The Washington Post sends out news that will thrill sci-fi nuts everywhere. Lucasfilm tomorrow is releasing 250 video clips on their website StarWars.com to encourage fans to mash-up and play with. This very surprising news given how litigious George Lucas has been about fans "borrowing" images and video footage and using it for their own…
Category: Information Society
SaveNetRadio coalition rejects Sound Exchange “compromise” on webcasting
Save Net Radio, a "national coalition comprised of hundreds of thousands of webcasters, artists, listeners and labels", yesterday rejected the compromise offered by industry consortium Sound Exchange on the webcasting controversy, which I reported on yesterday. “The proposal made by SoundExchange today would throw ‘large webcasters’ under the bus and end any ‘small’ webcaster’s hopes…
Mitch Kapor speaks on young people of color in science and technology tomorrow
The Electric Sheep Company send out news that Lotus Notes creator and Linden Lab board chair Mitch Kapor will be talking about his work to encourage young people of color to study science and technology this Thursday, May 24 at 8pm PST. Mitch is on the board of the Level Playing Field Institute, a San…
Grassroots net radio saved from going dark by Sound Exchange today
Finally some good news on the net radio front. Just when it seemed like hundreds of net radio stations around the country were about to go dark after July 15, the music industry group Sound Exchange has agreed to stave off execution for a bit. RAIN reports that this morning that Sound Exchange, in response…
Save Internet Radio 10-hour Party this Saturday in SL
I got news of this cool "save Internet radio" party coming up this Saturday in SL! DJ Synn invites all music-loving avatars to come out to a ten-hour marathon protest party from 10AM-10PM PST on Saturday May 12. The all-day event is an effort to raise awareness of the threat to Internet radio (in the…
US military interested in creating “Game World” educational gaming framework
When the US military starts paying attention to educational gaming, you know it has passed a threshold from novelty to necessity. It looks like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the Defense Department is looking for a development platform to test a range of educational games. The call for proposals entitled "Game World"…
Game designers invited to “Game Jam” for One Laptop Per Child Project June 8-10 in Boston
Ben Sawyer sends out news about an "Game Jam" taking place from June 8-10 to bring together programmers to create games for the "One Laptop Per Child" project: One Laptop per Child, a non-profit organization with the goal of enhancing the education of children in developing countries, is going to hold the first OLPC Game…
Obama reclaims his myspace page: the limits of viral grassroots organizing
PoliticsOnline.com reports that the Barack Obama campaign has "taken control of the volunteer created MySpace page listed under his name." Apparently 29-year-old Joe Anthony created the MySpace page a few years ago after hearing Obama speak at the Democratic National Convention. Since then, it has unofficially hosted news and information about Obama and his campaign,…
“Don’t Stand So Close to Me”: NPR video on Nick Yee’s virtual proximity study
NPR has a new blog called "Bryant Park" that features today a fun video on Nick Yee’s research on social proximity in Second Life. Entitled "Don’t Stand So Close to Me," journalist Win Rosenfeld amusingly explores how our real world social norms about physical space translate to the virtual realm. Check it out! (I shot…
It’s Press Freedom Day: let’s free some press
Happy Press Freedom Day! Here’s some of Rapporteurs Sans Frontieres statistics on press repression around the world this year: 24 Journalists killed 5 Media Assistants killed 125 Journalists imprisoned 4 Media Assistants imprisoned 65 Cyberdissidents imprisoned Also check out Freedom House’s world map of press freedom. Support your local press freedom, freedom of expression, or…