XplanaZine

Here’s our take on news that matters for Tuesday, April 4. Today’s theme is going…going…, and here are a some links to headlines about technology that is changing the way we live and learn.

• Gaming — An interesting discussion with Trip Hawkins regarding his company, Digital Chocolate, and the growing market for mobile gaming. “We see the mobile phone as the social computer. In modern urban environments people have lost the social context they had in the old days when people lived in small villages. So they have become rabid adopters of social computing technologies.” And, Second Life is spawning other companies around it that can provide custom terraforming and construction in its metaverse. This article on one of those companies, Electric Sheep, provides insight on some of the uses companies envision fro Second Life. Finally, Ars Technica has an article on the decline in violent video games. Citing findings from a recent paper by Adam Thierer, a writer for the Progress and Freedom Foundation, “The fraction of video games that are rated “AO” or Adult Only was less than one percent of total sales for 2005. Games rated “M” for Mature comprised only 12 percent of the total, down from the average of 18 percent between the years 2001 and 2005.”
• Blogging, mediacasting, and online creations — A cookbook from the U.S. has won the first literary prize for bloggers turned authors. Also, here’s an overview of Knowledge Management 2.0 using structured blogging. Finally, movie studios and TV broadcasters may be moving quickly into the podcasting space but record labels are still holding back. Chris Anderson has some interesting insights on music industry sales for the past year at The Long Tail.

• Handhelds – There’s a nice article on the iPod Generation over at ExtremeTech. The article’s question focuses on what we gain and miss by being hooked up to media devices constantly. Also, XM Satellite reports that its subscriber base has topped 6.5 million. Finally, you may be interested in a new poll that reveals the many ways young people use their phones. “Almost two-thirds of young adults use their phones to send text messages. More than half use them to take pictures and almost half to play games. They use these features, as well as Internet connections, about twice as often as cell phone users overall.”
• Social Networks – In response to the concerns of Internet advertisers, MySpace has removed
  200,000 “objectionable” profiles from its social network. The site erased profiles containing risque or hate speech content. Also, check out these two Creative Commons photo galleries — EveryStockPhoto and Yotophoto
• Technology Talks — Well, it was only a matter of time, although it took much more time than it could or should have. Hollywood is finally going to begin making movies available for download at the same time their DVD versions go an sale in stores. For a more pointed review of the services, read Om Malik’s review. Two companies will be offering the service and downloads are limited, at least for now, to PCs or specified consoles (Xbox). This is barely the tip of the tip of the iceberg but it is the important starting point.