ETech07 liveblog: Incantations for Muggles

 Posted by (Visited 40071 times)  Misc
Mar 282007
 

Incantations for Muggles: The Role of Ubiquitous Web 2.0 Technologies in Everyday Life

danah boyd, Doctoral Candidate, School of Information, University of California-Berkeley

Thank you so much for getting up at this hour. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Harry Potter, there are way more readers of HP than there are of BoingBoing or Digg combined. Muggles are those who are not wizards, those who do not have the magic.

Muggles have magic all around them… but don’t see it.

The talk is titled this way because it can be read on 2 levels — we’re here celebrating magic, because we are the wizards. But then we start to not think about Muggles, and mock them. Does that make us EEEeevil? What powers, and responsibilities do we have?
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Massively multiplayer algebra

 Posted by (Visited 11707 times)  Game talk
Mar 272007
 

Check out Hippasus, an MMO where magic is done via math (shades of DeCamp & Pratt’s Compleat Enchanter). The goal is explicitly to teach math, apparently; you earn power and respect by mastering mathematical concepts in a world that mirrors classical antiquity.

Gotta love a description like this:

Different areas will be culturally, behaviourally, visually, and mathematically distinct to allow for an enhanced user experience.

Exploiting the space

 Posted by (Visited 10302 times)  Game talk, Music
Mar 272007
 

We’re all too ready to do things in familiar ways. You know, when we were working on music systems for Galaxies, we thought very much in terms of loops and whether we could get all the sound to synch up. But maybe this video of the Reactable music prototype shows that instead, a multiplayer music system might be better suited towards soundscapes.

When I look at what they did here, I say to myself, “they exploited the uses of a table.” What are core characteristics of a table? It’s usually large enough to handle multiple people. It is a surface on which objects are placed, and interesting things happen in terms of what objects, where, and how they are positioned relative to one another. Using the traditional metaphor of musical instruments would never get you this instrument. Instead, you’d end up with light-up piano keys on the table surface.

What are the core characteristics of virtual worlds, and how do we exploit the space in a way that simply wouldn’t otherwise?

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