Bloggin

In other news for the night, my hookah has arrived, and it is glorious! I put off finishing my parts of the paper for a few hours to spend a significant amount of time figuring out why my new investment wasn’t producing nearly enough smoke (for some reason, the plug/stopper had a giant hole through it, which I eventually fixed with some freshly chewed gum) and then to introduce about 20g of shisha into my body. I think the massive amounts of nicotine were hugely beneficial to the completion of our final project, and I look forward to indulging in plenty more hookah fun throughout all of next week (no finals!). If anyone wants to play music during this time of frivolity, do get in touch!

I was responsible for the following sections/sub-sections:

• Socio-Technical Analysis
• Professional Support of Thesis: Dr. Massimiliano Vasile
• Professional Support of Thesis: Dr. Gary An
• Future Technologies and Applications of Thesis

Below is an iPaper document containing my contributions. If you would like a good old-fashioned PDF, you can grab it from here.


Note: There will probably be a few minor changes made to my parts at some point tomorrow, but I would guess that this is 99.43% representative of what’s actually submitted.

[As mentioned in some of my previous blog posts, my group's final presentation will be focused on science fiction and its ability to predict future technologies. My specific part of the presentation will focus on more recent predictions of technologies that are expected within the next century.]

Assuming that science fiction is, in fact, an accurate indicator of future technology (which we believe to be true, as supported by my group members, Chris and Rolland), what fun innovations should we expect to be seeing within the duration of our lifetimes? Here are a few examples of predictions, mostly taken from Trivia-Library, made by the likes of Brian Aldiss, James Blish, D.G. Compton, Hugo Gernsback, Joe Haldeman, Robert A. Heinlein, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells:

• Automatic clothes-making machines, which obtain the user's measurements and produce on the spot
• Gene therapy as preventive medicine
• Weather Control
• Temperature-controlled couches
• Moving conveyor roadways
  
• DNA repair/replacement
• Sound bombs
• Electromagnetic tube elevators, no cables
  
• Computers that translate 10 languages simultaneously
• Computers hook directly into students' minds for accelerated learning
• Suspended animation for extended spaceflight
  
• Human life-span predicting machine
• The cosmiflyer, a 6-in. cosmic power generator strapped to one's back, is used for short-distance aerial transit
• Sound waves employed to expand vegetable cells (and man's food supply) a thousand times over
• Thought recorders
• Nuclear satellite bombs
• Iridium wire spirals at street corners, change night into day
• Ultrahigh-frequency electronic baths to remove dirt and other foreign particles from the human body
• Underwater air guns using glass electric shells that shock their prey
• The "stasis field," a special kind of force field, renders all radiation, electricity, light, and magnetism inert (including the atom bomb) and makes conventional weapons obsolete
• Manipulation of matter at the atomic scale, combining elements to build custom molecules and providing the world with new materials and medicines
• Electronic glass pane air-conditioning units
• Wireless and synthesized 3D viewers, allowing individuals to interact and conduct business with people not really there (but seem to be)
• Anticrime devices, which render felons rigid and helpless for 15 minutes
• Amplifiers that will pick up sounds in a house 20 mi. away
• Individual force fields enable the adventurous to sleep nude in snowstorms
• Faster-than-light spaceships
• Laser weapons
• 3D tape recorders
  
• Total absorption of radar waves, a radar cloaking device
  
• Amputated limbs and damaged organs can be regrown from their stumps
• Transatlantic rocket flights and commercial rocket travel
• Permanent settlements on the moon
  

Exciting, is it not? While I expect that some of these concepts will take decades to become reality (weather control, commercial rocket travel, iridium wire spirals that turn night into day), several hardly seem unrealistic (automatic clothes-making machines, gene therapy, sound bombs, human life-span predicting machines). As suggested by the article "Where Has All the Sci-Fi Gone?", it's becoming more and more difficult for writers to make incredibly futuristic claims. Because information technology grows at an exponential rate (see video below - it's long, but informative), the more we advance, the harder it becomes for writers/futurists to keep pace. To add insult to their injury, we (the audience) have become accustomed to this accelerated rate of development, so the bar for shocking/impressing us has also risen. Despite these disadvantages, though, we still feel that science fiction is a legitimate tool for predicting future technologies for some time.


While there are certainly no shortage of predictions to explore, I find the most interesting area of future technology to be that of singularity...

According to Arthur C. Clarke, a famous science fiction author, inventor and futurist (whose works have foreshadowed technologies such as video phones, e-mail, space travel, laptops, and cloning), artificial intelligence will reach human levels by the year 2020, marking the existence of two intelligent species on earth - one biological, one non-biological. Another renowned inventor and futurist, Raymond Kurzweil, who has his own extensive list of predictions and was featured in the above video, estimates the following timeline (courtesy of Wikipedia):

• 2010 - Supercomputers will have the same power as human brains
• 2020 - Personal computers will have the same processing power as human brains
• 2030 - Mind uploading becomes possible - Nano-machines could be directly inserted into the brain and could interact with brain cells to totally control incoming and outgoing signals. As a result, truly full-immersion virtual reality could be generated without the need for any external equipment
• 2040 - Human body 3.0 comes into existence. It lacks a fixed, corporeal form and can alter its shape and external appearance at will via foglet-like nano-technology. Organs are also replaced by superior cybernetic implants.
• 2045 - The Singularity
• $1000 buys a computer a billion times more intelligent than every human combined. This means that average and even low-end computers are infinitely smarter than even highly intelligent, unenhanced humans.
• The Singularity occurs as artificial intelligences surpass human beings as the smartest and most capable life forms on the Earth. Technological development is taken over by the machines, who can think, act and communicate so quickly that normal humans cannot even comprehend what is going on. The machines enter into a "runaway reaction" of self-improvement cycles, with each new generation of A.I.s appearing faster and faster. From this point onwards, technological advancement is explosive, under the control of the machines, and thus cannot be accurately predicted.
• The Singularity is an extremely disruptive, world-altering event that forever changes the course of human history. The extermination of humanity by violent machines is unlikely (though not impossible) because sharp distinctions between man and machine will no longer exist thanks to the existence of cybernetically enhanced humans and uploaded humans.
• Post-2045 - "Waking Up" the Universe
• The physical bottom limit to how small computer transistors can be shrunk is reached. From this moment onwards, computers can only be made more powerful if they are made larger in size.
• Because of this, A.I.s convert more and more of the Earth's matter into engineered, computational substrate capable of supporting more A.I.s. until the whole Earth is one, gigantic computer.
• At this point, the only possible way to increase the intelligence of the machines any farther is to begin converting all of the matter in the universe into similar massive computers. A.I.s radiate out into space in all directions from the Earth, breaking down whole planets, moons and meteoroids and reassembling them into giant computers. This, in effect, "wakes up" the universe as all the inanimate "dumb" matter (rocks, dust, gases, etc.) is converted into structured matter capable of supporting life (albeit synthetic life).
• Kurzweil predicts that machines might have the ability to make planet-sized computers by 2099, which underscores how enormously technology will advance after the Singularity.
• The process of "waking up" the universe could be complete as early as 2199, or might take billions of years depending on whether or not machines could figure out a way to circumvent the speed of light for the purposes of space travel.
• With the entire universe made into a giant, highly efficient supercomputer, A.I./human hybrids (so integrated that, in truth it is a new category of "life") would have both supreme intelligence and physical control over the universe. Kurzweil suggests that this would open up all sorts of new possibilities, including abrogation of the laws of Physics, interdimensional travel, and a possible infinite extension of existence (true immortality).

Pretty heavy stuff, right? And the scary part is that these futurists have exceptional track records when it comes to predicting future technologies. Could singularity really be just around the corner? And is this how the events following will unfold? Is this what we want? Do we even have the ability to change the outcome? Is it a matter of technological determinism or social constructivism?

I don't have the answers to these questions, but I do believe that these predictions are momentous (and probable) enough that we should be taking them seriously. These are technologies that may very well be irreversible. Once we cross the line of singularity, there could be no turning back. And before we cross the Rubicon, we should be prepared to face the consequences, which we might already be aware of, or then again maybe not.

As discussed in one of my earlier blog posts, two months ago it was announced that Microsoft, Google, IBM, and Yahoo were on board with OpenID. If you're not familiar with the technology, here's a quick summary provided by the always helpful Wikipedia, followed by a video explanation presented by Dave:

OpenID is a shared identity service, which allows internet users to log on to many different web sites using a single digital identity, eliminating the need for a different username and password for each site. It is a decentralized, free and open standard that lets users control the amount of personal information they provide.

Essentially, OpenID is a system that facilitates a single universal login and profile for each user. There's a great deal to be said about the technology's benefits to users:

• Only one set of credentials to be concerned with
  
• No more registering for every other site on the Internet
• Improved analytics, resulting in better recommendations, integration, and advertising
  

as well as some concerns over how our information is being tracked, exploited and sold to third parties.

Today, however, the topic of discussion is crime in technology. And the most prominent issue I'm foreseeing with the rise of OpenID is its vulnerability to identity theft, which is already a rising problem with current security practices.

According to IdentityTheftSecurity.com, there are four primary methods of "high-tech" identity theft:

• Hacking - stealing users' information from website networks and databases
  
• Phishing - imitating legitimate organizations and fooling users to send private information
  
• Trojans - computer program hidden in software applications that give hackers access to users' computers
• Spyware - inconspicuously logging users' internet activity and sending results to third parties
  (although I'm not sure I would classify spyware as identity theft)
  

There are plenty of well-known precautions to be taken in order to prevent identity theft, yet we frequently neglect them. And even if we do take the utmost care in following the safe-internet-use rules, there's still a very real chance that our identities can be stolen. This is true even for the computer savvy 18-25 demographic that most of us fall into. For past generations, who, as a whole, know alarmingly little about modern technology, the odds are much worse. The most desirable victims (the older folk, who actually have money in their bank accounts and higher limits on their credit cards) tend to be the easiest targets...ridiculously easy. Let's take a moment to demonstrate how one might go about stealing the identity. We'll discuss phishing, as it's probably the simplest approach.

To elaborate a little on the previous definition, I've borrowed from F-Secure.com:

Phishing is an impersonation of a corporation or other trusted institution. The goal of the impersonation is to extract passwords or other sensitive information from the victim. It is a form of criminal activity that utilizes social engineering techniques. Phishing is typically done using e-mail or an instant messaging program. The attempt of the message is to appear to be from an authentic source so that victim will either directly respond, or will open a URL link to a fake web site run by the criminals.

Here's what we'll need to do in preparation:

1. spend about $10/month on a domain (preferably one similar to the name of the institute we're trying to mimic - if we're going to be First National Bank, then we might try to get the domain 1stNational.org, which seems to be available),
2. pull down the HTML files and images from the actual site we're going to replicate (File -> Save Page As and make sure the type is set to "Webpage, complete"),
3. make a few minor tweaks (so any form information submitted will be stored in our database or sent to our e-mail),
4. then upload these slightly modified files to our new domain.

And now we're ready to go. Here's a little snippet of PHP that allows us to send mass e-mails, probably to a large list of recipients that we've purchased from some third party who gets their information from spyware:

<?php

function sendEmail($name, $email) {

$to = $name . " <" . $email . ">";
$subject = "Account Confirmation";
$message = "Body of e-mail goes here.";
$headers = "From: First National Bank Customer Service <CustomerService@1stNational.org>\r\n

Reply-To: First National Bank Customer Service <CustomerService@1stNational.org>";

$mail_sent = @mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
echo $mail_sent ? "Mail sent.<br />" : "Mail failed.<br />";

}

?>

Replace the subject variable with a formal-sounding message, explaining that there has been some suspicious use of the individual's account (logging in from distant locations, perhaps), and in order to prevent identity theft, it is recommended that the individual follow a provided link, log in using existing credentials, confirm his/her account number, then change the password. To make the whole scheme seamless, you might want to then have your website send a confirmation that the user's password has been changed, and then you could actually modify the user's password on the legitimate sight. And there you sit, with all the passwords and banking information of every individual that believed your e-mail was real.

I have never done, or even thought of doing, anything like this before. You shouldn't either - don't be an assbag. The reason I posted the process was because I was surprised/frightened by how simple the whole ordeal is. It's no rocket science, and anyone with a little bit of computer knowledge (who would actually be willing to do something like this) could easily put together a similar operation...and get away with it. The scary thing about OpenID is that they only need to get away with it once. One simple scam and they have the credentials to every site you visit on the internet and every piece of information you store in your profile. All the eggs will be in one basket, making for a very desirable target.

APRIL 4 - Pittsburgh Pair Claims Privacy Invaded By Posting of Home Photo -- A Pittsburgh couple is suing Google for invasion of privacy, claiming that the web giant's popular "Street View" mapping feature has made a photo of their home available to online searchers. Aaron and Christine Boring accuse Google of an "intentional and/or grossly reckless invasion" of their seclusion and privacy since they live on a street that is "clearly marked with a 'Private Road' sign," according to a lawsuit the couple filed this week in Allegheny County's Court of Common Pleas.

If you've never used Google's Street View feature on Maps, you can watch the short introductory video below and then (just a little bit farther down) try the functionality out for yourself with the embedded Street View map of Anchorage, Alaska.

View Larger Map
I intentionally selected a not-so-heavily-trafficked residential area to demonstrate the more intrusive side of Google's Street View. As you can see, you have a front-row seat to just about any house in the neighborhood, and if you zoom in, you can walk right up the driveway and onto the porch of some of the homes. It's understandable that habitants dwelling in Street View-able areas might be concerned. Millions of strangers can freely roam the streets and inspect the layout and landscape of any house near a road. For those with children, this is even more alarming. What a convenient tool for potential predators and burglars! Even more worrying, perhaps, is knowing that this is just the beginning of our home privacy concerns. Take a minute to watch the PhotoSynth demonstration below.


While Google's Street View might be too close for comfort to some, the potential of PhotoSynth digs deeper, reaching degrees of privacy invasion that even the more carefree individuals might consider threatening. According to an article on ReadWriteWeb,

The Street View maps are developed in partnership with Immersive Media, which, according to the O'Reilly Radar blog, is "a company that has an eleven lens camera capable of taking full, high-res video while driving along city streets." What that means is that these Street View maps, because they are extracted from video shot while driving, are not just static images at random points around the city. They can be advanced fluidly down the street.

In order to create the Street View experience, Google had to send out vehicles equipped with these super cameras to roam the city streets. I don't think we need to worry about them getting too much closer, because I doubt the day will come when cameramen are knocking on our doors, asking to be let in our homes to film for Google Maps.

PhotoSynth, on the other hand, isn't limited to the resources of a single organization. Because the technology utilizes the metadata associated with each image, it doesn't matter where the media is coming from. If it's available on the internet and properly tagged, it can be used to construct a three-dimensional representation of the real world. Pictures taken at parties, holidays, or during rainy afternoons lounging around the house, whatever the occasion, are fair game if they're posted online. And because of the nature of our photo-sharing (Facebook, WebShots, Flickr, blogs, personal webpages, etc.), it wouldn't be hard for friends, family and peers to tag any information that might be left out. Before long, anyone could take a full tour of your home or business from the comfort of their computer chair. Even one album of photos might be enough to reconstruct the interior of a building.

The end result? If the proper precautions aren't made, then just about anybody might be able to take a virtual tour of the inside of your house. A cool technology in many respects, but with the benefits we'll need to take the privacy and security issues as well.

MMORPGs have countless aspects worth studying. I could probably devote my entire life to learning about the socio-technical issues floating around this fairly recent gaming phenomenon. Unfortunately, I have not the time nor motivation to do so. Instead, I've taken a few topics and provided some quick overviews. For all of the blurbs, I've chosen to focus on World of Warcraft (WoW), as it is the most popular of the MMORPGs and the only one I have personal experience with.

Objectives of Gameplay
Before getting into some of the more in-depth topics, I thought it might be appropriate to explain how these kind of games work, for anyone who might not be familiar. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia's entry for World of Warcraft:

As with other MMORPGs, people control a character avatar within a persistent game world, exploring the landscape, fighting monsters, performing quests, building skills, and interacting with NPCs, as well as other players. The game rewards success with money, items, experience and reputation, all of which in turn allow players to improve their skill and power. Players can level up their characters from level one to level 60, level 70 if they have The Burning Crusade expansion.

And below are some clips taken from YouTube that might help you visualize the process. The first is an official trailer from Blizzard. For the rest, I intentionally avoided videos with music, cinema scenes and fast camera cuts. This is what the game is. This is what people do, for hours upon hours upon hours, leveling up for new weapons, abilities, and places to explore. Once you get to the higher levels, you can slay other players as well, but it doesn't look much more exciting than other kinds of gameplay.

Motivations for Playing
Recently, Nick Yee, administrator of the Daedalus Project,set out to find the answer to the question, "What exactly drives people to play these games?". He asked players to "read through a set of motivations [generated from earlier findings] and pick the one that was most important to them". I'm not sure if the survey was open to unique responses, but the list seemed to be pretty comprehensive, and I don't think this would be cause for any significant inaccuracies. Below is a chart of the findings.

As you can see in the chart above, progress appears to be the most motivating aspect of play. Based on my experience, I couldn't agree more. The reward system is ingenious. At any given point, there is always a desirable skill or weapon that's only 2-5 levels away. It seems so close, and it makes playing an extra five hours (on top of the eight you've already played that weekend) completely feasible. And, guess what? As soon as you obtain your goal, there's another equally appealing treat dangling in front of your face and it's just as close. Progress is, by far, the most addictive aspect of WoW in my mind, and I believe that was the intention when the game was designed.

At first, I was a little surprised to see how highly socialization scored. But after realizing that it was only applicable for females and seeing some other research online, it made a little more sense. See the "Playing with Romantic Partners and Family Members" section.

Gender Composition
According to the Daedalus Project, the real-life gender distribution of WoW is 84% male v. 16% female. I didn't find the numbers particularly surprising, as I probably would have estimated an 85:15 or 80:20 ratio myself. I assume that the figures were calculated either from account holders' subscription information (which, not seeing any obvious incentive to lie, I think would be very accurate) or from surveying a large sample of players. In either case, I originally believed the statistics wholeheartedly. Then, I came across this article, claiming that Blizzard representatives assert that only 5% of the WoW population is female. These folks, more than anyone else, should know the ratio, but I (along with the author of the blog post) am a little skeptical. Considering the undisputed rise in female gamers, described in this NBC write-up, and my own beliefs coming into this assignment, I think 5% is too low. Maybe the blog post is inaccurate. Maybe the Blizzard representative didn't know his facts. Maybe the definitions of what constitutes a gamer were inconsistent. In any case, I'm leaning toward the Daedalus Project's work. I found quite a few YouTube videos, some being part of a series, proclaiming the presence of females in MMORPGs. At this point, I believe the stereotype that video games are solely for males is fading. Males still make up the majority, of course, but it's understood that the number of female players are increasing significantly and may someday even out the ratio.

 

Playing with Romantic Partners and Family Members
The Daedalus Project estimates that about 60% of female players and 16% of male players play the game with real-life romantic partners. The study also asserts that 40% of female players and 35% of male players play with family members.

I think the appeal of playing with those who share a real-life relationship is fairly obvious. Rather than being limited to interaction with people who, in most cases, the player will only communicate to through a digital medium, players can enhance existing relationships (romantic or family-based) they have with people they can interact with directly. While this post argues that, in some ways, meeting people through MMORPGs is more efficient and successful than in real-world situations, I believe that even the most hardcore of gamers would prefer real-life, face-to-face, human interaction over something mediated by a digital world. Also, playing with real-life peers, partners and family-members is more socially acceptable, because there is some form of human interaction that exists, so I believe this also makes players more likely to engage in the game with these people.

I also found it interesting that in both situations (romantic and family-based), females were more inclined to participate with other players they know in real-life. After thinking it through, it didn't take long to see why these statistics make sense. While the population of females in the gaming world is rapidly growing, the old gender roles are still prominent in society. It isn't as common for girls to start playing video games at an early age as it is for boys. Whether the reason for this is biological or dependent on the upbringing of the children (I'm guessing a combination of both), young females just aren't as inclined to be playing video games. I think that if they aren't introduced to video games early in life, they are less likely to play them later on for the same familiar reasons that most gamers play (progress, immersion, exploration, etc.). They need something else to spark their interest. As mentioned in the "Motivations for Playing" section, this is socialization. I think many females are introduced to gaming by males in their lives, whether boyfriends, husbands, brothers, fathers, or sons. Several may develop deeper interests in the games after they start playing, but the reason many start is, I believe, a social one.

Memorable Gameplay
According to the Daedalus Project, the most memorable experiences players retained fell into the following categories:

Achievements
----Team
----PvP
----Solitary

The Trek

Relationships
----Random Acts of Kindness
----Romantic Relationships
----Friendships

Death
----The Memorable Wipe
----Guild Death
----Role-Played Funeral
----RL Death of Player

Misc.
----Role-Playing
----Meeting Guild IRL
----The Initial Euphoria

There are plenty of things to expound upon here, but of all the memorable experiences, I found the most interesting to be online funerals, specifically honoring those who have died in real-life...

My reaction to this video was confusing. On one hand, I thought it was ridiculous and cheesy, but on the other, it was possibly more moving than any real-life funeral I've ever attended (not that that's a high number). After experiencing this "funeral", I think I give more credit to those claiming that online communities can decently substitute, in some forms, actual human interaction. Although the circumstances under which their relationships developed are rather inhuman, it seems that there are genuine emotions connecting the individuals. But, with the good, apparently so come the bad. I also found this clip of a guild holding another funeral honoring a real-life death, then the ambush that followed.

Worth Studying?
I think we're getting to the point where it's almost necessary to study MMORPGs. These games are hugely popular in today's culture, and I have a feeling that they won't be going away any time in the near future. Not being an advocate of a society where individuals devote more time to online communities than they do to the physical ones around them, I can't say that I see a lot of good coming from this research, though. Learning what kind of games are most addictive so companies like Blizzard can make more profit isn't something I find to be particularly beneficial to society. Even with studies like comparing the relationship of age and status in digital v. physical environments, there is surely interesting and beneficial information to be extracted, but I feel that it will mostly help us move toward more submersion into digital environments. And yes, there's something good to be said for this (distance learning, perhaps?), but I don't know how much.

Stereotypes v. Research
I think that most stereotypes are derived from some form of the truth. Stereotype: Girls don't play video games. Yes, female players are on the rise, and they may be in equal numbers with males before too long. However, because this stereotype was, at one point in time, completely true, the change is a process, and we're not there yet. There's still some truth to it. Stereotype: Gamers are asocial geeks that stay cloistered up in their basements all day, never interacting with humans. When single-player console games were the only thing available, yes, this was the case. I don't think there were Super Mario Bros. 2 parties happening everywhere in the late 80's, and hardcore gamers probably were social outcasts. Now, however, gaming is becoming a more social activity. As mentioned earlier in the post, many players are interacting with people they know physically and many start relationships (friendly and romantic) over the internet that, in several ways, resemble traditional relationships. Still, they are typically alone in the physical sense. So, once again, I think the stereotype is fading, but still has roots in truth. I think, for the most part, this is a reoccurring trend (partially true stereotypes) but there are some cases that are absolutely factual - children who play video games are overweight.

So, I've discussed MMORPGs quite a bit. How do I feel about them personally? Well, I've seen them from both third and first-person perspectives. For about two months, I was mildly hooked on WoW before finally cutting it off cold-turkey. I've experienced the appeal, the addictive nature, and the enlightenment giving it up, and I don't plan to play any MMORPGs anytime in the near future. I think this article sums up my thoughts pretty well. The games require huge investments of time and offer nothing in return. They are evil.

Over the course of our lives, most of us have witnessed the evolution of video game controllers - starting with the "anything goes" era of the Atari joystick and an assortment of very alien-looking controller designs, then several years of developers building on the revolutionary NES template, and now into the next generation, brought about by the Wii Remote. I consider the progress up until this point to be, for the most part, progressive, however I think we may soon bump our heads on the ceiling (at least until we have a few significant technological advances).

Excluding the Wii, I feel that most recent systems (XBox 360, PS3, GameCube) have mastered the ergonomics of traditional controller design. Sure, there are complaints, but they're mostly issues of preference rather than better design. The NES-derived controllers are about as good as they can get, which makes Nintendo's attempt to break the mold a logical and almost predictable business decision. The company was falling behind in the gaming world and needed something revolutionary to bring them back into the game. Traditional controller design couldn't go much further, so they changed the rules.

I don't dispute the fact that Nintendo's latest release has been beneficial and innovative, but because the success of the Wii and its games has so much riding on the controller design and style of gameplay, I feel that developers are making a lot of poor decisions. Sure, bowling, golfing, performing surgery on convulsing rabbits, and, in some cases, first-person shooters are really appropriate for the WiiMote, and having this new technology enhances gameplay. But the applications are limited, and mini-games can only go so far. Once the novelty wears off, those that don't already will start to miss the old-fashioned controllers. The WiiMote is more of an extension than a substitute, and as a long-term solution, it just isn't going to cut it. It's not that the WiiMote is poorly designed, it's just that its predecessors are just too efficient in most situations. So, I guess what I'm saying is that until we have a big breakthrough (like being able to control characters with our minds), there probably aren't going to be any controller innovations that will completely replace our current standard. The NES template is here to stay for a while.

[The article can be found here, and the video here. I would have embedded it, but it looked rather ugly.]

For the past year or so, I've been wondering why Facebook hasn't incorporated instant messaging into its hugely popular social networking system. It seems like a logical progression to me, and I'm surprised it's taken this long. But then again, maybe the company was just waiting for the perfect time to strike.

At this point, I think it's become set in stone that Facebook is (or at least is going to be) victorious over the obviously inferior MySpace. It's assumed that practically every college student has an account (which is crucial for the success of any sort of IM system), and because college folk like us are typically the ones that nurture new  Internet technologies into maturity, Facebook has everything it needs.

I'm anticipating that, at first, many will experiment with Facebook's new instant messaging feature, but the majority will still rely primarily on AIM. While Facebook Chat (very similar to GoogleTalk) seems to be unobtrusive, lightweight and well-integrated, it still runs in a browser, thus requiring more effort to maintain and being limited in its capabilities (especially when compared to an application installed on the operating system, like AIM).

But in time, I expect to see a standalone version of Facebook. With the recent release of the delightful new AIR runtime environment, the technologies are now available to design an extremely powerful, local version of Facebook, with richly aesthetic and highly interactive interfaces. The Facebook application will be a sort of "Super AIM", providing all of the flexibilities of our current IM standards (system-level control, access to the file system, the ability to directly send images and files, audio/video chat, etc.), but additionally, it will have all the perks of Facebook - extensive user profiles, the ability to search for friends by a variety of fields, integrated and user-friendly multimedia players, extensive privacy controls, groups, events, applications, etc.

Once the Facebook standalone has been released, we won't have a need for any other instant messaging system (except for talking to that 5% of stragglers who haven't gotten with the program yet), and really, none of the existing clients will even be able to compete. How could they? Facebook's insuperable advantage over everyone (Google included) is that it knows all of us...very, very well. It can take social interaction to a level that current IM clients (that know little more about us than who's on our buddy lists and what songs are quoted in our away messages) can't even fathom. And with the added power of a standalone Facebook, the gap's only going to grow...

It will have access to resources like our iTunes libraries, most likely linking friends with similar musical tastes, allowing for group playlists and custom radio broadcasts, pulling music from the files on individuals' machines. We'll also have "movie sessions", so when someone purchases a new blockbuster from the iStore, all of his/her friends can join in and watch it together as it streams from the owner's computer. When Tuesday rolls around and a new album is released, listening parties, too, could be arranged in this manner. Members of the audience could enjoy their friend's most recent musical purchase, listening, commenting, discussing (in a chatroom type of environment) without needing to interrupt the songs to verbally communicate. All of the previously mentioned gatherings would be treated as events, either public or invite-only, that users can organize and attend.

Facebook may also try to outdo Google Docs, creating its own set of collaboration tools. Users who submit their school schedules could easily be placed into course groups. With some modifications to the standalone Facebook, students could share papers, presentations, even art, modifying the files simultaneously, and chatting with one another to communicate ideas in the process.

The possibilities are there, and I do hope that at least some of the features I've described become a reality. But, maybe the Facebook community will reject that new chat/IM system and my ideas will never see the light of day. Time will tell.

Finally, the weather's starting to warm up, Spring is in the air, and with our recent turn of the clocks, days seem to be lasting forever (in a good way). I thought it was an appropriate time for a change of background, from my existing one, depicting a seemingly dignified feline staring, trance-like, beyond two caged canaries, to something more...Springy.

Coincidentally, shortly after changing my desktop to one of the backgrounds I discovered at PixelGirlPresents (my preferred desktop/icon distributor), I came across a link in Google Reader for 20 high-quality desktop sites. Just thought I'd throw that out there if anyone else is a freak and changes their desktop backgrounds to correspond with the seasons.

I saw this desktop decoration on Google Reader this afternoon, and it reminded me of The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello (a short film I had written about last night and have since discovered the full length version of here, if you're interested...also, you can save the video to your machine using ClipNabber). In addition to being an attractive clock, I found the content of the device sort of intriguing. More and more, it seems, we're incorporating past technologies into modern art (science fiction included, as mentioned in my previous post) and culture - sometimes for their nostalgic value, sometimes as symbols, representative of ideals or memorable aspects of the technologies' contexts (possibly applicable to the bonsai gear clock), and sometimes just because they look cool (definitely applicable to the clock). The original NES is a good example of an old technology that's frequently referenced today. I think it's so popular in part because it's such a rich and imaginative resource to pull from, but also because it's sentimental to so many individuals, and they can use it to identify themselves with a certain subgroup of the gaming community.