Why we should thank, and hate, Pirates
Posted under: The Crime
Matthew Chow, a member of the infamous “Rabid Neurosis”, or RNS as they were better known, has been found ‘not guilty’ by a jury of his peers. Chow was on trial for the charge of ‘conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement’. In other words…Digital Piracy Yarrrrrr!
According to the federal indictment, authorities claimed that RNS was the world’s largest music piracy ring. Between [at least]1999 and 2007, Chow and co-conspirators illegally uploaded thousands of copyright-protected music files, which were provided by music industry insiders. In 1996, RNS released their first file, Metallica’s Ride the Lightning (Yes, this WAS one of the bugs up Lars Ulrich’s ass), and finished their 11 year run with Fall Out Boy’s Infinity on High. The group’s most notable claim-to-piracy-fame was the early leak of Eminem’s Encore album.
Federal authorities charged Chow with one count of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, which carries a maximum prison sentence of five years, and a $250,000 fine. Moreover, Chow could have been ordered to pay restitution to the RIAA, the only named victim in the crime.
“I am relieved by the jury’s verdict and I am grateful to my attorney for his hard work,” says Chow. Houston attorney Terry W. Yates, who represented Matthew Chow comments, “We encountered some extremely complex factual and legal issues in this case. The jury was very attentive during the trial. Their verdict was just.”
In total, six members of RNS were charged with offenses. Patrick L. Saunders was charged on Aug. 14th, 2009, and plead guilty. James A. Dockery was charged on Sept. 8th, 2009. Adil R. Cassim, Bennie Glover, Matthew D. Chow, and Edward L. Mohan were all charged on Sept. 9th, 2009. Only Chow and Cassim were found not guilty. The remaining four pled guilty to copyright infringement charges, three of which turned state’s evidence and testified for the government in the Houston trial.
Lessons learned
Sooooo…what can we learn from this? There’s a number of things (both right and wrong) going on in this mess. I often wonder Karlheinz Brandenburg had any idea how his work might effect the lives, carriers, criminal records, of thousands and thousands of individuals. My thoughts on piracy are this: Find me a computer in this world that doesn’t have at least one pirated line of code on it, and I’ll find you a box to ship it in, because it’s gotta be factory fresh.
I’m not saying that I support music or software piracy, but rather – accept that they are here, and rapidly becoming, if not already, ingrained in our daily lives. I think we all know by now that Musicians aren’t making any money from record sales. The upside to this new economy is that Musicians are making money the old fashioned way, by going out on the road, playing shows, and earning it. In fact, there are a number of bands that have already embraced this philosophy, and have given away their music (think Coldplay, Radiohead, NIN), and let’s not forget about The Grateful Dead and Phish, who for years, have allowed legal taping and trading of their live performances.
Likewise, the video game industry has been (and will perhaps always be) fraught with disc pirates. The solution? One small company in Korea decided to start giving games away, and charging one small piece at a time. The result? Microtransactions and social gaming as we know them today.
The positive way to look at the entire RIAA and copyright laws, etc. is that yes, it’s going to happen. However, that doesn’t mean that innovation and competition can not drive a better mousetrap. In a way, we all owe pirates a debt of gratitude. In another way, I blame them for the $75 ticket price, and $0.99 for a digital sword.
Pirates. Yarrrrrrr!
Google admits Buzz privacy fail
Google officially admitted yesterday that it’s testing procedure surrounding their new offering Buzz was less than sufficient. Since it’s February 9th appearance, Google has had to do some serious retooling of the product, amid privacy concerns that sprang up almost immediately. Google says that they’re working “extremely hard” to fix the problem. “We’re very early in this space. This was one of our first big attempts,” Todd Jackson, Buzz product manager, told BBC News.
But how could one of the world’s largest online service providers overlook such a detail? It comes down to a simple lack of widespread testing. Buzz was only tested internally at Google, something the company normally does NOT do. Most often, when Google wants to bring a new product to market, they’ll tap into their unofficial “Google Trusted Tester” program, a network of family and friends of Google employees who have proven track records and are trusted with a high degree of confidentiality. These “Trusted Testers” are in exchange, given early access to a soon to be launched Google product. Unfortunately, Buzz did not receive the same treatment. “We’ve been testing Buzz internally at Google for a while. Of course, getting feedback from 20,000 Googlers isn’t quite the same as letting Gmail users play with Buzz in the wild,” comments Jackson.
To battle the negative buzz now surrounding Buzz, Google has set up a “war room” at their Mountain View, CA. headquarters that is strictly devoted to sorting out the Buzz issues.
“If it becomes clear that people don’t think we’ve done enough, we’ll make more changes,” said Jackson.
He acknowledged that many of the networks “tens of millions” of users were “rightfully upset” and that the firm was “very, very sorry”.
“We know we need to improve things.”
The Changes
Only three days after launch, Google team members called a meeting to make the quick fixes. With obvious holes open in the “who do they communicate with the most?” format, Google pulled the plug on the “friend” matching process, and is now only suggesting friends that the Buzz user may be interested in following back (how they determine this, like all things Google, remains a mystery). They’ve also announced that they’re implementing a feature that should make it easier for Buzz users to shut the service off entirely. Jackson says that “transparency and control” are “top priorities” and that users will “continue to see improvements”. And while it seems “transparency” is top priority on paper at Google, that isn’t always the case in the physical world.
Additional changes that Buzz users can look forward to include a better preferences menu that should allow users more control over what’s arriving in their inbox, as well as a more prominent “Mute” button that would switch the service off altogether. Further illustrating the flub at Google, Jackson adds that the idea has been discussed to make Buzz a service independent from Gmail.
“We think that integration with Gmail was absolutely the right way to go – we wanted to make Buzz easily accessible to people,” Jackson said.
“We also want to give people who don’t use Gmail the ability to use Buzz, so we’re exploring the idea of offering a separate destination site.”
Google reps expect the changes to Buzz to go live sometime this week.
It looks like Google has heard what the audience has said, and is making the appropriate changes. However, with the recent ‘what is this? I don’t get it.’ crash-n-burn surrounding Wave, coupled with the Buzz ‘wanna know who I talk to most?’ blowup, Google’s going to have to pull some magic out of the proverbial hat to get me excited about a new product launch.
Vancouver 2010 Olympics – as mind map
Culling through listings of which Olympic events are happening when can be a bit tedious. To this end, I created this mind map to illustrate the flexibility of MindMeister‘s mind mapping solution.
I’ll be keeping the schedule up to date and including a listing of winners, as well as any relevant/newsworthy notes. Let the Games begin!
Gaming: Size Does Matter
According to a report compiled by researchers at several research facilities at the University of Illinois, human propensity for talent in video games can now be determined by measuring three key areas of the brain.
Kirk Erickson, a professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, and first author of the study remarks, “This is the first time that we’ve been able to take a real-world task like a video game and show that the size of specific brain regions is predictive of performance and learning rates on this video game.” Erickson’s article first appeared in the professional journal Cerebral Cortex. He has since been joined by researchers from MIT, Florida State (which is also currently conducting a study on consumers’ virtual goods buying habits), and the University of Illinois.
And while the physical measurements are new, previous research has shown that expert gamers excel in a several measurements of attention and perception when compared to video gaming novices (n00bs). However, other studies have found near negligible results when training novice gamers for 20+ hours, suggesting that the size and structure of the brain itself can predict a players aptitude for success.
Focusing on three individual areas of the brain, the caudate nucleus and the putamen in the dorsal striatum, and the nucleus accumbens in the ventral striatum. The former 2 are deeply involved in motor learning and cognitive flexibility, that is to say, the ability to quickly mentally shift between tasks. The later is responsible for processing emotions associated with good and bad behavior.
Researchers utilized high resolution MRI scans to analyze the size of these specific brain regions in 39 adults aged 18-28 (10 male and 29 female) who spend less than three hours per week playing video games. Measurements of volume were taken from this sample group and compared to the volume of their entire brain.
Using an RPI developed simple shoot and avoid game, half of the participants were asked to go for the highest score possible. The other half of the survey group was asked to shift priorities mid-game, focusing on one aspect for a given time allotment, and then shift to another priority. For example, for 5 minutes participants were directed to score as many points as possible. After these 5 minutes, they were then asked to avoid as much damage as possible, and so on.
The second group most closely models real-world situations (think Bluetooth headset, while parallel parking, while balancing that molten hot cup of Starbucks between your thighs, all while searching for a quarter for the parking meter). Researchers say that this type of “variable priority training” spotlights’ individuals’ mental flexibility in decision making skills.
The results clearly indicated that those with a larger caudate nucleus and putamen did better on the variable point training, while those with a larger nucleus accumbens did better in the early part of the training period, regardless of which group they were segmented into. Researchers were not surprised by the results, pointing to the nucleus accumbens as that part of the brain’s reward center, the central motivator behind playing video games in the first place.
“This study tells us a lot about how the brain works when it is trying to learn a complex task. We can use information about the brain to predict who is going to learn certain tasks at a more rapid rate,” comments Erickson.
Imagine a day when neurological disorders could see a treatment through video game training? Sounds far fetched? If researchers have their way, this could someday soon be a reality. This new research not only gives hope to those suffering from neurological disorders, but may also have implications in a much larger educational context.
Videos, coding, and a whole lotta text
By the looks of things around here, you’d think that I’d gone a little AWOL – and part of that is true. I guess when you work on others’ blogs, copy, marketing, and video production – your own personal blog takes a back seat (funny how that making money to pay the bills thing works). So without further adieu…let me bring ya’ll up to speed on what I’ve been working on.
MindMeister
As I wrote back in the beginning of October, I’ve started working with MindMeister in a variety of capacities. Truly, this is one of the best gigs I’ve ever had. Not only is Michael Hollauf (my boss), one of the most supportive people I’ve ever worked with, he’s also very open to any and all marketing ideas. One of the first projects I did with MindMeister is the 4:37 screencast that went up about a month ago.
I can’t take credit for the video footage in this one, as the intro and most of the screen footage was produced and recorded by Wolfgang Bartelme. However, the vocals were recorded by me.
Shortly thereafter I received a headlong introduction to working with Ruby on Rails. After installing NetBeans and getting and stunnel connection set up, I now have access to the ‘guts’ of the MindMeister engine. On any given day, here’s what I’m looking at:
If you’re familiar with coding, then all of this makes sense. If not, it’s completely Greek to you (and me – partially). I place myself somewhere in the middle. My coding experience more or less ended with html, however I’d consider myself a fairly decent php and css modifier, but not creator. To be fair, when I work with code, I’m only altering text, not actually programming strings. However, there is a certain level of organization required, as some text has already been created in a string previously, and doesn’t need to be duplicated, rather, a simple expression is needed to call upon this text.
Got all that? Yeah – me too….but I’m getting there.
The last project I’ve worked on is a screencast video diving into some of the more advanced features of using links within MindMeister mind maps. Again, the intro and outro were created by Wolfgang, but everything in between is all me – video and vox.
And just in case you’re wondering, here’s what I use to make the magic happen:
- MacBook Pro 2.5 Ghz w/ 4GB DDR2 SDRAM
- Adobe Premiere Pro
- Shure SG 25 microphone
- Allen and Heath Xone XD 53 headphones for monitoring
And if that wasn’t enough – I’ve also authored a blog post or two at the MindMeister Blog
fatfoogoo
Nothing really new in the way of fatfoogoo. I keep tabs on the daily industry news concerning microtransactions and their applications in the video games industry. Naturally, in-game advertising also shows up on my radar, as it’s also a monetization method for video and social games. I did however recently read that one of fatfoogoo’s investors, Christian ‘Toto’ Wolff, recently purchased a minority stake in the Williams F1 racing team. This buy in signals the first time ever that the teams’ principles, Sir Frank Williams and Patrick Head have allowed outside investment. So indirectly, fatfoogoo now has a connection to the Formula One racing world? Awesome. 
Naturally, you can always have a read of what I’m reporting for fatfoogoo over in the industry news section.
Talespin
Here’s a teaser that I put together of a much larger project in the works. At the end of last winter my two filmmaking partners and I had the opportunity to interview Chanda VanderHart and Anna Lea Stefansdotir of Talespin – Musical Tales for Big and Small. To be honest – we’ve got so much great footage that I’ve simply been overwhelmed as where to start with the editing process (maybe a MindMeister mind map would be in order here?). Footage was shot by me, while the audio was provided by, unfortunately I never got the guys name – but the dude running the soundboard. And speaking of audio – let me tell you, aligning a separate audio source with video is much trickier that it looks. After doing a little research, as well as talking to Ritchie (aka datadirt), it seems as though most DAT recordings run at 48kHz, while most video footage audio is recorded at 44kHz. Not a major difference, but it’s enough to offset frames. In other words, I couldn’t simply lay the audio in under the video, as every 60th frame or so, the audio would start to go out of phase. To correct this, I had to manually splice the audio and line it up with the video. See if you can hear the cuts – I bet you can’t.
So that’s about it for the month of November. Sure there’s a whole slew of stuff I’m working on for MindMeister right now, but it’d spoil the surprise if I told you about it pre-launch, eh? You’ll have to stay tuned. If you don’t want to miss a beat, you can always follow MindMeister on twitter, become a fan on Facebook, or subscribe to the RSS feed. Shameless marketing plugs FTW!
Working with MindMeister
Sadly, things like a personal blog take a bit of a back seat when you’ve got a ton of stuff going on. Such is the case here, as the past two weeks have been filled with meetings, discussions, and new collaborations. While I can’t go into all of the details of everything that I’m working on right now (pesky NDA’s and such), I’m happy to announce that I’m now working with a Vienna, Austria/Feldkirchen, Germany based SaaS, MindMeister.com. I’ll be working on marketing and promotion projects with them, and am truly excited about this software.
A bit about MindMeister
MindMeister brings the concept of mind mapping to the web, using its facilities for real-time collaboration to allow truly global brainstorming sessions. Users can create, manage and share mind maps online and access them anytime, from anywhere. In brainstorming mode, fellow MindMeisters from around the world (or just in different rooms) can simultaneously work on the same mind map and see each other’s changes as they happen.
That’s the official website copy (not written by me), and it does a good job of explaining what MindMeister is and does, but to put it bluntly – this thing is one of the greatest organizational tools I’ve ever seen. Think about your traditional whiteboard – the board that everyone chalks their ideas up on, and where current ideas get expanded, and new ones are created. Once that whiteboard is filled, chances are the best of the best get carried over to the next iteration. What if you could store every change that was made to this whiteboard? Forever? Enter MindMeister. There’s a whole bit about the history feature that I could get into, but all I’ll say at this point is….stay tuned.
Ok, so we’ve got ideas saved for perpetuity. Great. The problem with the whiteboard is not only that it has limited space, but it’s also physically stationary. Chances are, your corporate whiteboard isn’t making any international voyages anytime soon. Through the power of the internet, MindMeister takes the traditional whiteboard and makes it global. Project managers in Toyko can interact, share, and collaborate on ideas with their counterparts in San Francisco, Sao Paolo, and Sydney, all in real time (provided there’s enough coffee to span those time zones). And for those that just couldn’t keep their eyelids open, mindmaps can be saved, emailed, embedded, exported…you name it, chances are the folks at MindMeister make an option for you to share it.
Free accounts are offered, but have limited functionality. Think of it as a try before you buy. The free version will give you a taste of the complete package, but is akin to driving a V6 with only 4 cylinders firing. Good, but not the full experience. I could go on and on about this fantastic software, but why take it from me? Head on over to MindMeister and get your own map going
New NPD Report lays out Gamer purchasing, playing, and ownership patterns
Leading market research firm, The NPD Group has recently released a report from their Gaming Device Profiles sub-unit, stating that 41 percent of all gamers rely on word of mouth as a source of their video game information. The survey includes data sampled from owners of a variety of gaming platforms, including portable gaming devices, and consequently this word of mouth data varies from owner to owner.
However, collectively, the majority reported relying on what friends and others had to say about their favorite games. In second place with 31 percent, was actual hands on time with the actual game(s) in question. Least influential in gamers’ purchasing decisions? Online and Magazine ads, incentives/coupons, and social networking sites ranked least influential in the survey, barely garnering a 5 percent response.
“When it comes to developing successful games and targeting marketing and promotions, each gaming platform has its own unique challenges and opportunities to consider,” said Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group.
Cross Ownership
There once was a time when fanboy-dom ruled, and if you were a Sega player, that’s what you played, and did NOT own a Nintendo. With the introduction of the Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3, gamers are no longer satisfied with one console, and often own at least one, sometimes two, additional gaming consoles. 32 percent of all US gamers own a Nintendo Wii. 26 percent of these Wii owners also own Microsoft’s Xbox 360, 14 percent, a PlayStation 3.
In the number two slot, 20 percent of all US gamers own an Xbox 360. Of these gamers, 42 percent reported owning a Wii, with only 18 percent own a PlayStation 3.
Rounding out the Top 3, PS3 owners make up the minority, with only 10 percent of US gamers calling the PS3 their console of choice. Of this minority, 42 percent report owning a Wii, 34 percent, an Xbox 360.
Who’s Playing?
Placed side by side, the top 3 consoles are being played the most (by a slim majority) by males. The NPD report recorded that 56 percent of the top 3 console players were male, 44 percent female. The largest percentage of gamers fall into the 2-12 age group, with 24 percent, the 25-34 year old group making up 20 percent, and the 35-44 year old age segment taking 17 percent.
What are they playing?
Online
Mimicking the current trend in online game play, in regards to genre, 51 percent of Wii users reported that Card/Puzzle/Arcade/Word games were their favorites. The Xbox 360 and PS3 saw similar results, 39 percent and 42 percent, respectively. However, while these are some large numbers, Shooters took the #1 spot in most commonly played online game genre played by Xbox 360 and PS3 users, with 59 percent and 57 percent of the vote, respectively.
Offline
While certain data correlations can be derived from the above information in regards to overall preferences by console ownership, age, and genre type, when it comes to offline play, here, each console struts it’s own individual feathers. For Wii owners, family-oriented games topped the list, with Racing and Sports games coming in at a close second/third. Xbox 360 owners saw Family-oriented and Action/Adventure titles in a tie as their number one game(s) of choice of offline gameplay. Finally, PS3 owners reported Action/Adventure games, as well as Racing titles as their pixels of choice.
“This report helps to debunk the commonly held belief that casual-type genre games are primarily enjoyed by less serious gamers. This clearly shows that PS3 and 360 users also participate with these genres quite often, even if shooters remain the most commonly played online genre,” said Frazier.
For lazy bastards: iPhone app – Girlfriend Keeper
For iPhone owners, the amount and scope of available applications is simply staggering. Just before a recent trans-Austria/German/Switzerland/Liechtenstein roadtrip, I bit the bullet, and bought the tomtom gps navigation system app for my iPhone, and couldn’t be happier. Now, the tomtom app is something that I’d consider genuinely useful. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I give you Girlfriend Keeper.
The premise is simple: this $0.99 app will randomly generate and send texts and/or sms’s to that special one in your life. You know, the one that you’re too lazy to send self generate messages to. The user enters predefined data such as eye color, date you started dating, her birthday, etc., and can be defined by “Relationship Seriousness” factors. The user can also define how often messages are sent, everywhere from once a month, right down to every two hours.
The significant other can respond to these messages, and the app has a built in history feature, meaning, the sendee won’t (or shouldn’t) be caught off guard if these messages come up in conversation.
Some example texts:
“I just drove by a brown barn and it reminded me of your eyes.”
“Did you know we started dating 37 days and 8 hours ago?”
And fear not ladies, there’s also the Boyfriend Keeper.
For me, the jury’s still out on this one. In concept, I think it’s a decent idea, but I’m not so sure the recipient would feel the same should he/she discover that these messages are AI generated. On one hand, I’m thinking his/her heart is in the right place, but on the other hand, seriously dude (and dudettes), you couldn’t be bothered to come up with something original?
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