Internet

Here's a conundrum: when the world is deep into hysteria over a potential pandemic like the swine flu, how does someone who wants to poke fun at the problem do so?

For Jude Gomilla and Immad Akhund, the answer was a single sleepless night about 10 days ago during which the two San Francisco entrepreneurs built what has become a massively popular Flash game called Swinefighters.

In Swinefighters, players--dressed as giant-syringe-wielding and mask-wearing doctors--are tasked with killing off rogue viruses in the form of sneering pigs. Each time you hit a pig with the syringe, it is wiped out, … Read more

NICE, Calif.--Over the last few days, I spent hours with my wife's parents, Tyler and Donna, helping them adapt to the first Internet connection they've ever had. For them, living on top of a mountain at 4,000 feet, in the middle of a national forest, and entirely off the grid--this has been a big step.

For my wife and I, it's also been a big project, at least in terms of teaching them the basics, and helping them get ready to learn on their own. While their Internet proficiency is still low, they are learning … Read more

NICE, Calif.--As a San Francisco-based Internet junkie, I can't count the number of times I've been in groups with almost as many wirelessly connected Mac laptops as people.

So the scene in front of me shouldn't be new: four people, three connected Mac laptops.

But there's something completely novel going on: I'm visiting my in-laws at their off-the-grid, mountaintop house in Northern California, about four hours northeast of San Francisco. And I can say with absolute certainty that this is the first time such a scene has played out here.

How do I know? Because it's been less than two weeks since my in-laws, Tyler and Donna, had Internet installed on their property for the first time--in their case, the only available option was satellite--and it's been just hours since I personally set up their wireless network. In other words, Wi-Fi is a newly arrived house guest, and judging by the concentration on their faces, the occasional smiles, and the superlatives coming from their lips, it's a very welcome one.

For years, my wife and I had been trying to get her parents to cotton to the idea that their lives, at 4,000 feet, surrounded by national forest and steeped in the necessities of growing most of their own food, could be improved by getting online. But they'd gotten by just fine, thank you, for more than 30 years, without even a television.

Now, suddenly, there is a Wi-Fi network set up in their house, and I could see my in-laws' lives changing before my eyes.

For example, Tyler said excitedly to me one morning during my visit that he'd figured out how to use e-mail and the Web to do many of the things that used to require him to stop at the post office and get stamps.

"That's the end of snail mail for me," Tyler told me. And, he added, no more catalogs would be cramming their P.O. box.

Yesssss!

Working so much better now My wife and I had conveniently--and coincidentally--managed to time our last visit to the mountain with the HughesNet satellite installation. But as I wrote previously, those first baby steps didn't go so well.

Thanks to glacially slow initial download speeds, the unexpected realities of a 200MB daily download limit, and the necessity of loading countless Windows updates onto their 2-year-old, Internet-chaste PC, we had retreated the mountain almost embarrassed by how badly it had gone.

So, I set out to make it all better by bringing them a refurbished MacBook, pre-configured at home with everything they'd need for a happy Internet life. I even unhooked my home Wi-Fi network and donated it to the cause. … Read more

Update: Left 4 Dead is currently discounted on Steam's website at 40% off (from $39.99 to $23.99), but just for this weekend only.

If you haven't tried playing Left 4 Dead yet because of the price, or aren't sure about the game in general, that's OK. Valve has decided to let you try it out for free.

At 5:01 p.m. PDT Thursday, you'll be able to download and play the game for free via Steam for a whole 24 hours. Better still, to get your full 24-hour allotment of play time … Read more

Could a Mac be what it takes to get my in-laws to love the Internet?

Last week, I had the very rare opportunity to help get my in-laws, who live off-the-grid at 4,000 feet in the middle of a national forest, online for the first time and, my wife and I hoped, to instantly end more than 30 years of their being cut off from media innovations.

As I wrote afterward though, their initial experience was quite a bit less than stellar, mainly due to the vagaries of navigating what seem like fairly restrictive download threshold policies implemented by … Read more

NICE, Calif.--This was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Imagine getting to introduce to the Internet a couple of otherwise-normal 60-somethings who, having lived off the grid at 4,000 feet in the middle of national forest, have missed more than 30 years of media innovations.

That's what I did earlier this week, with my in-laws, Tyler and Donna. They're perfectly nice people. They just have never used the Internet before, haven't watched TV, really, and even their cell phone is turned off most of the time to conserve their limited solar power.

I've been coming to … Read more

Last year, the Institute for the Future created an alternate-reality game, Superstruct, designed to crowdsource scenarios to try to save humanity from fictional "superthreats" discovered in 2019 that are thought to mean the end of humanity by 2042.

Now, the IFTF has issued its first findings from the 1,000-plus stories, 500-plus discussions, and 500-plus "superstructures" created by the worldwide community of the game's players, and while there's some reason for hope, there's also a lot to be pessimistic about.

In a report issued Wednesday evening, Superstruct's program director, Kathi Vian, lead … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--While Nintendo's Wii continues to outpace expectations and certain games are making fortunes for their publishers, a strong argument can be made that the hottest segment of the video games industry is one that is still in its infancy: social games.

These titles, which are popping up by the bushelful on platforms like Facebook and MySpace, as well as on Apple's iPhone, are garnering user numbers that would previously have been thought impossible. And in a deep recession, when even the strongest console manufacturers and biggest game publishers are being forced to shut down projects and lay off workers, people have no choice but to sit up and take notice.

At the Game Developers Conference on Thursday, Kristian Segerstrale, the CEO and co-founder of PlayFish, one of the most successful publishers of social games, upped the ante, stating his case for how the mainstream video games industry can learn from his side of the business.

In his talk, "Five lessons from social games that matter to the rest of the games industry," Segerstrale argued that while the nature of the social games business differs significantly from that followed for many years by the more traditional, retail-oriented publishers, times are changing, customers' behaviors and expectations are shifting rapidly, and the winning model may well be the new one.

PlayFish's roster of games, including the mega-hit Who Has the Biggest Brain is illustrative of the popularity games can achieve on services like Facebook. Segerstrale said PlayFish has had 60 million players, averages about 25 million monthly users and 5 million daily players, and currently has 5 of the 10 most popular applications on Facebook. And by itself, Who Has the Biggest Brain has been played a total of 500 million times by 15 million people, he said.

With numbers like that, it's clear why Segerstrale feels he has some lessons to teach the rest of the games industry. And while the traditional retail games model has been relatively unchanged for decades and remains strong today, he said he sees signs that the Electronic Arts, Activisions, and Take-Twos of the world, not to mention the countless other game developers and publishers out there, may need to rethink their methodology.

One harbinger of that need for change is evident even within the traditional games business itself, he pointed out. He said that Nintendo established the Wii as a sleeper hit by exploiting a wide range of people's desire to be social with friends and family. And he explained that Nintendo itself is well aware of this, as evinced by ads for the Wii that show groups of friends playing gleefully. Yet the real estate in the ads devoted to showing the games themselves is minimal; it's the image of the social activity that sells the Wii.

"This is about you and your real-world relationships," Segerstrale said, "which is ultimately much more important than anything that happens between you and your screen...That's why you're playing. You're playing together, not because you're trying to beat the boss in level 10." … Read more

Zeebo's got game.

Zeebo, a closely held company partially funded by Qualcomm, unveiled its 3G wireless video game console on Monday, with plans to begin shipping the device to the Brazilian market next month.

With its device priced at $199 for the Brazilian market and plans to offer it for as low as $149 once it starts shipping in volume internationally next year, Zeebo is seeking to attract users in emerging markets.

The consoles will also come with four games preloaded and the ability to download a fifth game title for free. Zeebo noted the games will be designed … Read more