace Walker, for $199.99.

[Update: the game, and the bundle, are actually coming out on June 8.]

North America getting its own Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker PSP bundle [update] originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Portable Start Menu is a simple and free start menu application that can be installed on USB sticks or local PCs. Organize your programs in a simple menu system and launch them via a tray icon. If you close Portable Start Menu on an USB-Stick, running applications can be closed automatically, too.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

Who knew that the PS Move would be so fun to stick into out-of-context situations? Because man, the results of this week's Photoshop Contest are some of the best ever. More »

Who knew that the PS Move would be so fun to stick into out-of-context situations? Because man, the results of this week's Photoshop Contest are some of the best ever. More »

Filed under: Utilities, Productivity, Web services

We've all said this to ourselves at one time or another: "Oh, I'll just read Wikipedia for another 15 minutes, then I'm going to do my work." Then two hours pass, but the work remains unfinished. Oops! x.minutes.at is a site that lets you keep those promises to yourself, through the magic of technology. By magic, I mean that the site you're viewing automatically closes after a specified time limit.

So, if you wanted to read Download Squad for 20 minutes -- hey, feel free to stick around longer, this is just hypothetical -- you could go to 20.minutes.at/downloadsquad.com, and your timer would automatically be set. Follow a similar formula of the time limit (.minutes.at/, and then the site address) to set your timer for practically any site on the Web. It doesn't work well with Gmail and Google Reader, unfortunately, but most anything else is fair game.

x.minutes.at also offers bookmarklets to time-limit the current site, and you can use it in stopwatch mode by entering http://howmany.minutes.at, instead of a number. I'm almost afraid to use stopwatch mode, because I don't want how much time I spend at TVtropes.org on a given day.

[via Lifehacker]
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x.minutes.at: make a time-limited visit to any website originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GoogleReader - Download Squad - Google - Wikipedia - Lifehacker

Konami's portable stealth action game pushed back two weeks, will also be available in a green PSP hardware bundle with 2GB memory stick, voucher for downloadable movie.

[Continuing our countdown of the Top 5 lectures of GDC 2010 in terms of what piqued our interest, here's Leigh Alexander writing up an intriguing lecture from Metroid and WarioWare co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto, a bit of a Nintendo legend who rarely speaks in the West.]

Nintendo’s Yoshio Sakamoto is a designer who takes pride in being strange – a paradox at times, as he’s employed by a company perhaps best known these days for its approachable, all-inclusive games.

“It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that Metroid is the only series I’m known for outside of Japan,” Sakamoto said as he introduced himself in a packed GDC 2010 talk.

He says he was “virtually uninvolved” in the Prime arc of the series, and the balance of his work is “subtler and quirkier” and thus doesn’t often see release outside of Japan.

In fact, Metroid games are niche titles in Japan as well, he says – “Over there, I might be considered a guy who only makes niche games... my true identity might be as a game designer with a strong tendency for niche games.”

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has always been “puzzled” by Sakamoto’s approach, he says. Sakamoto has played a director role on the Metroid games, but for the upcoming and highly anticipated Other M, which launches in the U.S. on June 27, he is the producer.

The aim is to create the “ultimate Metroid game,” he says.

He resists being credited for originating the franchise, punning: “If anything, maybe I consider myself the one who raised Samus. After all, the one who gave birth to Metroid is the Queen Metroid, right?”

Wario Ware, Tomodachi Collection

Sakamoto also introduced the popular Wario Ware series, and claims that as a producer it doesn’t originate from his creativity and thus he rarely speaks out on it. He produced four titles, beginning with the original WarioWare: Twisted, which came from a tester's experimentation with the GBA’s gyroscope – president Iwata spun the console around on a chair to check it out, and muttered “how idiotic," recalls Sakamoto.

Sakamoto is also responsible for Japan-only Tomodachi Collection, which he likens to "playing house" with friends' Miis -- for example, highlight of the presentation was Sakamoto's video wherein Miis of Nintendo execs fought over Samus Aran's romantic attentions.

The title has been massively successful in Japan. Today, says the producer, it's nearly sold 3 million units.

The striking thing about Sakamoto is the diversity in his body of work -- the tone of Metroid is so opposite that of Wario Ware that it's funny to realize they've been overseen by the same individual -- it puzzles even Iwata himself, says Sakamoto.

Four Tenets

“I’m well aware that Mr. Iwata thinks of me as someone only with a comical touch,” he added, noting that the Nintendo boss is surprised Sakamoto is able to create “serious” titles at all.

One of his biggest inspirations is filmmaker Dario Argento, maker of films like Suspiria and Deep Red. “I decided that without a doubt, I wanted to create things in the same manner as Argento did,” he says.

Argento's films taught Sakamoto that an effective creator manages four elements: Mood, as with Argento's unusual progressive rock soundtracks; timing, foreshadowing used to connect events to one another, and contrast to increase a sense of dramatic tension.

One of his first games, an installment of the interactive fiction-like Famicom Detective Club, was an homage to Argento, and he continued to use this approach on all other projects, Other M included. “The reason I am sharing this is to show you how deep my desire was to find the ideal method of conveying fear, and how that led me to find my own creative style,” he said.

Argento’s films increased Sakamoto’s film appetite as he sought more ways to control those four elements and apply them to other themes than horror, taking influences from Luc Besson, Brian De Palma, John Woo and the Hong Kong movie scene.

“It might sound like a joke, but I started to have dreams viewed from an objective point of view, with edited scenes and even their own background music,” he says. “Maybe my affinity for niche things extends even beyond games.”

Nonetheless, he insists he’s no film fanatic: “I haven’t seen any more movies than the average person,” he says. “I have great admiration for these directors, but it’s not like I have a complex about it or try to become one,” he says. “They’ve helped bring that out in me.”

Making People Laugh

In addition to film, Sakamoto says he’s been a music aficionado and continues to be inspired by comedy. “I love things that are funny and things that make me laugh – I’m always thinking, ‘is there a laugh hidden here? Can I find something funny in this?’”

“I just want to make other people laugh the most,” he adds. “I’m not a comedian... I’m just happy to add a little spice to my day and make the people around me have a good time.”

Despite his favor for comedy tone, he is “actually quite meticulous,” he says, continually focused on material-gathering and idea-sorting. “When it occurs to me I will take my best material in my head and simulate the situation... in which I will find my best delivery. I want to control audience reaction; I want to engineer the laugh.”

And engineering comic tone requires the same four techniques as he used for horror and drama, Sakamoto points out.

“I respond strongly to things that stimulate my interest,” he says, and he utilizes them through the mood, timing, foreshadowing and contrast principle. He says the mechanism to move one’s feelings is the same regardless of the type of feeling, so a developer must think of how to control the mechanisms that move the user’s emotions.

Other M: The "Ultimate" Metroid?

"There really is no difference in my stance or approach" for Wario Ware versus Metroid," he says. "It’s more about technique; I think this is the real answer. As long as one is open to the possibility of new experiences and is willing to feel them deeply, you can use a single toolset to move people’s hearts in a great many different ways. I’d like to leave it to you to decide if this is true or not.”

And he hopes all of his methodologies and learnings will align best in Metroid: Other M, which he calls "the synthesis of all the know-how I’ve acquired and the culmination of all the things I’ve been envisioning in a serious touch title.

He believes he had a different role than a normal procducer, writing a story set between Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion. It reintroduces Adam Malkovich, who had appeared in Fusion – creating another instance of foreshadowing.

“I tell the story of Samus as a young girl and reveal her relationship with Adam, but that’s just a portion of Other M," he says.

Expressing Images

"Developing games is all about giving shape to images," he says. Throughout the course of my life I've come across many things: moments from movies or music, things created by peoplel, human beings themselves, objects, living creatures et cetera."

Continues Sakamoto: "My spirit has been moved by these interactions... I think these experiences create individual images that stick with us. From the perspective of someone who makes games, I believe that it’s our job to take those moments that our spirits have been moved, and represent them with understandable forms," he says.

"It’s our mission to give our images shapes that can be conveyed to other people.”

This philosophy crystallized for him long ago when his team received a Valentine's gift of chocolate from a woman who was a fan of the Famicom Detective Club games.

It made him realize that "What we create touches the heart and spirits of people," he says. Since then, he's begun imagining the faces of people, both whom he knows and those whom he doesn't, as he works. He tries to visualize "the best possible reaction on the faces of my imagined audience.”

For the developers at GDC, he concludes: "I hope that you will continue to convey the beautiful and fun things stored in your heart to the players who love games."

As many of you will know, I manage the Ubuntu Community team at Canonical where Daniel Holbach, Jorge Castro and David Planella work. Together we strive to make the Ubuntu community a fun, productive and engaging environment. This work involves a tremendous range of diverse disciplines and projects.

One thing that we have been really keen to facilitate in Ubuntu is an ethos of just do it. I really believe our community should feel engaged to be creative in their ideas and be able to get out there and do it, with plenty of support resources so others can help them achieve their goals. I am keen that we don’t have a bottleneck where creativity is limited. Of course, this happens from time to time, but we are always keen to resolve it where possible.

While Ubuntu has a great many projects going on at any one time, some of these projects I explicitly put on my radar so I can help contribute to make them successful, and some of these are projects that I have been happy for me and my team to commit their time to. Each of these projects is scoped for a six month cycle, and when we get a little closer to the 10.10 cycle we will start thinking of where we will focus our time in that cycle too.

In the Lucid cycle I was keen to track work on this set of projects in a more effective way. To do this the process worked a little like this:

• We first had a series of discussions at both UDS and online in which we discuss each project, what is involved and what targets and goals are in scope for the Lucid cycle. Targets beyond the Lucid cycle were explicitly deferred until the 10.10 cycle.
• The conclusions generated from these discussions were first documented as a Roadmap on the Ubuntu wiki. This provides a high-level set of goals that the project is striving for.
• We then produced a Blueprint for each project and a set of actions that are assigned to people. The blueprint is what we use to track progress on the project. The actions are stored in the whiteboard on the blueprint (which anyone can edit) and anyone can subscribe to the blueprint, which makes it great for keeping on track projects even if you are not involved in them.

The actions in the blueprint are stored in a set format, like this:

[jonobacon] An example action: TODO

In the above example, it clearly states who the action is assigned to (jonobacon on Launchpad), what it is (an example action) and it’s status (TODO). When an action is completed it is set to DONE and if we decide we want to bump it to next cycle, it is marked as POSTPONED.

This process in itself offers some key benefits:

• Commitments to a given project are clearly scoped to a cycle.
• Work is assigned to people: this is a great way of getting things done. Project Management theory has long taught that publicly assigning work to people improves it’s chances of getting done.
• Transparent: anyone can subscribe to a blueprint. As an example, even though I am not managing the Desktop Experience team or contributing to their projects, I am interested in their work, so I subscribe to a number of their blueprints. Each time the state of an action changes, I then get an automated email with the update. This is great for keeping up to date with their work.

With a bunch of blueprints that follow this format, I then approve a number of them as projects that my team will help have oversight on and help them to succeed. Some of these projects are driven by my team and I, but many of them are entirely community driven projects that I assign my team to have oversight over.

The legendary Martin Pitt then wrote a script to take this range of blueprints and actions and generate a burndown chart. Here is my team’s as of today:

It works like this: the Y axis is the number of actions in the blueprints I have approved for my team, and the X axis is the time until the end of the cycle (it is a little shorter as the graph was regenerated). The thick line through the middle of the chart is the trend line. My responsibility as a manager is to help keep the number of completed actions (shown as green) under the trend line: this ensures that we are on track for completing the committed actions throughout the cycle.

This was a pretty new concept for our community and of course the community is not expected to follow this way of working, but I have been stunned at how everyone has worked hard to stick to the actions they committed to and see the work through. As such this has felt like a really great cycle with some stunning work going on. Thanks everyone for your contributions!

BlackBerry users may be ready to move on to other smartphone platforms, suggesting that RIM isn't keeping up with consumer demand in its efforts to combat growing encroachment from the likes of iPhone and Android. In fact, two in five BlackBerry owners plan to swap their current device for an iPhone when it's time to upgrade, according to market researcher firm Crowd Science.

The iPhone has had a lasting effect on the smartphone market, changing the conception of what a smartphone should be almost overnight after the launch of the original iPhone in 2007. Despite RIM's entrenchment among business users, however, the iPhone platform has grown at a faster rate than the BlackBerry over the last year.

Perhaps the trend can be explained by Crowd Science's findings that many are using their smartphones for both personal and business use. Nearly a third of iPhone owners use their device for strictly personal use, versus just 16 percent for BlackBerry users. Just one percent of iPhone owners use their device for business only—no surprise there—so two-thirds are using an iPhone for business and personal use. And, while the BlackBerry has a reputation as the best enterprise mobile device, a scant seven percent of BlackBerrys users dedicate the device to business use only. That leaves over three-quarters of BlackBerry owners using their device for dual purposes.

The iPhone isn't the only platform attracting the attention of BlackBerry users, though. Interest in Android-based devices has grown since the introduction of Google's Nexus One, with 32 percent of BlackBerry users surveyed saying they would swap their current device for a Nexus One.

"These results show that the restlessness of BlackBerry users with their current brand hasn't just been driven by the allure of iPhone," John Martin, CEO of Crowd Science, said in a statement. "Rather, BlackBerry as a brand just isn't garnering the loyalty seen with other mobile operating systems."

About 90 percent of current iPhone and Android users plan to stick with their current platform for their next phone upgrade.

Read the comments on this post

BlackBerry users may be ready to move on to other smartphone platforms, suggesting that RIM isn't keeping up with consumer demand in its efforts to combat growing encroachment from the likes of iPhone and Android. In fact, two in five BlackBerry owners plan to swap their current device for an iPhone when it's time to upgrade, according to market researcher firm Crowd Science.

The iPhone has had a lasting effect on the smartphone market, changing the conception of what a smartphone should be almost overnight after the launch of the original iPhone in 2007. Despite RIM's entrenchment among business users, however, the iPhone platform has grown at a faster rate than the BlackBerry over the last year.

Perhaps the trend can be explained by Crowd Science's findings that many are using their smartphones for both personal and business use. Nearly a third of iPhone owners use their device for strictly personal use, versus just 16 percent for BlackBerry users. Just one percent of iPhone owners use their device for business only—no surprise there—so two-thirds are using an iPhone for business and personal use. And, while the BlackBerry has a reputation as the best enterprise mobile device, a scant seven percent of BlackBerrys users dedicate the device to business use only. That leaves over three-quarters of BlackBerry owners using their device for dual purposes.

The iPhone isn't the only platform attracting the attention of BlackBerry users, though. Interest in Android-based devices has grown since the introduction of Google's Nexus One, with 32 percent of BlackBerry users surveyed saying they would swap their current device for a Nexus One.

"These results show that the restlessness of BlackBerry users with their current brand hasn't just been driven by the allure of iPhone," John Martin, CEO of Crowd Science, said in a statement. "Rather, BlackBerry as a brand just isn't garnering the loyalty seen with other mobile operating systems."

About 90 percent of current iPhone and Android users plan to stick with their current platform for their next phone upgrade.

Read the comments on this post

BlackBerry users may be ready to move on to other smartphone platforms, suggesting that RIM isn't keeping up with consumer demand in its efforts to combat growing encroachment from the likes of iPhone and Android. In fact, two in five BlackBerry owners plan to swap their current device for an iPhone when it's time to upgrade, according to market researcher firm Crowd Science.

The iPhone has had a lasting effect on the smartphone market, changing the conception of what a smartphone should be almost overnight after the launch of the original iPhone in 2007. Despite RIM's entrenchment among business users, however, the iPhone platform has grown at a faster rate than the BlackBerry over the last year.

Perhaps the trend can be explained by Crowd Science's findings that many are using their smartphones for both personal and business use. Nearly a third of iPhone owners use their device for strictly personal use, versus just 16 percent for BlackBerry users. Just one percent of iPhone owners use their device for business only—no surprise there—so two-thirds are using an iPhone for business and personal use. And, while the BlackBerry has a reputation as the best enterprise mobile device, a scant seven percent of BlackBerrys users dedicate the device to business use only. That leaves over three-quarters of BlackBerry owners using their device for dual purposes.

The iPhone isn't the only platform attracting the attention of BlackBerry users, though. Interest in Android-based devices has grown since the introduction of Google's Nexus One, with 32 percent of BlackBerry users surveyed saying they would swap their current device for a Nexus One.

"These results show that the restlessness of BlackBerry users with their current brand hasn't just been driven by the allure of iPhone," John Martin, CEO of Crowd Science, said in a statement. "Rather, BlackBerry as a brand just isn't garnering the loyalty seen with other mobile operating systems."

About 90 percent of current iPhone and Android users plan to stick with their current platform for their next phone upgrade.

Read the comments on this post

Ever since Owen Van Natta stepped down as CEO of MySpace last month, there has been a lot of speculation surrounding the future of the social networking site. Can it function with two co-presidents? Can it turn things around and restart its growth? Can it remake and re-imagine itself for today’s social web?

We know one thing: The company is building and implementing a new plan. As it focuses on becoming “pillars of broadcasting, discovery, self-expression, and making content a part of all those experiences,” it’s also looking to re-establish itself as a technology company that is ahead of the game in terms of innovation and talent.

To that end, MySpace is shifting its technical focus into smaller, more entrepreneurial teams and embracing a data-centric approach to building its platform and its organization. We had a chance to chat with MySpace CTO Alex Maghen about what to expect in the coming months.

Can MySpace Return to Tech Prominence?

In my first Social Analyst column, I argued that MySpace had become more of a content company than a technology company. After Facebook surpassed it as the world’s largest social network, the website floundered and the company slashed 30% of its staff.

It’s been a rough road since, but now the company’s finally trying to rebuild, starting with its technology and engineering talent. Mr. Maghen, the former CTO of MySpace Music before his promotion, told me that it wants to become a technology leader once again. To that end, MySpace is breaking the structure of the organization into smaller, more entrepreneurial teams that operate “with a higher degree of independence.” He believes that a single, unified product can and should come from multiple, smaller teams and technology platforms.

The goals Alex and the MySpace leadership have for its technology platform seem straightforward: to become more data-centric and to attract top-tier talent back to the social network. Here’s some more of what he told me:

“The focus is to put a new stress on bringing in the kind of developers that flourish in a startup environment and giving them a platform to work on that allows them to continue to develop with that kind of looser and more agile type of approach, with the tremendous scale we bring to the table.”

To that end, MySpace is looking to hire engineers with great knowledge of Internet development. More specifically, it’s looking for “hardcore data architects” and “experts in data development.”

If MySpace is to truly rebound, it has to be seen as a technology company as well as a content company. In order to do that, you need the kind of top-level talent that Facebook, Twitter and Google have. The company knows that it has been slower than its competitors, which is why the new overarching strategy for the technology group is “speed to market.”

As a proponent of the “Iterate Fast and Release Often” philosophy to engineering and entrepreneurship, I’m of the belief that the company’s new focus on speed and data is not only logical, but the best shot it has to returning to prominence. That’s not easy task, though, and the odds are stacked against MySpace.

It Starts at the Top

Today, MySpace is going to announce that it has hired Arvind Puri as its vice president of data platform to help lead MySpace’s new technology efforts. Mr. Puri was formerly the CTO of Buzznet/Buzzmedia, and before that worked on technology at the Los Angeles Times, Yahoo and Overture. He will be responsible for leading MySpace’s new data initiatives and helping transform that information into useful and actionable insights.

MySpace is also announcing a second hire: Tony Adam, who it snatched up from startup BillShrink to become its senior manager of online marketing. While at BillShrink, he was the director of search marketing.

Both will play a big role in the future of MySpace. The company is working on building a new artist website, a new movie experience, reputation badges, an overhauled user dashboard and even MySpace trending topics by summer 2010. If the company’s to succeed in launching all of these initiatives, it will have to be fast, agile and able to attract talent.

These changes are a step in the right direction, but it remains to be seen if they will stick and, if they do, whether or not it will result in a renaissance for MySpace.

Tags: Arvind Puri, billshrink, myspace, tech, Tony Adam

Windows: It may not stick around that long once the powers that be find out, so if downloading and watching Hulu videos offline could help you out, grab StreamTransport. The tricky little app provides full-quality captures of streaming shows and movies. We’ve previously pointed out a Hulu Video Downloader that did a more robust job of [...]

Sony, créateur des Memory Stick, se lance dans les SDHC...

Sometimes I like taking the latest releases of Fedora Linux for a spin. There aren't any guides for quickly getting Fedora's usb creator working on Ubuntu.  So I decided to change that.

Download Fedora Alpha here (I strongly suggest using the torrent so it's verified automatically)
*Note* you could also choose to get a stable version of Fedora, as Alpha can mean the usual, aka data loss, losing access to your Ubuntu drive if you install it, or the network card on your computer becoming permanently made useless, etc.

Get the file: liveusb-creator-3.9.tar.bz2 (140K) (under Source)
https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator/

Install the following dependencies - which I believe would all be installed by:
apt:python-qt4-dbus,python-parted

Extract the liveusb-creator-**** file.  Run with following command:
gksudo "./liveusb-creator --noverify"

Then follow the on-screen instruction. Enjoy testing!

Couple of testing points:

• On initial bootup, just press enter when you see "boot:"
• Just wait when you get to the login screen, it will eventually log you in.  Don't try clicking on anything, it doesn't seem to like it.