August 2007 Archives

Chris Stubbs points to a story of how PSU quarter back Anthony Morelli used a commercial console football game as a training tool. Of course football video games have been around for a long time, and as such have had ample time to grow more detailed with well-honed interfaces and mechanics. I wonder where we would be today if there was a well funded effort around educational gaming for the past twenty years. Just like public broadcasting in the United States transformed television's use with shows like Sesame Street and Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, imagine the uses of educational games that could be realized. Today we could have games that might be able to inform and enlighten in a way that is currently unknown.

I must give credit to this piece, Why We Need a Corporation for Public Gaming, that first turned me on to this analogy of public broadcasting and public gaming. Thanks to del.icio.us I was able to re-find this web page.

With my last mobile phone, text messages I would receive would pop up on my Mac thanks to Apple's addressbook app and bluetooth. I could also compose/reply to text messages using my computer. It was a lot easier than pulling my phone out of my pocket to read and using the phone keyboard to write.

In a lot of ways sms has replaced IM for me. I wish I didn't have to switch to using a different device to use it while I am at my computer.

The only feature that the iPhone's bluetooth supports is headset. I am surprised Apple didn't include this feature. Perhaps it has something to do with the way iPhone organizes text messages into an iChat-esque interface. Ideally I would love to have iChat be able to display the messages on my phone so I could access the exact same data, in the same way, on both my phone or computer.

One can dream.