Games
Games
The Google Virtual Wave Biennial
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 04/10/2010 - 10:03It has been a while since I’ve written about Google Wave, Virtual Worlds, or for that matter the Whitney Biennial. However, since attending the Biennial with two of my daughters, I’ve been kicking around the idea for this blog post mashing up ideas from Google Wave, Virtual Worlds and the Whitney Biennial.
One of the things that jumped out at me as I looked at paintings in the Whitney was how different we approach the visual from the written. With the written word, we typically start at the beginning and follow read the material sequentially. As I’ve written about before, some people get bent out of shape when emails are not sequential, but the most important content is posted at the top of a reply, instead of at the bottom or interspersed in the email.
Google Wave was set up, in part, to address some of that and material is added at various appropriate points throughout the wave. To address the chronological sequence, Google Wave gives you the ability to playback a wave over time so you can see where the content fits, not only on the page, but in the time stream. Material is arranged in an order created by the artist. At the Whitney, it is typically shown over and over again, and people may walk in at the middle and only watch part of it, or may watch the end, followed by the beginning. Yet there is still a sequential aspect. The same applies to music.
While Google Wave does have the ability to add rich media content, it is predominantly text based and there does not seem to be much of intermixing sequential audio and sequential video content with the static text content. Likewise, the various pieces of content are not arranged spatially as they would be in a painting.
One way to expand the use of Google Wave for artistic expression would be to look at better interoperability with virtual worlds like Second Life or OpenSim. Imagine, for a moment, a virtual world where people could interact and not only add three dimensional models, but pictures, text, and music in a Google Wave style where you can playback the modifications in the order in which they were added.
To add to the spatial component, the scene could be presented more like a painting with the video, audio, or text being played back when the user moves the mouse over the content, so the viewer could start at whatever point and have more control over the experience.
It may be possible to do some of this already with virtual worlds, but I haven’t seen any good examples of this. With a system like that, some interesting installations could take place in a Google Virtual Wave Biennial. What do you think?
The #N900 Bobsled in an Open Source Mobile Virtual World Experience
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 02/14/2010 - 10:38Between watching events in the Olympics, I played a few games on my Nokia N900 and it occurred to me that the game waiting to be made is the #N900 Bobsled run. Let me present a few videos to give you an idea about what I have in mind.
First, there is this video of the bobsled run from a first person point of view:
Then, there is this sample game that comes on the Nokia N900:
Could Bounce evolve to use a Bobsled track? Even better, could it evolve to use various Bobsled tracks from different virtual worlds? This idea comes from reading about the announced release of Naali, an open source virtual world viewer that might port nicely to the N900. Of course the Naali viewer would need enhancements to take advantage of the accelerometer. Discussions about this are already taking place.
To push it even further, what about slalom racing in virtual worlds where the competitors use accelerometer enabled mobile devices? I want to go the sports bar where people bring their N900’s and race each other this way. Each racer sees their own view of the track on their N900s and the participants watch the race on a big screen over the bar.
What I like about OpenSim, the virtual world platform often used with Naali, Naali itself and the N900 environment is that they are all open source and combined they could provide an great platform for an incredible open source mobile virtual world experience.
Running Squeak, Etoys, Scratch or maybe even OpenCroquet or OpenCobalt on a Nokia N900
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 12/28/2009 - 17:12Recently, I’ve been writing a lot about the Nokia N900. This is Nokia’s latest cellphone or Internet Table, which is actually a pretty nice little computer. I’ve been testing out what works and what doesn’t, and one of the most interesting projects has been trying to get Squeak running on it.
Squeak is a modern, open source, full-featured implementation of the powerful Smalltalk programming language and environment. Squeak is highly-portable - even its virtual machine is written entirely in Smalltalk making it easy to debug, analyze, and change. Squeak is the vehicle for a wide range of projects from multimedia applications, educational platforms to commercial web application development.
One project for Squeak was Etoys.
Etoys is an educational tool for teaching children powerful ideas in compelling way, a media-rich authoring environment and visual programming system, and a free software program that works on almost all personal computers.
It is also the basis for Scratch,
Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.
The other day, I downloaded the source code for Squeak and compiled it in my Scratchbox on my Linux laptop. It compiled cleanly, and I moved it over to my N900. It ran fine there, with the exception of the screen being so small that it was hard to get much of anything done. You can download my zipped tar file at http://www.orient-lodge.com/squeak/Squeak-3.11.3.2135-linux_armv71.tar.gz. If you unzip the file, change to the Squeak-3.11.3.2135-linux_armv71 and run ./squeak.sh passing a valid image file, you should get Squeak running on your N900.
The first image file that I tried was a copy of the Squeak3.9 image. You can get a zipped version of that from my site at http://www.orient-lodge.com/squeak/squeak3.9.image.gz. It should be a pretty clean image, but I was testing around in it, so if things are a little off, it might be a residual of my testing.
The second image that I tried was the Etoys image. As I write this post, the etoys website is down, so I can’t link back to the original source. My etoys image is at http://www.orient-lodge.com/squeak/etoys.image.gz. I was pleased to see the little car driving around on the front page, but again frustrated at the smallness of the font.
Today, I tried a third image, http://www.orient-lodge.com/squeak/Scratch.image.gz. I lifted this image from the Linux Installer for Scratch. This came up the same way that Scratch came up on my Linux laptop. In this case some of the font was small and hard to read, and some of the workspace spilled off of the screen.
The N900 is much more expensive than the OLPC, and there is still a lot of work necessary to get the Squeak/Etoys/Scratch, or even more interesting version in OpenCroquet or OpenCobalt running on N900s, but the potential is there, and it looks very interesting.
Are there others out there interested in exploring Smalltalk, Squeak, and the many different images available to see what can be done with it on the N900? Drop me a note if you’re interested.
#npr, #poetry and #games on my #n900
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 12/27/2009 - 12:26It was a rainy Boxing Day here in Connecticut, so I spent a bit of time playing with my Nokia N900. The N900 comes with a built in FM Receiver. However, software for running the FMRadio was not included on the N900. So, yesterday, I searched around and installed the fmradio package. To use the FM Radio package, you need to plug in headphones which it uses as the FM antenna. You can scroll up and down the radio dial, and when you find a station, add it to your presets. Even though you are using the headphones as an antenna, you can still use the speaker on the phone for the FM station. You are supposed to be able to get RDS as well, but I didn’t get any RDS messages. All in all, the fmradio package is fine for my use, but nothing special.
I also tried installing the Linux Infrared Remote Control, or LIRC. In theory, I should be able to set up my N900 as a universal remote. However, configuring it looks a bit complicated. I did manage to turn on the TV with it, but that is about all. I may spend time at some point trying to program it to better control my DVD player. The other thing that I’ve love to see it do is support TV-B-GONE. This is a simple device that turns off just about any type of television. As I read about people trying to set up TV-B-GONE functionality on the N900, I came across qtirreco. I tested that a little with even less luck.
Another thing that I did was visit Librivox. This site has recordings of many great works of literature that are in the public domain. I downloaded a poetry collection and now have around a hundred great poems that I can listen to on my N900. I hope to listen to much more great literature on my N900.
Then, there are the games. I’ve read about people working with various game console emulators, as well as potential copyright issues that this brings up. I’ve always told my kids they could play any game they could write and I started them off programming Logo years ago. More recently, I’ve been interested in Squeak.
Squeak is a modern, open source, full-featured implementation of the powerful Smalltalk programming language and environment. Squeak is highly-portable - even its virtual machine is written entirely in Smalltalk making it easy to debug, analyze, and change. Squeak is the vehicle for a wide range of projects from multimedia applications, educational platforms to commercial web application development.
I downloaded the source, compiled it in my Scratchbox on my Linux Laptop, and moved the package over onto my N900. Runs like a charm; almost. It brings up an Xwindow with Squeak in it. However on the small screen, it is nearly impossible to read the fonts. I tried checking around to find easy ways of changing the fonts, but without much luck. All of the instructions were based on clicking on the options within the window. However, the window is so small, it was very difficult to get the right options. I’m thinking of starting squeak on a different computer, and tweaking an image file to much more readable fonts and then trying to use that image file on the N900. If I can get all of this straightened out, I may try running Etoys on the N900.
If you’re doing anything interesting with the N900 or want to share applications or ideas, leave me a message.
To Make the Imagined Real
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 12/19/2009 - 18:14It is a desire as old as human kind, to make the imagined real. Pygmalion imagined a woman that he then sculpted, fell in love with, and in the end, the gods granted his sculpture life. Perhaps it is some of this drive to make the imagined real that is responsible for the success of great artists making that which they imagine real in the form of their artwork, and the success of great politicians making that which they imagine real in terms of reforms to make the world a better place.
To me, the ability to take ones imagination into a piece of technology and make something real is an important part of what makes good technology interesting. It is part of the requirement I placed on my older daughters. They could play any computer game they could create. It is part of why I’m so interested in the N900 as a phone where I can easily create new applications.
Yet perhaps the place where this is most important to me is in computer games. Years ago, the text based virtual worlds that I found most interesting where those that gave the most opportunity to create. LambdaMOO was a great example followed by Second Life as we moved to three dimensional games. These were virtual worlds where adults could create things that they imagined. OpenSim became even more interesting as a virtual world where there was even more opportunity to create.
So, I started my kids programming in Logo. I introduced them to SmallTalk and its variants, with Squeak EToys being my current interest.
As a general rule, I’ve disliked many of the commercially produced games, especially those that target kids. They are too mind numbing and there aren’t enough opportunities for creativity.
Yet the other day, I read a press release for Shidonni. “Shidonni, winner of the 2009 Parents' Choice Website Gold Award, is an online community designed for children ages 6-12 that focuses on nurturing children's creativity and imagination.”
The website had a video introducing Shidonni:
The idea of a virtual world where kids can draw their own pets, worlds, as well as food and clothing for the pets is very appealing. A downside is that it uses Microsoft’s Silverlight, which limits the machines it can run on. I did manage to get it loaded onto an old Linux Laptop that I have, but it ran incredibly slowly.
Yet the idea of kids being able to draw their own pets and worlds is a great starting point. What if you could take a drawing of a pet and have a stuffed animal created from the drawing?
Pretty Cool. However, at $79.99, it is pretty expensive. That’s over twice as expensive as many of the high end webkins, and ten times as expensive as some of the lower priced webkins.
However, when Fiona saw the one-of-a-kind Shidonni animals, she of course wanted one right away. She offered to chip in some of her savings. I told her that she should save up for it.
So, besides learning about the joy of creativity, she may also learn the value of waiting and the value of a buck. All of them are great lesson. So, I’ll be keeping a close eye on Shidonni and encourage any of my readers with kids in the six to twelve year old range to consider doing the same thing.
What do you have found for cool online tools to encourage creativity?
