Garbled Zombie

Spore Porn

After EA’s witchhunt and banning of Spore Porn, you’d think Will Wright would think the same. Looks like he doesn’t. Will is not only unoffended by Spore Porn (as tastefully pictured above), but also appreciated how accurately the creators hit what they were aiming for (pun? Must investigate).

“When you give players creative control, you have to expect they’re going to do the unexpected,” says the Procedural Generation lord. Not surprising. I mean, you give an easy-to-use content creation application to Internet inhabitants: you’d have to be whacked not to expect porn.

“It’s amazingly explicit, especially when those creations are animated. We just have to make sure those people aren’t messing up the experience for others.” he says, confirming some things perverts had in mind. The game will have a system now that will allow you to ban certain species from your universe, apparently. Also expect EA to bring in the BANHAMMER whenever you upload an image or video of your porntastic creature.

Wright also hints at a sequel for Spore there, saying that he’s looking at Spore as a brand. He says, however, that it will only happen after they’ve analysed crowd reaction. And besides, it would be too early to start charting out a sequel to what already is a semi-experimental game.

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Garbled Zombie

Pandora

I remember first going to Pandora. The site asked me to enter some of my favourite artists. I did. And then it told me that it will play other artists similar to the one I entered. “Excellent!” I utter. I expected a chat room where someone will search up artists. But nope. It was all automated. It was amazing.

It wasn’t perfect, and Last.fm was larger and more attractive, but Pandora was unique. It was the most accurate when it came to recommendations, because of the Music Genome Project, while Last.fm relied on users’ listening habits. But it did not last. As royalties for Internet radio were on the rise, Pandora had to cut access to foreign visitors.

That left me cut out, although I do remember accessing the site once without a proxy and using it for some 20 minutes before expiring my song quota. Could never replicate that moment, but what the hell, it was cool. I really sympathised with Pandora, partly because of the polite apology letter they left for foreign visitors.

Looks like it’s finally time for Pandora to hang up its boots once and for all. SoundExchange is putting on some draconian fees for Internet radio, which is going to hurt Pandora like hell. Royalties have been projected to reach 2.91 cents per listener at 2010. Pandora and others are attempting to petition SoundExchange, but we all know how petitions work.

If it ends up unsuccessful, Pandora will have to pay a whopping 70% of their projected 2008 revenue. Tim Westergren, owner of Pandora says that the minute such an event occurs, Pandora may have to shut shop, which isn’t very surprising. Will this be the demise of free, dynamic Internet radio?

Meanwhile, a new contender has come up to rise the ranks of Internet music. Grooveshark appears to be a brand new site similar to Pandora and Last.fm in that it is a music recommendation system. It appears to be undergoing maintenance right now, so I can’t check it out, but the guys at Mashable seem to have really liked it, so take a look.

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David Rodriguez

I love it when a company is proactive in being New Media friendly. Give users your content whenever and where ever is so pleasing.

TheWB.com is aiming for just that. Going public Aug 27, TheWB.com features older WB shows along with new original web series. Not only will this content be available on TheWB.com - it will also be on Dailymotion, Joost, Sling Media, TiVo and Veoh Networks! They already have a Facebook application that allows users to share The WB content.

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David Rodriguez

The game that was flip flopping all over the place, apparently is actually being made. Yeah and it doesn’t look that bad either!

I honestly can’t wait. The game takes place 30 years after Nemesis. You get to work your way up to Captain. You get to control your character across planets, go aboard your ship, and then fly it around space.

Create your own race or go with a race we’ve already seen (Humans, Vulcans, and everyone else). Customize your ships and characters. At launch you can be part of Star Fleet or the Klingon Empire. Combat, exploration, tactical actions are all here.

The graphics look solid for an MMO.

Still no news on when it will be released. Below is the video conference held by the developer Cryptic Studios at the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas.


Star Trek Online Las Vegas Webcast from Cryptic Studios on Vimeo.

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David Rodriguez

From the makers of FunnyorDie.com, comes their latest spin-off PWNorDie.com. What’s great about this video site is that it’s geared towards techies at large and of course fanboys are welcome! They’ve already got tons of video game companies putting content up there. They also have Chris Pirillo, Fatal1ty, and yours truly StuffWeLike.

Know you, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. The only thing that’s annoying about the site is the low video resolution. Why would any hardcore gamer want to watch trailers that aren’t in high definition?

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