“When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.”
-Nikola Tesla, 1926
idiot thought we would still be wearing vests
Adventure Time Sets Series Finale
“Adventure Time was a passion project for the people on the crew who poured their heart into the art and stories. We tried to put into every episode something genuine and telling from our lives, and make a show that was personal to us, and that had jokes too! I’m really happy that it connected with an audience for so long. It’s a special thing, I think.” — Pen Ward
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Kenny Baker was a real gentleman as well as an incredible trooper who always worked hard under difficult circumstances.
A talented vaudevillian who could always make everybody laugh, Kenny was truly the heard and soul of R2-D2 and will be missed by his fans and everyone who knew him.
Penny Arcade has done two comics in a row about it now, which seems about right, since they traditionally represent the zeitgeist of the gaming community. I think my favorite part of this phenomenon so far is the pokemon selfie; it’s definitely not an idea limited to social media transmission either: a friend texted me this morning with a picture taken by her sons’ babysitter of the youngest posing with a caterpie perched on his back.
I am enjoying the game itself, but what is most amazing to me is the way in which Nintendo has demonstrated itself capable once again of changing how people relate to games (and to each other in the context of games) with almost no messaging. I mean, yes, it helps that Pokemon is a very old property with a ton of popularity and nostalgia value, that’s part of it. But Nintendo and Niantic have created a game that is spawning community even though very few of the community-building functions are working. There’s no trading yet, the only cooperative play is by taking over gyms, which is still done on your own, gameplay-wise, but there are reports from everywhere about people bonding over this game. Not just online, but people recognizing each other on the street because they’re both playing, people pointing out pokemon to each other, people sharing their enjoyment of the game because it’s not an experience each person is individually having on their device, it’s an experience they are sharing because the game is drawing content on the real world. It’s also an experience that’s encouraging people to take games outside, and not just by playing Candy Crush on the bus, but by actually going out into the world and seeing bits of it.
I’m not sure if or how this will change games or gaming, it doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me is that it’s happening at all, because I think it’s extraordinary.
Welcome to augmented reality.
It’s not going to just change gaming. There’ve been rumbles in the shape of AR apps, games and gizmos for a while now, but this is the first big thunderclap of something that I’m pretty sure is going to be the shape of our future.
One day you’re going to be able to buy a little camera that slips onto the earpiece of your shades or prescription glasses, and it will have a little button on it that lets you turn the HUD project on and off, depending on whether you want to be looking into virtual reality or not. It’ll probably have a tiny companion earbud speaker. It won’t just be games. It’ll be billboards, coupons, Lost Pet posters, employment notices. Is this car for sale? Hang on a sec, let me check. People may well wander around with alternate personas. In virtual reality, maybe that man is a furry, or tattooed head to toe, or whoops, she’s actually a girl sorry about the pronoun thing.
We will have giant legal battles about whether it’s okay to force people to wear virtual marks that show that they’re a convicted pedophile (sounds like a great idea but slippery slope, slippery slope). There’ll be fights over whether they should be banned while driving, or if they should be MANDATORY while driving and traffic thoroughfares tightly regulated for what kinds of displays are allowed near them with geofencing implemented to block distractions. People who don’t want to spend half their lives halfway-immersed into a virtual world will fight for the preservation of real-world signage while environmentalists go crazy over the total eradication of billboards.
It’ll be amazing for disabled people of many types, because they’ll be able to call captioning from mid-air or have a menu read to them with a flip of their fingers. But wheelchair users will still have to spend 10 extra minutes looking for a damn ramp. For people with sensory processing issues, it may well be hell.
And someone somewhere will be collecting data on all of it, including what face you make when you look at a MacDonald’s sign, or a cop, or for that matter how the cop looks at you.
This may sound like I’m spinning a science fiction fantasy, but I am making an actual prediction. I follow tech. A lot of the stuff for this is either within 5 years of market or has already been on market but didn’t catch on in its first form. I’m thinking we’ll see the basic shape of it form within 30 years, easy.
And yet people in rural areas and poor neighborhoods still won’t have access to the kind of connectivity that’ll let them participate, even if they want to.
I have been waiting for AR and VR for a long time now and I am delighted that both will be realised and widely available not only within my lifetime but within the next decade or so. And on the whole, I am really looking forward to that future, even with all the problems it will bring. I trust us enough to believe that we can make it a good future. Especially when we use all that tech to give more impact to individuals because I trust you and you and you a lot more than I trust ‘us’ as a whole.
