The totally awesome and ingenious feature of Twitter & webcams in GTA *is not* in GTA4. Just a dream. Rockstar: see my LinkedIn.
Chris23 6 minutes ago from twhirl
Twitter has gotten a lot of mixed attention lately, both as a rising phenomenon but also for failing to fix its capacity issues as quickly as people seem to expect. The issue at hand, as expressed by Twitter Dev, is that the platform was not originally written as a messaging system. Indeed, it was built on a content management model.
Recall that Twitter was originally about posting what you are doing at the moment. As such, it was essentially constructed as a public microblog that happened to include mobile support. But very quickly the Twitter user community realized the power of broadcasting and co-opted this feature to grow a very large social netwoork. Twitter became an extension of sms and all of the new API clients that started popping up.
Now with almost 2 million users, many of whom are tweeting multiple times a day, the content management system is maxxing out. Imagine if 2 million people were posting 160-char messages to Blogger daily… Frankly, it’s amazing that Twitter is doing as well as it is. So now the Twitter dev team is rebuilding every component from scratch to explicitly construct a robust global messaging system.
What’s really interesting is that the Twitter community has effectively turned Twitter into something it wasn’t intended to be. The desire to rapidly communicate with affiliates across the globe is so strong, and the power of broadcast is so compelling in the web2.0 era, that the very DNA of Twitter is being forced to mutate to support this demand. The spark of “what am I doing right now?” set flame to social media and the connection of communities. We want to know what’s going on with all the people we’re interested in. We want to know them professionally, philosophically, and personally. And we want to speak our mind and emotions and will to them.
I’m constantly taken by the casual intimacy of Twitter friends - people I’ve never met yet I know that they had a rough interview, or their cats are hungry, or they are giving a lecture tomorrow, or just saw a crazy person dancing on Wall St., or that they think Indiana Jones represents the Marxian class struggle. Normally you only get this spread of data about someone if you’re close friends and physically near them on a regular basis.
We want to socialize and share and we have an instinctual feeling, waking up from the haze of 50 years of corporate push-media, that life itself in all it’s minutia is far more entertaining than anything Fox or NBC can throw at us. Or at least, it’s just as entertaining and engaging and, at it’s core, so much more real. The simulacrum cannot mess with us, ala Real World where we were sold scripted caricatures in the guise of “reality”. Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, Blogger, etc… These are the new reality media platforms and we’re all the new empowered content creators, scripted or real. Culture is going digital and the once-static web archive is waking up as a dynamic organism managing and sharing the very whims of it’s creators.
Through this process we’re getting to know each other and ourselves and our world very quickly as knowledge is distributed globally and minds are linked across worlds with zero lag. Culture is iterating faster than ever and we’re only at the very beginning of what is clearly becoming a huge revolution for all of humanity, whether or not each person is immediately touched by the wires. Life is virtualizing and the abstracted mental content of our world is increasingly archived and shared and commented upon and iterated on itself from all across the world. The power and reach of our minds is expanding out through our devices and the exocortical software agents we now have managing so many of our subroutines. We are cyber even without the implants and wetware. The individual is wiring into groups, like cells aggregating into functional bodies, towards greater communicative and iterative power.
The human species is beginning to truly know itself and grok it’s identity and function. As our eyes open up to perceive more and more of our world, we gaze at our creations and atrocities and the spark of soul sits in judgment, our conscience asserting itself. The democratization of media and the transparency of behavior is fundamentally altering the power balance away from the dominant elite towards the will of the people. In a very strange and sweet way, Twitter is part of this process of sharing and reinforcing the similarities between us all.
In a staggering breech of public interest, U of Pitt researchers have taught a couple of rhesus macaque monkeys to control a robotic prosthesis with their mind. No word on when the lab fires will be extinguished and the rampaging robo-monkeys will be defeated.
Two monkeys have managed to use brain power to control a robotic arm to feed themselves. The feat marks the first time a brain-controlled prosthetic limb has been wielded to perform a practical task.
Previous demonstrations in monkeys and humans have tapped into the brain to control computer cursors and virtual worlds, and even to clench a robot hand. But complicated physical activities like eating are “a completely different ball game”, says Andrew Schwarz, a neurological engineer at the University of Pittsburgh…
Yeah, right. Those robo-monkeys will be running the Pentagon within days.
Mark Pesce discusses the power of Twitter, the empowerment of democratized media, and shifting power dynamics signified by Josh Marshall’s army. Video from 2008 Next Wave Festival, Mercat Hotel, Melbourne, on 25 May 2008:
Nice to hear that Twitter is addressing their stability problems. My sense is they maybe didn’t expect to get so popular quite so fast. Still no word on their business model but it’s admirable that they’ve so far resisted the Google AdSense cancer…
Our direction going forward is to replace our existing system, component-by-component, with parts that are designed from the ground up to meet the requirements that have emerged as Twitter has grown. First and foremost amongst those requirements is stability. We’re planning for a gradual transition; our existing system will be maintained while new parts are built, and old parts swapped out for new as they’re completed. The alternative - scrapping everything for “the big rewrite” - is untenable, particularly given our small (but growing!) engineering and operations team.
This is simply awesome. I love it! I hope it gets mirrored everywhere before The Mouse buries it.
Srsly, Diznee: this is exactly what you want kids doing with your content. Make it hip and cool. Give to the commons so we want to give back. Seeing this makes me want to rent/buy the animated classic.
I’ve been thinking more about the value of metadata and the challenges in tagging. Clearly we want more data traveling with files. Hard data like source and profile, but also soft associations like folksonomies and tags. I think most people are probably very loose with their tagging and become quickly overwhelmed by the giant tag clouds they create. For people with a lot of content it becomes very important to limit the scope of their taxonomy/dictionary. Likewise, as the audience for content expands it becomes more important to have matadata that is useful and meaningful to the widest range of people. So, highly subjective tagging actually creates more noise around the content and limits its findability.
Which leads to the real value and goal of tagging: findability. Search and sort. So much data is overwhelming. We need simple and intuitive ways to filter the sample. The old way of arranging files in hierarchical folders is fading. And really, for most people the file hierarchy was a necessary structure imposed by the OS but which is generally just a framework for associative cataloging. Most people filing their photos name their folders by association. Vacations. Family. Pets. Tokyo 2008. The value of these terms is not in where they live but what they are.
In an increasingly networked cloud, the physical location of content is unimportant but findability is critical.
No time to comment on this one, but do note the conflicting results of this Gartner report on the success (or lack thereof) of virtual world businesses:
The vast majority of virtual world projects launched by businesses fail within 18 months, but the impact of the collaboration technology on organizations could eventually be as big as the Internet, a market research firm said this week.
Fully 90% of business forays into virtual worlds fail because organizations focus on the technology rather than on understanding the needs of the employees using it, Gartner said.
Mark Pesce has written a truly insightful piece of analysis over on his blog, The Human Network. In a moment of synchronicty, I found his article just after ranting about these same concepts: the democratization of content and broadcast and the tools of creation; the power of mobile communication and networked affinity groups; the decline of content monopolies with the rise of The Makers; the exponentially increasing visibility into the lives and events of our world; the empowerment of the individual and communities through social networks; the parabolic rise in clock-speed of iterative knowledge; the counterbalance of economic globalization with the rising cost and dissipating supply of industrial energy; and the relentless and unstoppable transparency of life.
From Mark’s article, Synopsis: Sharing :: Hyperconnectivity:
All of this sharing of media means that the media titans – the corporations which produce and broadcast most of the television we watch – have lost control over their own content. Anything broadcast anywhere, even just once, becomes available everywhere, almost instantaneously. While that’s a revolutionary development, it’s merely the tip of the iceberg. The audience now has the ability to share anything they like – whether produced by a media behemoth, or made by themselves. YouTube has allowed individuals (some talented, some less so) reach audiences numbering in hundreds of millions. The attention of the audience, increasingly focused on what the audience makes for itself, has been draining ratings away from broadcasters, a drain which accelerates every time someone posts something funny, or poignant, or instructive to YouTube.
…Our connectivity has grown into “hyperconnectivity”, and a single individual, with the right message, at the right time, can reach millions, almost instantaneously.
This simple, sudden, subtle change in culture has changed everything.
…Nothing is hidden anymore, no secret safe. We each possess a ‘nuclear option’ – the capability to go wide, instantaneously, bringing the hyperconnected attention of the Human Network to a single point.
“Information only appears to be lost because we have been looking at a restricted part of the true quantum mechanical space-time. Once you consider quantum gravity, then space-time becomes much larger and there is room for information to reappear in the distant future on the other side of what was first thought to be the end of space-time.”
– Professor Madhavan Varadarajan
I’m driving along in a 1963 Cadillac trying to hold the lumbering sway of its heavy chassis straight to the road as I rumble down the city street past the usual castaways and early risers. I can’t feel it but the steam coming out of their mouths makes me think it’s a bit chilly out, though at least one or two of the morning denizens are blowing cigarette smoke, not just hot breath. From the radio in my Caddy rise arpegiated synth lines, sawtoothed and filtered, beatless but rhythmic, like a ca. 1993 ambient chillroom set. The sounds lift and expand taking my view up the pink walls to the roofline, then higher to the dawning skies. A synthetic voice like a female Hawking intones the moment of eternity, speaking softly to the evolutionary imperative of our cultural awakening. Rich pads wash under it all merging with the engine of my Caddy and the sounds of the morning as I roll on down the streets.
It’s sunrise and I’m back in Liberty City.
I haven’t spent much time at all in the great MMO’s like World of Warcraft or Everquest, but a part of me lives and breathes in the otherworld of Grand Theft Auto. I have deep memories of slamming a stolen Sentinel (BMW clone) down the blurring night streets of the first Liberty City in GTA3, under the glowing lamps and through the fog, the pounding beat of the rave channel banging and echoing in dubbed out midnight madness. One of those songs is a signature for me - an anthem - yet I’ve never known it anywhere else. I played Vice City and San Andreas too, but I’ve never been that concerned with the missions. For me it’s about the immersion and the place-ness of it all. An open landscape rooted in reality yet free of enduring consequence.
I’m in the new Liberty City and I’m struck by the light. I’ve come to really appreciate a good lighting model, having worked on some in the past and having had the opportunity to see the warmth of truly rich algorithms. The world of GTA4 is heavy with reds and yellows making it feel more earthy and warm. Underneath the raised railways, light and shadow are splashed across the streets filtered by the steel webwork above. As I drive below my car flickers dark & light in shadowed semaphore. Flying over the city islands in a cheat-enabled helicopter the sun washes across the water like a giant fish catching the light across a thousand shiny scales. I can see boats far below skipping across the surface. The sunsets are beautiful, casting a pink orange glow across the building facades. It deepens to red and then blue as night falls and the moon ascends.
The city is alive, crowded with traffic and pedestrians and little bits of trash blowing past. Birds take flight as humanoid bots engage each other, driven by runtime AI imperatives. I saw one car rear-end another. Both drivers stepped out and began cursing each other. In moments, fists were flying and a brawl ensued. At another moment I was accosted by a Russian who ran into me on the sidewalk. He didn’t like the cut of my jib and began attacking me. Fortunately for me (and him, given my heavily-armed status), a cop car had just been passing. It stopped and out came two officers who detained and arrested the man, stuffing him into the back of their cruiser to be whisked away to some deep digital prison. Even polygons can go to jail.
On my cellphone I get calls from my cousin Roman pleading for rescue from his angry Albanian loan sharks. Then a call from my new girlfriend, Michelle, who wants a second date (there are friends in the game and how you treat them will determine the opportunities presented to you in the future). Hopefully it won’t be back to the bowling alley - the site of my bitter defeat on the lanes. But really, I just want to drive around and harass the cops. My cellphone also lets me enter cheat codes to stock up on weapons cause I’m not feeling very safe on these mean streets without a rocket launcher and a heavy caliber assault rifle. This place is violent and sooner or later somebody is gonna step up on me, be they local hood or bad cop. Maybe I might slam my stolen SUV into a police cruiser or accidentally run down some pedestrians on the sidewalk while changing the radio station (I love Weazel News! The game is rife with rich socio-political satire that very much reflects my own new-millennial sensibilities, skewering many of the malicious entities stalking our planet). Or I might land my helicopter on the roof of a ten-story building and begin sniping at gang members down on the street. The point is, sooner or later I’m gonna do something that will upset the cops enough to come after me. Then it’s just a hail of gunfire, exploding vehicles, SWAT teams, and fiery helicopters raining down from the sky.
In one firefight I was getting shot by an LCPD officer as he marched straight at me, his pistol popping hot lead into my chest. I struggled to find a weapon, finally raising a shotgun to his face. He fired one last shot as I pulled the trigger and, as the color bled out of the scene and the camera tilted and pulled away, both he and I flew backwards from each other, blood flying with our bodies falling to the pavement in gravity’s final embrace. A short re-spawn and I’m back on the streets, fitted with milspec gear and an unbidden lust for mayhem.
I’m crouched and sidestepping across the road, targeting several LCPD cops and pulling off shots at each. There are at least 6 squad cars parked sideways all around me, lights spinning and sirens blaring. Some have dead cops in front of them, others have officers crouched behind open doors yelling and firing guns at me. Two SWAT helicopters circle overhead, speaking through loudspeakers while firing heavy artillery on my position, city skyscrapers rising up above like Anubin guards at the gates of the Underworld. Their numbers are declining but they’ve got me out-gunned. I know I’m going down but how many can I take with me? The car next to me is on fire and two cops are stalking towards me, firing. I pull out a grenade and as the silver bullet with my name on it sears deep into my chest, I drop it to my feet, pin pulled, falling to my knees. The two cops are right next to me, stunned for a second, then turn to run just as the fuse hits the charge and all three of us are blown several yards into the sky like fiery twisted rag dolls, arching off each in our own singular trajectory pulled inevitably back to the earth just as the car explodes and flips itself in a giant fireball of twisted metal.
It’s the little things like this that make me glow with happiness. The sheer magic of physics and agency. The emergence of such rich and staggering complexity from a simple set of rules. The reality teased out from so many lines of code. The place is alive and feels so whether I’m there or not.
I haven’t played many of the missions. I will, but only to learn more about the city. Like, where the internet cafe’s and strip clubs are, and which buildings I can enter. The place is so huge it takes a monumental effort to get an understanding of the geography. I keep trying to remember street names and neighborhoods, referring to the map to cohere it all into a consistent sense of place. This is a challenging task when your inner cochlear equilibrium is telling you you’re sitting on a couch, not hurtling down a boulevard. And it’s just so big. Liberty City is modeled after New York City and it really looks and feels like it’s gotten pretty close. Rockstar (the game maker) has included a multi-player mode that allows up to 16 people to enter into the world and play missions. Cops v. Robbers, Gang Battle, etc. But it’s clear that the goal, given enough computational meat, will be to turn Liberty City into a persistent MMO. Imagine if hundreds or thousands of user could populate the city 24/7…
I want it. I would pay for that. It could become my Evercrack. Even now there’s a part of me, a piece of my self, that lives in Liberty City. In some moments of reflection I am a humble but well-armed Russian immigrant walking the streets under that beautiful orange-red haze of sunset, waiting for the lights to power on and glow in the night fog. Waiting for the restrictions of the default world to shift imperceptibly enough to break some of the constraints of law and society. I’ve never bought into the notion that video games make kids violent. Bad parenting and abuse makes kids violent. Judgment and hatred makes kids violent. Ignorance and fear lands kids in jail and kicks them out onto the streets. For me and most, these worlds enable the imagination to come closer to daylight. They are sandboxes of the Self. Playgrounds of the mind. Liberty City happens to be a playground somewhat prone to violence but it’s also a place of fun, lit with humanity and humor.
As these places become more real and engage more eyes, the content will open up. To advertising, of course, but also to home-brew music and video. To Twitter feeds and blog RSS. Ap Wire news will spill into game world video displays. What if I could design a bot skin that looked just like me? Put it on a bot, add my own voice clips, and then watch recorded video of that bot’s experiences in the game world while I’m away? Imagine CCTV’s on virtual street corners that pipe live feeds to real-world desktop clients or http? Imagine smart mobs and political protests by avatars who have modded their characters to hold signs or wear furry costumes. MMO’s should be hackable and prankable, wired to the web and mobile devices. I want to use my game cell phone to call other players across the city. I want to use my real-world iPhone to call and see people inside Liberty City. I want the lines to blur more and more between reality and virtuality. I want the spirit of imagination to ingress deeply into the world of humanity.
And I want fast cars and powerful weapons that don’t really kill anyone.
Grand Theft Auto IV delivers in great measure. The world is deeper, more alive, warmer and richer. Traffic snarls and the citizenry engage and react. The city is enormous yielding endless hours of fun and immersion. So much to explore, so many cars to jack, with an engaging narrative weaving through the streets and alleyways. GTA4 is a caricatures of America, witty and sarcastic, painted across an inconceivable amount of polygons pulsing to the currents of floating-point mathematics. It’s a playground for 30-something children of the modern West, reaching out to live the myths of a street warrior culture peddled by media and fiction. Most of all, Liberty City is a model for the ongoing ingression of mind into matter and the wiring of datastreams into the social consciousness. Half the joys of GTA4 are the expectations and imaginations of what future iterations will bring to the genre… what fictions will become real and how the bodies we inhabit will reflect into such immersive virtual worlds unbinding the Soul and Self from flesh.
Perhaps I’m gushing with fanboy glee but I have a sense, as of yet unwritten, that something very deep and transformative is occurring in the digital lands we’re moving between…
Boing Boing linked to a cool Flickr stream comparing game landmarks in GTA4’s Liberty City to those of it’s role model, New York City.
