Category: Digital Entertainment

Digital Entertainment related topics – Video, Photos, Gaming etc…

Path of Exile – Crowdsourcing Funds

Image Credit: Grinding Gears (Path of Exile) - Supporters pack Kiwi (in game pet)The very excellent MMO “Path of Exile” by Kiwi game developer Grinding Gear Games has managed to raise US$2.5 million (yes that’s million, little finger to the corner of your mouth Dr Evil styles…) through crowd-sourcing future development funds from the online gaming community.

This is not the first success they’ve had with funding via the web but, as an indicator – the climbing value of funding is testament to the belief their community has in the work they are doing with the game.

A personal HUGE congratulations goes out from my keyboard to the Grinding Gear team, it’s awesome to see New Zealand companies doing so well on the world stage without resorting to filling paddocks with cows. 🙂

Technology and Recreation – a recipie for AWESOME

For gadget geeks like myself, there’s always been an opportunity to mix technology with what we do when AFK (away from keyboard).

My first heart monitor watch *had* to be imported because no one in this country was selling the IR receiver (connecting through a DB9 (serial) cable no less.. for the more normal, serial cables were “how things were done” before the simplicity of USB arrived). Continue reading “Technology and Recreation – a recipie for AWESOME”

Awesome Siverlight / Photosynth Demo

New Zealand Microsoftie Nigel Parker had a demo slot to fill at the WEB09 event and, after a chat with a colleague, decided to use crowd sourced images tagged as New Zealand to promote our beautiful country. The embedded video is the result of his frantic 3 days work where he used these images to present a truly stunning example of what a mix of Siverlight, Photosynth and SmoothStreaming video can do.

NZsynth Demo shown in the Keynote at WEB09 from Nigel Parker on Vimeo.

You can read more of the detail here on his blog, and he’s certainly worth a follow on twitter or friendfeed.

Mad props Nigel – incredibly awesome stuff.

NZ Copyright Act Section 92a

Changes to the copyright act may see people removed from the internet on the basis of 3 ACCUSATIONS of infringement. This clause was reinserted by the government AFTER industry feedback explained how unworkable this would be.

Okay, I’ve been sitting on this for awhile but, while I’m still to angry about the changes to post objectively just yet, I thought I’d link in some other commentaries.

I encourage you all to follow the links, read up on what this could mean to internet users in New Zealand, and to make some noise! (it is election year after all)

Can we believe our eyes?

A friend of mine wrote a post pondering the believability of images now that digital capture tools and manipulation programs are so accessible to whomever wants them. Specifically he raised the question also raised by newsweek in this article. Dale went on to ask the question “what about photos of – say – someone committing a crime? Useless in a court of law?”

I think his concerns were addressed by other commenters, but the question got me to thinking, and that started off what ended up being something of an epic comment of my own, which I’ll repost here to remind me to return to this subject later after a bit more research as it’s quite an interesting issue that Dale has raised.

Continue reading “Can we believe our eyes?”

Installing Ubuntu 8.04 on the ASUS EEE

Okay, so I did a painless upgrade from 7.10 to 8.04 LTS while it was still in pre-release, but now that I’ve been playing around with the system for awhile, it’s apparent that my needs are changing and the easiest way to cater to these needs is a full reinstall from scratch, putting in place the learnings I’ve gained since initially getting the EEE and blowing away the default Xandros installation.

Update 19/05/2008: Added a few more applications to the HOWTO

Update 22/05/2008: Added a ‘Weirdness’ Section after having problems removing files from Trash.

Continue reading “Installing Ubuntu 8.04 on the ASUS EEE”

The Death of a Blog…

I transitioned my content from the World of Warcraft blog I originally set up back in 2006, back into this site today. I’ve been having issues maintaining the discipline to post regularly in this blog, let alone attempt to maintain another blog devoted to the wonderful World of Warcraft thus, in an effort to simplify my online hosting, I’ve killed off the blog and moved the content. Sorry WoW Blog, we didn’t really seem to hit it off… /mourn

UK Bank blocking WoW payments

Just got sent a link by a friend (who doesn’t quite understand my addiction, but that’s another post) to an article on how Halifax Bank in the UK has blocked payments to the World or Warcraft subscription servers, quoting “a significant number of fraudulent transactions through Blizzard’s gaming sites” as the motivation behind this move.

Personally I find this an interesting move as, to the best of my understanding, UK banks are not beholden to sort out fraudulent transactions, the onus being on the card owner to prove their innocence – this is the complete opposite of US/NZ banks (including other countries) who will deal to the fraud themselves, leaving the subscriber only liable for the first $50 of the fraud.
The limit of risk for non-UK cardholders certainly may drive less responsible behavior than that of their UK compatriots who are in the stink for the whole amount.
Factor in also the lack of security many World of Warcraft players apply to their account details, and the source of the add-ons they install and it doesn’t take a security expert to see who so many Warcraft accounts get hacked by dirty, stinking, toon raping, gold farming, sell off everything you’ve ever quested for… scumbags.

I kind of think it’s a responsible move as it forces the user to make a conscious and active choice around their payments – and you know how I feel about trusting the end user…

Mythbuntu 7.10 Released!

While I haven’t played with MythTV for quite awhile, I was pretty excited to learn that the Mythbuntu project has released their latest update to bring themselves into line with the 7.10 Gutsy release.

MythbuntuI’m going to download an ISO of the latest build to try out on one of my machines at home – I’ve got a wee plan for a possible front end client machine already <insert evil cackling>