eReaders and digital books – doomed?

Has anyone seen any good examples of digital comic books? (on eReaders or otherwise) If so, please comment.

I’ve come to think of comic books as my pulpy guilty pleasure. but I can’t stand them in any digital form I’ve seen. Whenever the-inevitable-transition-to-eBooks comes up, i think about comics. I’m sure I’ll enjoy fine literature in an eReader (potentially much easier to look up words, or references, influences, other people’s insights, etc.). But I think this is because some part of me treats reading “great literature” as a form of work. I can’t deny that eReaders offer many advantages as a tool for exploring great literature.

Sony brings back Strap-On Displays

This gamasutra story caught my eye: Sony 3D Headset Coming To Japan This November.
so I posted this comment:

classically, VR goggles (“strap ons”) never caught on because:
- there was too much light/heat too close to your eyeballs (slight cookage). But maybe OLEDs won’t have this problem?

Sleeping Gods: The meaning of “video games” (as computer-driven interaction systems?)

This was initially posted as a response to Tadhg Kelly’s blog post Techthulhu [Games and Future Fantasy] [@ whatGamesAre.com].

I think lack of sleep, yesterday’s ruminations on biometrics, and a few weeks of dissecting the philosophy behind joss whedon’s entertainment efforts all came together for me just now, to make a perfectly crazy ass rant. I started to re-read this and cringed. it might seem to contradict itself from once sentence to the next? is it one of THOSE crazy-as-fuck level rants? … huh. I dunno. but some of it struck me as very interesting. So i’m recording it here in my blog. hopefully revisit later (to either rethink it, or revise it to be easier to read). woof.
:::

User Feedback based design, and Biometrics

I’ve become very interested in “redesigning the game, after I gather mass of data.”
(I guess it’d be neat to change a game on the fly while gathering usage feedback, but since the tools I would use aren’t going to be widespread anytime soon – much more interested in iterating on a game which can end up widely distributed).

copyright: Do copies need to be physical? (duplication vs. translation?)

Reading this “Did Watson Succeed On Jeopardy By Infringing Copyrights?” article got me thinking about copyright again.

Someone commented that OF COURSE google book scanning is copyright infringement. here is my (perhaps naive) reply:

Analyzing Fighting Forms (cameras, stats, private communities)

Would be cool if gyms sold videos as a standard service.

Just setup a couple flip cams around the room, covering the ring from all angles? When anyone steps into the ring, a recording starts (records to disk). Or maybe you trigger it by pressing a button before you start your sparring session. $2 to 5 bucks to download the giant raw recording via usb or simcard. maybe a couple more bucks for a dvd of it to be burned and delivered – next day. No restriction from recording your own videos for free, with your own equipment. This would just be a for-your-convenience cheapo service.

hmm.
HMMM!

and someday soon, you could setup kinect cameras,

CES 2011 – Surface 2

EL DOSurface logo

This post is suppost to keep track of interesting news that’s shooting out left and right from CES this week. (Like Xolotl’s dying sperm shots in Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light). (the tragedy here, is that I don’t know ANYONE who cares about this CES tech shit half as much as I do)

Microsoft Surface version 2
(aka Samsung’s SUR40 tv) sounds awesome. AWESOME! I’m stunned this isn’t bigger news. … I guess people see it as a giant iPad that costs more than twice most high end tvs? (or they will soon? if they ever even hear about it?) butttttt. What’s really exciting is the “pixelsense” tech, which claims to be a bunch of camera sensors mixed in with the pixels, turning the whole display into a camera. Apple patented this years ago. but, microsoft made it. HMM! (actually, no one has laid out the tech exactly. who knows how many sensors there are).

I’ll rant more about below, after listing off some interesting tech announcements

Rock Band 3 changes everything with Pro mode.

I bought the keytar RockBand3 bundle. I bought the cymbals to upgrade my beatle’s Ringo drum kit. I have three mics (but only one mic stand). I have the old original rockband guitar (plus the original red PS2 guitar hero[GH] guitar, white xbox GH2 guitar, wireless black gibson GH guitar). I’ve purchased almost every Harmonix game (but stopped buying GH titles after the Aerosmith tie in).

Last night I received my madcatz “Mustang pro guitar” and played with it for a couple hours. BLEW MY FUCKING MIND. I couldn’t be more excited about the music game genre right now.
So here are my ranting comments, in response to a Gamasutra article about why music games are over. SIGH)

PHASEtable: projector testing

uh, I currently don’t feel like posting detailed rants about all the ways in which I don’t think the NEC WT510 project I have will work for a multitouch table.
I tried a couple things with it. soo. i’m just going to poop out this “diary” entry to be done with it. better to focus on success! which will be coming soon. i’m sure.

so. ahem.

why iPhone wins

A friend just sent me this vid

I lost my temper in my reply. Which people usually find funny. sooo, why not preserve it for all time in my blog:

uhhh,
I love my iPhone. It’s all about the OS. Reliable and speedy.

[My girlfriend] hates Apple (but loves Google), and recently upgraded her cell phone to some motorola shit. oops, it’s locked to only run an old version of Android. She can’t use many of her favorite apps until Motorola decides to stop sucking it’s own balls.
thbbt. Android is too fragmented. Letting different carriers lock out features is horrific. (she likes a certain navigation map, but it’s locked out because Motorola wants to sell it’s competing, shittier, paid nav app).

* I’ve heard the HTC Evo is cool.
- But it’s bigger screen has lower resolution than apple’s smaller screen. So Apple’s is smaller and looks better.
- And I’ve yet to play with a phone that is as fast or responsive as Apple’s.

* I googled HTC Evo multitouch and here is first video I found: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieuB0VvkmwA
“kinda sluggish but…” well, fuck that. This video also points out that Nexus one had known bug where multitouch didn’t even work? what the fuck?

* Everyone who attacks the iPhone, ends up touting some shitty competitor for all the wrong reasons. “Hey I can plug a dick into my HTC Evo. Can yer iPhon do tha?”
Well I don’t care about that shit. I want the fastest and most reliable for day to day use.

* HTC Evo no doubt wins by having 4G. But I’d never get to its web browser to check this out, because I’d be too busy frowning at the shitty slow OS. Some future iPhone will have 4G, and I have no interest in going back to the wastelands of competing cell phone fuckery.

I AM RAGE

p.s. sorry if i missed the point of your video.