There Is Only The Future

Dear all,

William Gibson once wrote that "the future is here, it's just not widely distributed yet". I don't think I could describe it better. We increasingly live in the future that we were predicting yesterday. The first year of this blog have passed quite successfully. But I feel that communicating information that is already available in so many different sources is not constructive. Sites like Engaget, Gizmodo, Popular Science and hundreds of others can bring you up to date with the techno-noise of our times. I decided to evolve in different direction.

I realized that I find it enjoyable to elaborate on alternative futures. So from now on, it's going to be only about the future. About things that don't exist yet, but that are possible or even just conceivable. It will be a science-fiction-post-modern-cyber-punk blended mix on reality, technology, politics, economy, culture and whatever else oscillates in my childish geek brain areas.

I decided to start distributing the future not present. 

Because at the end of the day, there is ONLY the Future.

Best wishes,

Geek On Acid

Blog Has Been Deconstructed - Stay Tuned

New Format Coming This Wednesday: 

15th December 2035.

Europe After 12 Months Of Heavy Winter

It all started on the 1st of December 2010. Freezing temperatures recorded around entire North Europe, with Poland registering a record minus 26 celsius degrees in a town Bialystok. One of the first severe victims of the longest winter in the human history was UK, with Germany and France joining shortly after. Traffic jams long for miles. Abandoned cars and lorries. Disrupted flights and railway connections. Closed schools. Over the first month, with temperatures averaging between -5 and -30 degrees accompanied by heavy snowing, the Apocalypse Winter slowly paralyzed the entire continent. Some of the major airports including Heathrow, Schonefeld, Geneva and Charles De Gaulle, were shut permanently without further notice, after a series of severe technical failures. Most of the remaining airports followed the same measures shortly after. 

Railway system in UK became virtually useless after 2 weeks, and in the rest of Europe after 2 months. Main highway arteries across the entire Europe become unaccessible. The number of people frozen to death increased by 350% only after a month. Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus closed their borders after a two months, and withdrawn from European Union after three months, tightly securing themselves from the enormous immigration from the remaining EU countries. European Parliment decleared a state of emergency, deploying UN and NATO solders with heavy equipment to help dealing with increasingly chaotic situation. The food supplies across the Europe started to shrink with prices sharply increasing on the daily bases. Also, the gas supplies started to drain as Russia suffered most extreme, arctic conditions in the centuries, affecting the entire industry and infrastructure of gas and oil export. Looting and crime increased rapidly by 245% in all major cities. Alcohol consumption raised on average by 860% across entire Europe, with record rise by 1350% in Poland followed by 1250% in Scotland.

Share prices for most of the European companies crashed, but energy and food suppliers recorded enormous profits, and became virtually countries within countries, with heavy lobbing to compulsory regulate resources distribution. After five months, US, China, Australia, South Africa and Saudi Arabia joined forces to help Europe dealing with the spiraling crisis, that was increasingly getting out of control, deploying joint peaceful forces of over 60,000 solders with enormous equipment infrastructure. Sea and river routes have become a major channels of transport. 

Against the energy companies lobby, with heavy investments from EU and Research Councils, cheap low-energy supply solutions reached the commercial markets after only four months, giving millions of people much higher chances of survival. Energy saving schemes and food rationing have become compulsory after enormous influx of people from the countryside to the major cities. All European currencies including Euro have become worthless after six months, with 95% of banks falling apart, while barter and direct exchange of goods become standard, together with governments' issued food and energy vouchers. 

During six months of freezing conditions, external crops growing become impossible. Transgenetically modified home growing became a legal standard with widespread support from local councils and universities. Additionally, a breakthrough from Agricultural University of Krakow allowed to breed majority of farm animals combined with mutated genes from polar bears and penguins to allow them better withstand freezing temperatures. Some people started using hormonal designer drugs to grow more external hair, but they become illegal after correlation was found between hair grow drugs and increased aggression - starting a phenomenon called 'neoneanderthals'. 

And the live goes on.

Neuroweapons, Virtual Space Wars and Scientific Telepathy

It's been a long break but I am back! Recently I am preparing my newest set of experiments and I got a bit disconnected from RSS feeds drip-bag. Yesterday I realized that my Google account might eventually crash  from information overload and that I haven't uploaded myself and You with some new infornography for a long time. So here are my favorite highlights from the last month:

1. Those of you interested in hardcore military neuropsychology - there is new call for you. Air Force Research Lab just opened a call for proposals for a six-year long project with $49 million to deploy extreme neuroscience and biotechnology in the service of welfare. One of the potential projects include  'artificially overwhelming enemy cognitive abilities with external stimuli'. Speaking simply - the goal is to use set of audiovisual techniques in some unknown format to fuss enemy sensory system in any situation. Suddenly the Man Who Stare At Goats doesn't look so crazy...

2. In the virtual science-fiction world EVE online, two big 'space corporations' succeeded in destroying £14,000 worth virtual spaceships and resources of the third corporations. They just wanted to push it away from particular space sector. Because there is a currency conversion between real and virtual world of EVE, those were... well, the real money. You can watch the battle below:

3. Finally,  a super exciting study from recent Nature Review by Moran Cerf and lots of colleagues. In a huge chunk of neuroimaging studies, he claims that specific brain cells can be linked to specific topics, concepts, objects or people, and will flare up with the brain activity when the particular subject is mentioned. Because non-invasive brain scanners can't  achieve a resolution good enough to monitor activity of the single cells, Cerf et al. use patients with already implanted electrodes deep inside the brain. He found that when volunteers thought about Marilyn Monroe, a particular neuron reliably lit up. So he could build a brain activity database of different concepts, usually famous ones, from buildings like Eiffel Tower to different celebrities. After that, researchers could reliably detect what concept subject was thinking about, just on the bases of neuronal activity. Cool eh?

More stuff coming soon, so stay tuned for the online makeover celebrating the first year of Geek On Acid blog being online!

Video source: YouTube

$21K Exoskeleton For Kids, Cyborg Insects and Brain-Controlled Car (for Rat)

Rats. They always get the best technologies generations before humans. Guys from University of Tokyo implanted electrodes into rat's motor cortex, hooked it to computer-based locomotion system and trained the rat to control the movement of small, wheel-based RatCar. Slowly researchers disabled rat's legs so he was put in 'neuro-robotic' mode - operating the car only with his brain-based feedback. Now 8 out of 10 rats can operate rat cars fluently and swirl around in their crazy brain-steered limousines. Rat's world domination just got a step closer...

It weights 180kg, it heights 160 cm and it can accommodate your child to help it release its primal instincts in their full-blown. Powered by gas, with full gyroscopic coordination system and flexible, adjustable body-attached core, your child won't be bullied anymore. With quick and deadly precision they will rip of their collegues arms and legs with effortless moves. They will be bake to break through most tup of walls and most likely crash with a car speeding up to 30 miles per hour, without significant body harm. The only condition that will stop them is the one which destroyed evil robots from Robocop - he can't go up stairs or rocky hills.

KID WALKER exoskeleton - your child can have it for only $21,000 (from Japanese based company S@kakkibara).

[Disclaimer: of course it's not for sale, price is an estimate, but just thinking about market options makes me feel... unsettled....]

Cyborg insects - let's be honest - we knew it was coming. US Army would just love to have a swarm of spy bees flying all over the place. And they will have it. Scientists at the University of California can now wirelessly control flower beetles with six micrometer-sized electrode stimulators implanted in their brains and muscles. They can receive commands such as 'take off', 'land', or 'turn right'. Just think about those commercial possibilities ;-)

[photo credit: University of Tokyo, Sakakibara, University of California]

$75,000: The Magic Number for Your Salary

Noble price winner & psychologist Daniel Kahneman just got some interesting results in his new study. After surveying almost 450,000 americans, Deaton and Kahneman suggested that there are two forms of happiness: day-to-day contentment (emotional well-being) and overall “life assessment” (broader satisfaction with one’s place in the world).  He showed that as people earn more money, their day-to-day happiness rises. Until you hit $75,000 (per year). After that it's just more stuff, with no gain in happiness. Still, ultra wealthy people report overall higher life satisfaction than wealthy people. As Deaton pointed out: "Giving people more income beyond 75K is not going to do much for their daily mood … but it is going to make them feel they have a better life" (Associated Press, 2010).

While the full paper is still in preparation, this study swept headline news of major economical magazines and high-impact journals. One thing that there is Kahneman name on it. Another - that they really surveyed massive group of people - almost half a million americans. Still, I have some doubts about it mainly for cultural and socio-economic differences. While America is a prototype of capitalist, western country, I doubt that $75,000 will be "magical" enough for daily happiness in UK (especially in London area, £48,000/year would be considered "very" average). However, that's quite a lot of money in Poland for example (223,000 PLN/year would be around 18,500PLN/month - you can do quite a lot for that). Hell, within USA itself I would expect high fluctuations between states. So $75,000 figure might be hard to apply straightforwardly to other countries without considering some wider context. 

Still, it clearly confirms very old intuition - that having more money is generally good for you ;-)

[photo credit: Andrew Magill]

Your weekend trip to the Moon just got a big step closer.

It's all started in 2005 by Richard Branson, owner of Virgin, who started his new venture Virgin Galactic. The goal was to offer sub-orbital flights for $200,000 (£128,000) per person. 

Virgin got hundreds of pre-booking on their space flights, 5 years passed, and now they are almost ready. Their SpaceShip Two (Photo 1) will go just above the defined boundary of space - 110 km (when the boundary is 100 km) and the flights are going to start between 2011/2012. Virgin actually is finishing building first commercial Spaceport (Photo 2) in New Mexico. 

To fly into suborbit, you need to get there, get your 3 days space training, and everything looks like from science-fiction movie (Photo 3). Then you get your 30 minute flight with around 5 minutes weightlessness and seeing piece of Earth from space. Thats it.

It's cool, and looks awesome. But the real transformation is beyond this. On Wednesday Boeing signed a memorandum with Space Adventures that they will be offering orbital commercial space flight by 2015. 

To remind you:

1. Boeing is the largest global airplane manufacturer,

2. Space Adventures is the only company that offers flights to International Space Station for very rich and famous tourists - with price repeatedly being $40 million.

And this is something which makes Branson and his Virgin Galactic looks like a child's play.

Instead of flying just above atmosphere (suborbit), you will actually go into near space. And it will least much longer. Even spaceship will look uh... clunky, but like a professional spacecraft module (Photo 5). In the nearest future Boeing is planning to organize visits to near space stations. In the further future Boeing is planning (and already signing agreements with collaborators) to build their own space station for touristic purposes. 

Yes, what you read about in science-fiction novels just got a very real start. And probably available to you within your lifetime, if you have enough money. Cost of Boeing trip for 2015 is not yet know, but it is estimated to be competitive to Virgin Galactic.

It's good news not only because of recreational aspectes but also for the potential future  space developments. Commercial space trips mean that scientific research and near space developments will have a new surge. Many companies will sign up to offer space training for people, and it's a question of time when space walks will be available in the package. Not mentioning that sending new satelites, building new space stations and generally expanding our technological capacities into near space will be significantly improved. And in the time when NASA budget is draining quickly - these are good news. 

Then the next step will be the Moon - and I've already done advert for it (see first image) ;-)

[photo credit: Virgin Galactic (1,2,3), NASA (4), New York Times (5)]

[Moon Advert created by Geek On Acid ® with logo from BA, LOT, KLM & Boeing]

Geek On Future: Shopping Bill From 2030

Here is the future receipt from Tesco I will get in 2030 - inspired by my weekend reading of Wired and reflection on my shopping list.

Click on the link above for better quality PDF or on image below for medium quality view.

[Photo & File by Geek on Acid ®]

Piracy and Spotify Are The Beginning Of New Transition

Last week it emerged that people downloading music illegally spend £33 more than legal file sharers on buying music legitimately. So if you are a pirate, you are usually spending more money on music from legal sources than those people who don't download illegal torrents.

Intuitively that makes sense - when you have an opportunity to try out the product, it's more likely that you will buy it - and it must apply to music as well.

But let's dig it a bit more. 

In the beginning man created a vinyl. And it was good. The quality of soft vinyl brought analogue music to the commercial market. Then there was a tape. It changed the market and it was cheap. While you couldn't copy the vinyl, you were easily able to copy the tape, but at the cost of quality. Walkman made the physical music media mobile. It was a great era of physical media. And it was good.

Then, there was a CD and it was more expensive, but the quality was ultimately much higher than tape. And after some time, people started ripping CD's. Tape and vinyl slowly ceased into oblivion. That's how the digital era began. 

Then the iPod and iTunes made the entire music library mobile and accessible immediately. Many people abandoned physical for digital, because they could have everything here and now, synchronised with their portable players. 

But digital music was almost as expensive as the physical media, and people said that it was not good, so they kept ripping those CD's and downloading music illegally. Torrents became standard. The music market profits sinked down to ever-low levels. The music quality was compromised by portability, ripping algorithms and cheap, but instant hi-fi sets. In a hi-end market, the hard vinyl made an exclusive come back, bringing expensive but high-quality analogue medium back in market. But the mainstream was digital, low-end and pirate.

But another transition was on it's way. Spotify. The idea was simple - lets give people all the music available online for free, but once in a while they will listen to 30 second advert. And if they like it, let them pay £5 per month for the advert-free version, with an option to backup some songs on their hard drive to listen offline. And finally - for £10 per month, they will have all the above plus they will be able to get those track on their smartphone or portable player, and backup much more tracks offline.

And so it worked, and people liked it. 

And thats where we are and the new revolution is emerging in the digital world. Spotify is a first step towards new media model, where you rent or stream the content, but you do not own it. This instant, legal, cheap and ownership-free model is ultimately the way we will consume music, TV shows and movies. While Apple understood it, and pursues such idea with it's new release of Apple TV. BBC's iPlayer, Spotify or Netflix are already taking over the market. It will take some time before big broadcasters will realise that this is the future, but we are getting there. 

Ultimately, the TV model will change entirely to streaming. Retail stores will disappear, as user will be able to stream content for free and immediately buy it online with extras and higher quality, either in digital (Spotify, iTunes) or physical (Amazon) format if their prefer. With the increase in digital sale, more hardware will be offered for free as a part of subscription, like it is with mobile phone contracts, or BT, Sky and Virgin Media in UK. This is the beginning of new digital transition. 

Are we reading or scanning?

I spend about 8 hours a day using computer on average, and I read all the time.

Well, do I really?

I was in library last week. First time in about a year. 'Not good' you think, but then you have to realise that I can get any article I need online much faster than the hard copy, plus it will be saved with notes and searchable via my Mendeley database on any device. If I look for particular chapters of a book, I can usually get an e-book or just online excerpt from Google Scholar. Physical library became a dinosaur for me.

But it doesn't just stop here. I noticed I am reading less books every year, but much more journal articles, scientific and technological magazines, and whats most important - internet based publications. I have a RSS Reeder on iPad loaded with over 100 different feeds from areas ranging between physics, genetics and robotics to cooking, neuroscience and role-playing games, constantly updating it's content narrowed to selected keywords I am digging.

I snap, I scan, I copy and paste, I browse, I glance, I google, I wiki, and I usually get the point.

When I don't use a computer and read, I have usually a graphic novel for subway/train traveling or Instapaper on iPhone/iPad to read internet article snapshots that I didn't have time to read in the lab or at home. I capture bits and pieces of information, quick photos, memos, scans and bookmarks with Evernote for keyword-based digi-notebook.

So both the format and the style of my reading changed. Time is precious, so reading entire 40 pages journal article would take me a while. So when new article hits my Mendeley database, I open it on iPad, skip the intro and go straight into discussion, just glance on method and results. Read only first paragraphs, look for contextual info, extracting and coping into digitally-atattched notebook ONLY what is relevant to me. Ten minutes later I know more or less where I am and what it is about, but I don't necessary know details. I rank the article and move on. Later I take the articles with highest rank, and go through them in detail. Or not.

Still I have a tendency to get more distracted when it comes to reading a book, or long journal article. I procrastinate, delay, check some keywords online, make notes on my ideas, procrastinate.

I wonder whats your thoughts on that, did your reading habits changed over the past years?


[photo: Geek On Acid ©]

My (failed) Jailbraking Manifesto

In 1976 iPad would be a size of a building and it would cost you $18 billion (SEMI PV Group, 2010).

It has nothing to do with this post, but I thought I will share some useless infornography with you ;-)

Anyway, after a week of using my jailbroken iPhone, I thought I will give you some ultimate reasons why jailbraking is great, both ideologically and pragmatically...

How wrong I was... it turned out... to be a big disappointment...

Don't get me wrong, you will still benefit when you jailbrake you iPhone, but there are four lessons I learned during last week when exploring unauthorized apps from Cydia Store and Rock Your Phone Store are:

1. They are all expensive (but you get free trial on most of them).

The cost of majority of apps oscillate between $4.99-$9.99... WTF?

2. They crash frequently, and crash your iPhone too.

3. Some of them are very tricky to set up.

For example - getting games for snes4iPhone which allow you to run old Nintendo games on iPhone or iPad (and playing them using Wii Remote) is quite tricky...

4. You iPhone will keep crashing and performance will significantly slow down, if you start installing too many jailbroken apps.

Well, I definitely tested a lot... and had to restore my iPhone to default.

There is one ultimate reasons why I will keep my iPhone jailbroken:

I can use my iPhone as wireless WiFi modem/hotspot - both for laptop and iPad - anywhere with 3G or EDGE connection.

Yes, tethering for free. No extra charges, no bullshit from O2 about additional packages for data transfer. I just run app called MyWi ($19.99 - expensive, yes, but considering price difference between iPad 3G+WiFi and iPad WiFi only (£100), plus data packages for iPad (£10 for 1GB/month), plus paid tethering for iPhone (£15/month) - it's £25/month saving plus £100 in my pocket) and I can create a secure WiFi hotspot from my iPhone anywhere covered by 3G or EDGE. And it works fast, fully integrated with multitasking, including when iPhone is in sleep mode. Best app ever. 

I can also unlock my iPhone and use it in any country with local pay-as-you-go cards, but right now I recon I could do it without jailbraking, just speaking to my carrier.

If you want to jailbrake your iPhone/iPod, it's super simple:

a) run Safari on your iPhone/iPad, 

b) go to JailbrakeMe 2.0 website,

c) slide the slider.

---

That's it, I don't see any other reason to jailbrake your iPhone beside purely ideological (you don't like Apple's technocratic, totalitarian heaven). But in terms of practical application, there is just so much crap in those jailbroken stores, that I just really decided to clean all this shit and only install MyWi.  

[image by Geek On Acid ©]

My Jailbraking Manifesto: Coming Soon

[photo credit: Geek On Acid ®]

We Are Mobile Phones, But Our Mobiles Phones Are S**t

There are currently 4.023 billion mobile phones connected globally with the world population of 6.75 billion people. That's 0.596 phones per capita (per person). It (roughly) means that more than a half of the world population owns a mobile phone. Let's dig it.

More people have access to mobile phones in India (543 million), than to adequate sanitation (366 million) (UN, 2010). 

China is a leading single country with the highest number of mobile phones connected - 547.3 million (with India being second). But lets put it in the context. Population of China is 1.31 billion people. So the estimate is 0.416 phones for a person.  

Europe has 712.8 million mobiles connected. With population of around 593 million, we have 1.2 phones for a person. Even if you look at fine details, countries like Germany, Italy, France, UK, Poland, Spain or Ukraine have roughly between 1.1 - 1.5 phones per capita. So proportionally, we are leading, side-by-side with Russia (which has also around 1.3 phones per capita).

It's a big number. It means statistically every person in Europe has a mobile phone. Obviously, that's not the case, but number is still extremely high.

Mobile phone is becoming a body organ. You can now browse the net, watch TV, listen to radio (ok thats old school), geotagg the reality around you, direct yourself around any place (with GPS coverage), play complex games, shot photos and videos, book a tickets or restaurant with just few clicks. We are constantly connected. You go to the pub and you see 8 people sitting silently around the table, clicking their phones. They eventually come back to conversation, but every social pause will be an excuse to send a text or check/update Facebook/Twitter.

But with all this attachment and expansion of mobiles there is still not that much innovation coming in a field, just redesign and recycling old solutions.

Sure, iPhone redefined touch interface and globalised common app use, and the trend is now evolving very quickly within mobile application development. But hardware development just froze in time, and mobile phones are becoming increasingly clunky. Phones from HTC, Apple, RIM, Nokia are loosing their key features - battery life, sustainability, simplicity of interface, cheapness, signal strength and toughness. And services are also going down with expensive contacts, confusing insurance policies, expensive roaming and data transfer rates. My iPhone can let me send the e-mail, but it will cost me £3/Mb from outside UK, and the battery dies on me after a day. Ten years ago I had Nokia 3310 which battery least for 5 days easily, with frequent use. 

My point is that someone has to redevelop current concept and services of mobile phone. Software is there, but hardware and mobile networks lacks perspective. It's all iPhone-touch-screen-HTC-another-version-clones now, with competition on 'who get's bigger OLED screen' and whether O2 or Orange screws more users on data plans with "free" phone.

So...

I want good battery life (5-7 days, or 2-3 weeks like ebook readers!). 

I want very simple interface (well, Apple kind of succeeded here). 

I want just a few apps I use on the daily bases. Honestly, how many apps that you download from App Store you actually use regularly? 5? 8? I recon that's my personal estimate. And I have about 100 of them kicking around in my iTunes library - most of them just useless crap (for some of which I paid, looser...). 

I want a quality calls (with faces, yes, they have it in Japan already, Apple) and good network coverage. I want cheap roaming rates and cheap data. Not for downloading YouTube movies, but to turn on simple GPS to find some cool bar when I'm chilling somewhere abroad. 

I want simple and clear contract, that I can easily personalise and adjust according to my calling/traveling/data needs with free access to wi-fi hotspots around Europe (especially airports).

Is it really THAT much? ;-)

[All data in this post has been calculated and sourced using Wolfram Alpha]

[Image: Geek On Acid ©]

Coming Back via Information Overload

We are currently spending around 23% of our online time on social network sites (Nielsen Internet, 2010). It's a 7% increase since last year this time. As such, social networking sites jump to the top of the list of online activities. Second most popular activity is playing online games (10%) and third - checking e-mail (8.3%). People spend more time on Facebook and Twitter and playing FarmVille, than browsing Google or searching videos online. It's a biggest shift of online trends in years. 

We have on average 22 apps on our phones, from which 33% know our location, and 14% access our contacts (App Genome Project, 2010).  

Browsing internet on iPad is better for your cognitive system (here defined as 'level of disorientation' and 'cognitive load') than browsing internet on your desktop computer. Demirbilek found that subject using the tiled-windows (tablet) interface were significantly less disoriented than subjects using an overlapping-windows interface. He also found that participants working with overlapping windows were substantially more likely to experience cognitive overload than those working with tiled windows (Demirbilek et al., 2010).

FDA has approved bionic telescopic eye implant (photo above). In clinical testing from VisionCare Ophthalmic  70% of over 200 patients "had their vision improve from severe or profound impairment to moderate impairment" (VisionCare, 2010).

Apple released their worst iPhone ever (see also Antenna-gate), and Amazon released their best Kindle so far. Both companies sold out within day or two.

Nintendo will release 3D version of their handheld console that won't require any special glasses, potentially starting a new revolution in 3D entertainment. Or bringing it down.

Violent dreams may indicate developing brain disease (Boeve et al., 2010).

Medical use of marihuana is having it's momentum, with research wide-spreading from multiple sklerosis and cancer to inflammation and anxiety (Seppa et al., 2010).

And the information chaos just keeps flowing through my mind... 

[photo credit: VisionCare]

Geek Is Back From Holidays

Stay tuned for new exciting technologies to discuss!

FarmVille Phenomenon

What is the game which is played by 1% of world population every month? 

That's right, welcome to FarmVille with population 82.4 million players (as for May 2010). Some 30 millions of them check their crops daily.

This mean that 20% of all Facebook users login FarmVille every month to plant, tend and harvest virtual crops, over and over and over again. And folks from the company behind the game, Zynga, say that it's only the beginning - and they already released iPhone app, showed in most recent Steve Jobs presentation. 

Wow, I am not really a big gamer geek (regardless of what you all think, I only play Scrabble on iPad recently). But it is still fascinating for me - what is the key to the success of this shit-graphic, repetitive and extremely simplified game that looks like rip-off from early Nintendo adventure games?

There are a number of factors here, all purely hypothetical and only based on surveys rather than well controlled studies. 

First - social factor - if a player persuades their Facebook friends to become their FarmVille "neighbours", they can be rewarded for fertilizing their friends' fields or feeding their hogs. 

Playing games like FarmVille is “intimate, yet public.” You can publish your accomplishments to your Facebook Wall for all to see, in case you want your friends to know that you’ve mastered the art of farming strawberries or won a blue ribbon for your prize eggplants. Obviously, this is something that non-invasively keep people in touch as well - a phenomenon I call 'ping communication' - when you don't actually exchange any particular information with your social contact online, but rather virtually 'poke' each other, or send invite for some stupid quiz or send a pig to friend in FarmVille. 

What's more, FarmVille mechanics is based on the oldest action-reward idea in the gaming history, borrowed from old Chinese games, which are in turn based on old Japanese RPG games. You have control, you make an action, which will have predictable result. You don't make an action on time, and your crop will die. So you have to come back to the game after a while when you leave the Facebook to maintain your farm. Simple. 

And it's extremely simple to play as well. Almost every age group from teenagers to older players can set up their own virtual farm within couple of minutes. Simple diagonal layout borrowed from those old Japanese games combined with straightforward options menu, and minimalist iconic graphics, makes the game learning process almost instant. And the fact that you have to get back to the game regularly, works like a virtual pet, a Tamagotchi - you have to nurture it and look after it every day, otherwise it will be sad and will die soon after.

We can add more theories to it, like an urban fantasy of having farm, but at the end of the day, it seems that FarmVille is a masterpiece of simple combination of all the things we already know in gaming - simplicity of interface, control, predictability, direct action-reward model and social networking. All those aspects shifter social online gaming to the mainstream. Today's average social online game player is 43-year-old women and generally housewives staying with kids at home. But FarmVille population covers all group ages, which is absolutely unprecedented phenomenon. 

It also looks like Zynga reported a revenue of over $200mln in 2009 and FarmVille is definitely one of their key product. It's a good figure, but not as much as you would think. There are no exact numbers on how many users actually spend money, but it looks like only a small percentage of users do so. To put it in the context - Blizzard, with biggest online MMORPG game World of Warcraft (population of ONLY 11.5 millions - 8 times smaller than FV), gets an average profits of $100mln PER MONTH. Console games producers also report much more profits than Zynga. 

But Zynga strategy of keeping it simple and continuously expanding FV universe by a small elements keeps users logged in for a long time. Ultimately, they seem to learn well from other games producers and combine best features to keep you attached to your farm, so the future... might be interesting ;-)

[photo credit: Wired.com, Wikipedia, Zynga]

Batman Is Dead (At Least Three Times)

No tech-geek stuff today. But comic books - yes. Graphic novels - definitely.

Comic books are like a modern mythology for me - they reflect different anxieties, hopes, dreams and urban legends circulating in our society. They reflect our mundane reality but wrapped in symbols, metaphors and supernatural heroes with amazing abilities - same as in ancient mythology. It is especially reflected between comic book realities and political world.

Examples? There are numerous.

In 1983 just after Chernobyl disaster, Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore release first issue of 'Watchmen' - a brutal and more realistic take on superheroes, set in the world where Cold War never ended. When George W. Bush became a president of US in 2001 it wasn't long before Lex Luthor became president of US in special issue (Superman: Lex 2000). Shortly after attacks on 11 september 2001 Marvel released a special 'black issue' with superheroes perspective on WTC attacks (Amazing Spider-man vol. 2 #36). Shortly after invasion on Iraq, Frank Miller announces 'Holy Terror, Batman!', where Batman takes on Al-Qeada ;-) It's yet to be released.

Graphic novels are especially worth attention, because they are frequently pieces of art, linking great drawings with top class story plot.

Batman was always my favorite character in every aspect: complex, dark, intelligent, psychological and... he is human at the end of the day. So I keep a track of the fresh and interesting novels that coming out with this superhero. Today a quick glance into three interesting position I've just finished.

They are all about Batman's dead.

First is 'Whatever Happened to the Capped Crusader?' written by Neil Gaiman. The story is simple and very bizarre - in a Gaiman style. It's Batman's funeral and different good and bad characters are coming to pay their respects. Some of them have story to tell on how the Batman died, and those stories are very, very different from each other... It's a short but amusing story kept in the atmosphere of Gaiman's 'Sandman'.

Neil Gaiman was always great in redefining the meaning of graphic novel, and he did it perfectly with 'Sandman' series. Those stories prove, in my view, that he should abandon writing books and focus on graphic novels. I would give him, not 'Maus', Pulitzer for the 'Sandman'...

Second is 'Batman: RIP' - the official Grant Morrison take on Batman's dead. Bruce Wayne took part in a strange experiment long time ago - scientists closed him for 10 days in the deprivation chamber. He experienced himself on completely different level, barely surviving mentally the strain of delusions and hallucinations generated by the isolation in chamber. But suddenly years later, the experience comes back, and the line between reality and delusion becomes very thin for Batman...

This story is an ultimate masterpiece, very violent but very intelligent, with deep reflections on human nature, personality and fragility of mind. It takes you in this best place where novel can take you, with beautiful illustration by Tony Daniel.

Finally, there is also Batman's dead in 'Final Crisis' - again written by Grant Morrison - it's one of the coolest graphic novels I read in years. The story unveils a horrible success of Darkseid, who uses all modern media - TV, radio, mobile phones, internet - to infect almost entire population of Earth with neurolinguistic virus he sourced from other dimension alien technology. Superman and other superheroes who survived the virus have to travel between alternative realities before Darkseid takes over the entire universe. This is heavy and quite strange story, and I won't tell you how Batman dies - read it yourself ;-)

[images credit: DC]  

Bionic Hands and Gesture Computing

Everyone wants to have a bionic hand, right? Well, I do, and recently two very good models appeared on the prosthetic market. 

First is i-Limb Pulse (above) made of aluminium chasis, is one of the toughest bionic devices create to date, supporting a load up to 90 kg. Additionally, you can apply fast, high-frequency pulses to apply greater force for activities of daily living such as tying shoelaces, gripping a light switch cord or crushing someones hand. What's more, this terminator's fist analyses your myoelectric impulses in real-time to adjust gain and control strategies to your individual action model. No price available yet, but Touch Bionics claim they have already upgraded 1200 users with it.

Second, US-based company BeBionic not only offers you mioelectric bionic hand, but you can also get bionic wrist and customized artificial skin options. BeBionic Hand (above) is not as sophisticated in terms of grip options and patterns as i-Limb, but it comes close, plus it will give you more angles of flexibility with the BeBionic Wrist, to be released later this year. However, guys from BeBionic made an attempt to make the look of the limb less robotic. You have 19 skin shades available made of multi-layered blended silicon boosted with micro-pigmentation for additional depth and realism. Anyway, I prefer robotic than skin version. No price available as well...

Finally, finishing hands topic, there is a genius MIT project on gesture computing. Using $1 multicolour lycra gloves (above) and fairly simple camera you are able to operate on-screen objects (like 3D models or interfaces) using only your gestures. This is what we are waiting for, Minority Report and shit, it's coming baby, check out the clip below. 

[image credit: Touch Bionic, BeBionic, CSAIL]
[video credit: Robert Y. Wang/Jovan Popović]