Digital Comics

I thought, for my last blog entry, that I would do it over something that I love. The truth is, I love comic books and they are evolving in this digital age. Marvel is the biggest proponent of this new way to read comics and offers this service in a subscription model. For $60 a year or $10 a month, you can have access to all of their comics that they have put online and they continue to update. Marvel also makes Motion comics. Motion comics literally add motion to comic books and occasionally voice acting. This makes a comic book a step in between a comic and a cartoon. I think this is a very cool way to read/watch your favorite comic books. If you search on Google, you can find many people speculating that this will eventually overtake print comics but I think that collectors and casual readers will always enjoy having a physical copy and I view this as more of something to go along with physical comics than as a way to replace it. The PSP system now offers digital comics on the handheld that you can take with you and read anywhere. I hope that this industry continues to grow and I am very excited to see where it goes.

Digital Explosion

I searched digital explosion on Google and found Digital Explosion, another website design firm. I felt that this company has some pretty interesting designs and has done something that I didn't even know could be done. First off, the intro video was very interesting. It seems to be a good way to introduce people to your website and encourage them to keep looking. I also found it interesting that this company does many different types of design, such as billboards and logos along with websites. I think that this is quite unique, at least in my searches that I have done so far, I don't see as many companies that do print and digital design. I don't know why exactly more companies don't do this, but I'm sure that many of the principles translate from one to the other. The website is a little to busy and could have possibly used some better design, but the work that this company has done is pretty impressive.

digital storm

I searched digital storm on Google and found Digital Storm Online. This website sells computers that are built specifically for gaming and offer a lot of different designs and features. I have always found these computers overpriced, but that doesn't really have anything to do with this post. Anyway, the designs for these computers always seem a little more "intense" than computers that aren't designed for gaming. You can see this from Alienware. also. I'm sure that this design brings up the price a little but that isn't really my concern. I think that this shows that gaming is still not taken seriously by a lot of companies that design things specifically for gaming. Words such as cool, extreme, hardcore, get thrown around and more led lights than necessary are used just to make the thing glow and look "sweet". I think that it is time that these companies take the lead because video games are a huge earner now and outsell movies in gross. I think that it is time to start treating the products and the industry with more respect... but that doesn't mean that I don't want one of these totally rad machines.

Digital Wish

I searched digital wish on oogle and found something that could be very helpful to a lot of people. Digital Wish is a website that allows someone to donate money or technologies to a classroom. Basically, a teacher creates a wish list on the website and people that want to donate register on the website and help the teachers meet their wishes. The site claims to want to update the classroom to the 21st century. This charity seems legitimate, and if it is, I think that this is a very important thing to do for underprivileged schools or children. Children most certainly need to be familiar and able to use digital technology quite well if they want to succeed in the world. Of course, all of these things could be learned later in life, but I believe, at least in my experience, it's easier to grasp onto concepts as a child than it is as an adult. I looked around a little more on digital charities and found a couple that donate laptops, computers, and various different technology to schools and children. This is a very worthwhile idea and I think it deserves more spotlight than it currently gets.

Digital Harassment

I searched digital harassment on Google and found something fairly interesting. I found an article from the New York Times that talks about three teenagers that had sent their boyfriends naked pictures of themselves and gotten charged with disseminating child porn. The boyfriends were charged with possessing child porn. This is an interesting story in itself and I've heard about this before, on the news and from friends. I personally think that it is wrong to charge these children with a crime, but I digress. My real point is that I think that this is just one of the many new criminal activities that we face in the digital age. I think the first time that I noticed a new illegal activity on the internet is when Napster became popular. While I was looking around, I even found that people try to sell in game gold or items in games such as World of Warcraft for real life money. As these games become more popular, I would think that shady ordeals such as this will increase. I also think that people enjoy exploiting there technology and making it do anything that it can which can obviously lead to legal ramifications.

Digital Fish

Digital fish is what I chose to search on Google and I was able to find out about something that I didn't really know much at all about. Geofish.net is a website that tracks little fishes. These things are planted by participants and locations are uploaded to the website. Then, with the help of a GPS, someone is supposed to go and find this little fish. I think that this really goes along well with our game lectures and assignment. This really reminds me of digital hide and go seek and it's a way to use an existing technology in a way that it probably wasn't intended. I looked up geocaching on Wikipedia and apparently this is much like a 150 year old game called "letterboxing". This game uses uses clues and references to landmarks embedded in stories. I read on the entry that most of the geocaches are of low monetary value and have some sort of personal meaning to the person that is leaving the cache. There are geocaches in every continent and this is a pretty popular activity. I believe that this presents a good ways to get outdoors and still have fun with technology.

Digital Jerk

I searched digital jerk on Google and came up with something unexpected. I found an article from MSNBC that talks about "Gadgets That Make You Look Like a Jerk." I think that it is very interesting that a piece of technology can make you look like a jerk, but then again, I suppose people are judged for what they wear and say constantly, so it isn't that far fetched. The first piece of technology that they mentioned was the Blackberry. This is because some people seem to be addicted to using it and even will use it during conversation. The next was Bluetooth. This is because people wear them constantly and, according to MSNBC, it either makes you look crazy (like you're talking to yourself) or like you think that you are really important because you always have to be talking. The next ones were Tivo, Macbook air and Ipod accessories. The last two were Linux and Segway. Of course this list is meant in a humorous way, but I still think that it has some merit and is something that deserves to be thought about when designing technology.