1 iFob Me Off
I have had a working phone iPhone in Oz now for a few months – currently jailbroken 1.1.2’s – for R&D purposes only 😉
One of my favourite applications is ‘installer’ which is the portal to a vast array of free, community created, grass roots applications. One popped up yesterday in Recent Apps, iFob which intrigued me.
“wireless, social, real – turn your iPhone into a social network WiFi beacon”.
OK its not rocket science, nothing more than a simple wifi stumbler/stalker app but what sets it apart is the element of exposing elements of your personality, via statements, photos, age, gender to those around you. In other words a sort of RSVP/Facebook on the go, to those around you in the WiFiverse.
Of course the real killer app’ness is that it works the other way – you walk into a crowded Starbucks full of ‘charming’ laptop, iTouch and iPhone users, you pop open iFob and sample who is there. I think the ‘comment’ part is the most powerful aspect, sort of broadcast SMS, and can imagine lots of whispering ‘are you the one who likes playing Pink Floyd while dancing around in the bathroom, dressed as a Panda’ (or similar!). I am off to Sydney CBD on Saturday and will be actively trying out my iFob on unsuspecting, I mean consenting iFobbers.
2 Chasing the Dragon
Those who follow LAMP will know that on the first day of our residentials we play a cross-reality game. A sort of locative scavenger hunt for story fragments in parallel and linked to a similar environment in the virtual world. Great fun and designed to introduce people to the location, bit of team bonding and game play experimentation. Details on our wiki here. We think these mixed-reality, game based services are going to get big and it comes as no surprise to see what looks like a ground-breaking model being launched in Japan today for the next couple of weeks.
Called “Treasure Quest: Enoshima – Treasure of the Dragon” (the link takes you to the Japanese site) is designed by a company who plan tourist ‘hunt game’ events. This one is free to all DS owners who fancy travelling to a small island south of Tokyo and playing the game over a six hour period, wandering as teams and individuals around the real and virtual spaces. The various puzzle clues are contained at key locations on the island and transmitted via WiFi to the DS’s which also has a virtual version of the terrain. Now to check for cheap flights to Sydney to Tokyo, well perhaps not.
Orig – Pink Tentacle
3 Second Skin
Been waiting for a definitive documentary on the phenomena behind the vast swathes of humanity moving into Social Virtual Worlds and MMOGs and this looks like it. A trailer has just been posted on YouTube and already got 23 000 hits in a day, a feat in itself, and it looks like it tackles the subject head on with depth and sensitivity vs sensationalism. It features Mr. Clickable Culture himself, Tony Walsh “There’s so many people involved in this” who was over here as a LAMP mentor last year. Enjoy, more blurb after the embed of “A Documentary on virtual worlds and the gamers who inhabit them.”
“Second Skin takes an intimate look at computer gamers whose lives have been transformed by the emerging genre of Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs). World of Warcraft, Second Life, and Everquest allow millions of users to simultaneously interact in virtual spaces. Second Skin introduces us to couples who have fallen in love without meeting, disabled players who have found new purpose, addicts, Chinese gold-farming sweatshop workers, wealthy online entrepreneurs and legendary guild leaders – all living in a world that doesn’t quite exist.”
