Valleywag
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Videogames
The Console Wars, animated
Game reviewer Yahtzee Croshaw covers the videogame console wars. More » -
Burning Man
The Orb Swarm rules the night
BLACK ROCK CITY — One of the neatest things I have seen in the self-expressive miasma that is Burning Man, the countercultural arts festival here in Nevada's Black Rock Desert, has been The Orb Swarm, a group of spherical robots designed to roll around the playa and interact with participants with lights, motion and sound. Imagine this: You're deeply intoxicated on a substance of your choosing, wandering around in the dark, when suddenly you're nudged by a two-and-a-half-foot high aluminum balls twittering at you and changing color. Yeah. You're tripping over balls, and the balls are tripping you.
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Getaways
Where to go to escape the Internet
If you ever wanted to know which countries limit access to the great bountiful flow of information we call the World Wide Web, you only need glance at the gaping black holes in the above map. Reporters Without Borders has compiled the following list of 15 countries that restrict the Internet: Maldives, Tunisia, Belarus, Libya, Syria, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, Myanmar/Burma, Cuba, Turkmenistan, and North Korea. I don't know; some of them sound like marvelous vacation spots. And the lack of Internet access? Bonus.
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Benchmark Capital
The end of the Benchmark boy's club?
An anonymous post about Benchmark Capital on VC-bashing site TheFunded.com piqued our curiosity. Titled "Don't Play with Women", it's a pretty damning claim:Benchmark has said publicly that they will never fund a woman-founded company. They've never had a woman partner. And the mood seems to be like a frat party (a real turnoff to women).
So far, 13 voters have agreed with the statement, while 2 have disagreed. More » -
Burning Man
The Man rises again -- for a day
BLACK ROCK CITY — Friends playing along at home, you can stop fretting and sleep a tad better tonight, knowing that the dedicated hippie construction workers of Burning Man have erected a brand new Man, the giant wooden statue everyone came to Nevada to watch burn down. Following the early burn on Tuesday by local antihero Paul Addis, the all-volunteer Department of Public Works worked 'round the clock to build a brand new totem, after it was found that the portion of The Man left standing after the premature incineration was not stable enough to use as a base. The new Man is decked out with neon just like the old one, and the pavilion of corporate sponsor appeasementgreen technology exhibits will once more be open to the eager denizens of Black Rock City. And to think — in a day, we're just going to burn it all down again. -
i hate it here
Dust storms roil the playa -- and this reporter
BLACK ROCK CITY — We had a wee tiny, itty-bitty hardly-worth-mentioning dust storm yesterday. There was a moment when we could not see twenty feet across the street to the neighboring camp due to the whiteout conditions. The total lack of visual stimulation forced us to imbibe playa margaritas (a "playa" margarita because we used tasty, tasty Gatorade instead of lemon juice). The great thing about playa margaritas? The mixer rehydrates you as fast as the alcohol dehydrates you. Pretty soon, the packaging on the Spam Singles that someone had brought to camp was uproariously funny. We made it through the crisis just fine, never fear.
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rumormonger
Does Sky Dayton need a new sugar daddy?
Helio, Sky Dayton's wireless-service provider, is cutting back, laying off one out of seven employees, mostly in sales. It's now concentrating efforts, the company says, on its 20 largest markets. The company only has 100,000 subscribers, and 600 employees even after the cutbacks, and is expected to lose more than $300 million this year. EarthLink, the troubled Internet service provider founded by Dayton that's one of Helio's two backers, is rumored to be looking to pull out. More » -
Online Video
Apple claims it broke up with NBC
Apple is not content to let NBC hog all the drama after NBC's TV shows dropped off iTunes. In a "I broke up with you" move, Apple's iTunes store will not host NBC's upcoming fall season, even though the companies' contract runs through December. Why? Because after December, shows would be withdrawn from the store midseason. According to Apple, NBC was trying to rip consumers off by jacking episode prices from $1.99 to $4.99. Hopefully that's not the price NBC's hoping to charge on its Hulu online-video site. Who would be silly enough to pay the cost of a full DVD box set for just half a season? If so, expect rampant piracy. -
Burning Man
Techno playa bling
BLACK ROCK CITY — In between weathering dust storms, drinking heavily and stalking Internet tycoons, we have come in contact with an amusing assortment of tech people who have come to Burning Man to shrug off their work cares and forget about the Web for a few precious, hot, dusty hippie-filled days. We managed to tackle Stef Magdalinski, illustrous CTO of Moo.com, as he was puttering about his camp.
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Vivendi announced that its Universal Music Group unit's digital music sales during the first half of 2007 have doubled over the past year. Despite that, it ran a $102 million loss. World of WarCraft, Vivendi's popular online game, boosted the company's videogames divisional profit to $162 million, almost double the same period last year. [PaidContent]
San Francisco, 9:21 AM
Sun Nov 23
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