Tech Stream
Posts Tagged ‘ games’
A Festival for the Indie Game
14 August 2009
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Photo from Flickr by gnackgnackgnack (Patrick Brosset).
I had a chance this week to meet with the co-director of Freeplay 2009, an independent games festival taking place today and tomorrow at the State Library in Melbourne. Paul Callaghan and his partner Eve Penford-Dennis are running the event for the first time and have pulled together over 20 guest speakers from a range of gaming and creative disciplines. Freeplay started in 2004 and exists, in their own words, to “provide opportunities for Victorian and interstate independent developers, educators, and industry practitioners to interact with each other and their audience in an environment designed to stimulate debate, share new ideas, explore theories, and take part in discussions on the creative direction of the medium.”
You can listen to the chat I had with Freeplay co-director Paul Callaghan, who is also a game developer and freelance writer himself, via the MP3 link at the top of this story. We talked, among other things, about changes in the local gaming industry since 2004 and the opportunities available to independent developers in Australia to pursue their creative interests and collaborate with creative people outside their industry.
Gaming in the Wild West
17 July 2009
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While frontier America has proved a successful setting for many films and TV series, it hasn’t been that popular with gamers or games studios. It’s been often seen as a risk to set a game in the Wild West, and an easier proposition to use space, fantasy or specific historic battlegrounds, like those in WWII.
Bajo from Good Game on ABC TV joins us this week to chat about why this is, and whether we’re likely to see more games set in the Wild West in the future. A lot of people are getting excited about the release of open-world Western Red Dead Redemption from Rockstar Games, but this week we step into the boots of the McCall Brothers for Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood a first-person shooter (FPS) from Ubisoft for the PC and consoles. Use the MP3 link above to listen.
Tech Stream 020
3 July 2009
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Micro-USB connectors, already in use for charging some mobile phones, are set to become a standard for all.
We heard back in February that the worldwide mobile industry had at last decided on the connection format for a universal charger compatible with all mobile phones. Its good news for you and me because we don’t have to keep an assortment of chargers on hand, or get a new type when we upgrade our phone. But its even better news for the environment, with less of this kind of electronic waste finding its way into landfill.
That’s coming up in the Tech Stream today, plus the future of e-books and publishing in the digital age… and the intersection between virtual and real economies. Full details after the jump.
Virtual Concerns in China and Australia
3 July 2009
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Inhabitants of Second Life, spending time on ABC Island. Image from Flickr by Gary Hayes.
We were augmenting our realities last week, adding layers of virtual information and computer generated objects to the real world around us. But this week we’re digging deeper on a couple of stories involving online virtual worlds – places like Second Life – and games like World of Warcraft.
It seemed that Australia’s proposed ISP-level internet filtering regime could impact upon “unclassified” virtual spaces and internet games. And some new laws were introduced in China this week aimed at stopping the flow of virtual money into the real world economy. Initial reports suggested that it might effect the practice of gold-farming in games like WoW, but it seems that’s not quite the case.
For more on both of these issues I spoke with David Holloway, editor of Metaverse Journal, a virtual worlds news site. He kicked off with his thoughts on China’s new policy toward virtual currency and you can hear our entire conversation from the MP3 link at the top of this story. There’s also more after the jump…
Tech Stream 019
26 June 2009
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QR coded jewelry – photo from Flickr by Fluid Forms.
We’re blurring the lines between the virtual and the physical this week in the Tech Stream. We’ll be speaking about augmented reality with Christy Dena, a cross-media researcher and Professor Bruce Thomas from the Wearable Computer Lab at the University of South Australia.
This leads us into a discussion on Quick Response or “QR” Codes which are being used in advertising as well as augmented reality games. Antony McGregor Dey from QMCodes and Mobile Mondays Melbourne will get us up to speed with this new way to link a physical-world object with something in an online or virtual environment.
We’ll also have a report from Connect Asia‘s David Wang on how the Chinese Government is cracking down on pornography online and accusing search engines like Google of disseminating pornographic content within China.
And finally Bajo joins us from Good Game to review the latest Ghostbusters video game.
You can listen to the full Tech Stream program with the MP3 link above or the “Listen Now” link on the right. Feel free to comment on any of these stories or suggest something we can follow up in future programs. You can also subscribe to the podcast too!
Augmented Reality
26 June 2009
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We caught a glimpse this week of some mobile applications that allow you to look at the world around you and see an overlay of virtual information. Point the phone’s camera at a building and a dialog box pops up on the screen with what it is, when it was built, how far away it is from you etc. You can still see the physical world but now virtual content has been added on top. This is an example of augmented reality. More after the jump…
Tech Stream 017
12 June 2009
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A WiMAX USB dongle. Photo from Flickr by Hirotomo Oi
In the Tech Stream this week we get serious about our games. The Good Game team return from the E3 games expo with news of motion sensor technology which could allow us to throw away our controllers; and we’re joined by “Serious Games” experts Noah Falstein and Dr Ian Bogost who are in Australia for a conference on Serious Games in Sydney. You can listen to their full interview on a previous post.
We also look at the rollout of WiMAX wireless broadband in Fiji and Papua new Guinea… and tech-journo Danny Gorog join us with the lowdown on the new iPhone 3Gs and OS3.0 mobile operating system which was announced at Apple’s WWDC on Monday.
You can listen to the full Tech Stream program with the MP3 link above or the “Listen Now” link on the right. Feel free to comment on any of these stories or suggest something we can follow up in future programs. You can also subscribe to the podcast too!
Good Game at E3
11 June 2009
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Flickr photo from E3 games expo by Daniel Brunner.
The team at Good Game on ABC TV spent last week in the United States at E3, the entertainment expo and trade show for the computer and video games industry. I spoke with Jeremy Ray (aka Junglist) and Janet Carr (aka ‘Syd’) about their time at E3, and about the games and gaming technology that caught their imagination. Use the MP3 link above to listen.
Gaming in the browser with Quake Live
29 May 2009
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Bajo from Good Game joins us in the Tech Stream this week to review the new browser game Quake Live. Its actually just the original 3D multiplayer shooter Quake 3: Arena but now playable in an internet browser. Its the latest in a series of browser games, and we’re likely to see more such games in the future. Bajo also has news on 3D Realms, the game developers responsible for the Duke Nukem series. They’re not shutting down but its now unlikely we’ll see their long awaited 3D shooter Duke Nukem Forever. Use the MP3 link at the top of the story to listen to our chat.
Tech Stream 012
8 May 2009
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In the Tech Stream this week we kick off with a look at the new Windows 7 “release candidate” from Microsoft which was made available for worldwide download on Tuesday. Renai Le May from IT news website ZDNet Australia has the lowdown. Simon Goodrich from Portable Content joins me for breakfast and we discuss what happens to innovation during tough economic times. We also have a story about what will happen to the popular .tv domain name should the Pacific nation of Tuvalu sink beneath the rising seas. And finally we have Bajo from Good Game with his thoughts on why some games get better with age (much like a fine wine) while others just get worse over time.
You can listen to the full Tech Stream program with the MP3 link above or the “Listen Now” link on the right. Feel free to comment on any of these stories or suggest something we can follow up in future programs. You can also subscribe to the podcast too!
