Report on UK gamers

BBC Creative Research and Development released a research report about gamers and their habits in the UK. Their report includes people from the age of six to 65 and it has indepth info about a huge variety of topics. Some of the information presented is really different from the common perception of gaming and gamers. For an example, "45% of all gamers are female". Wash away the old myth that games are beeing played by men only!

Something that is very interesting is that they have the mobile phone as a gaming console, and how "good" figures it actually gets. In the ages six to 50 the mobile phone is the third most popular device, its ahead of devices like the PSP or the Nintendo DS. The report also shows that gaming on mobile phones comes on second place as the preferred function, it comes behind "sending text messages".

Read the whole report (1,28mb PDF)

 

New Yahoo Maps Shows Power of Flash

 

World Press Photo - Over 1.6 million visitors experience the bigger picture in 2005

Media Catalyst launched World Press Photo's new website at the start of 2005 to coincide with the organisation's 50th anniversary. We are delighted to announce that their statistics for 2005 showed an improvement on 2004's figures of 37%, totalling over 1,658,000 visitors to the website over the course of the year.

Almost one quarter of all visitors - just over 400,000 - went to "50 Years of World Press Photo", a campaign site showcasing the contest winning images from the past 50 years, which Media Catalyst produced and launched in October 2005.

The statistics also show an increase in visits on the day of the annual contest results announcement, with nearly 70,000 unique visits on 11th February 2005 (an increase of 28% on 2004).

We're proud to contribute to World Press Photo's goals to stimulate photojournalism worldwide, and create greater visibility for press photography, encouraging high professional standards in photojournalism and promoting a free and unrestricted exchange of information. An effective, user-friendly website is a key communications channel for furthering these aims.

We're looking forward to developing more good stuff together during 2006.

Links:
www.worldpressphoto.nl
www.worldpressphoto.nl/50years

 

Marcia Fleur Verwoert

New release! Our extremely wonderful colleague, Sibylle, had a baby girl - Marcia Fleur Verwoert - on 16th January.

The whole family is healthy and happy, and all us Catalysts send our love to Marcia, Sibylle en Jonnie.
Congratulations!

 

First impression on the web

BBC News have an article about first impressions and the so called "halo-effect" on the web. Its a study made by Gitte Lindgaard of Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada and a team of researchers. Their conclusion is that it only takes the brain twentieth of a second of viewing a webpage to make makes decisions if the website is aestheticly appealing or not.

Quote:
"Unless the first impression is favourable, visitors will be out of your site before they even know that you might be offering more than your competitors"

"If people believe a website looks good, then this positive quality will spread to other areas, such as the website's content."

 

Apple with Intel Duo?

There are probably people out there thinking if they should get the new Apples with Intel Duo core processors. Before doing so there are some things that you might want to know. Hence that changing processors in a computer is quite a big change, and that it doesnt come without any problems surrounding it. One of the most obvious "set-backs" is that all the applications that are made for original Apple computers wont run properly on the new ones. But they have to be recoded.
The OSX86 Project has made a list on the current software that work properly on the new Apples.
And so has versiontracker.com

Some more interesting reading is provided by MacWorld.comwhich have written a good article on what you should think about before getting one of the new Apples.

An interesting quote from that article is:
If all the software out there won’t run natively on the new iMac, why should I buy one instead of the old model?
That all depends on how adventurous you are. The new Intel iMacs cost the same as the PowerPC iMacs, but offer two processor cores instead of one, faster RAM, and improved video features. At the same time, however, if the programs you use most often haven’t yet been made Universal—that is, designed to run on both PowerPC and Intel-based Mac—they’ll run slower because Apple’s Rosetta technology will have to translate their PowerPC code into instructions the Intel chips can understand. That, in turn, will slow those programs down.

They have also written a FAQ for the whole Intel-Apple deal that is going on right now.

 

Benq-Siemens launch first line of products

Last year Benq bought the mobile department of Siemens and now they are releasing their first line of products. Benq-Siemens focus will be 3G and multimedia. The first three devices to carry the new name will be the EF81, S68 and S88, said Benq.

For more details please visit The Register

 

Paradise in the details

Reading Momus' Japan Grows a Beard article on Wired News this morning. He mentions the Japanese Slow Life trend (slogan: "Ganabaranai! -- Don't go for it!'").

I've heard of - and enjoyed - Slow Food restaurants, and Slow City/ Citta Slow but this is a welcome surprise to me. The movement is now 5 years old and apparently taking root nicely. Check their eight themes:

• SLOW PACE: We value the culture of walking, to be fit and to reduce traffic accidents.


• SLOW WEAR: We respect and cherish our beautiful traditional costumes, including woven and dyed fabrics, Japanese kimonos and Japanese night robes (yukata).


• SLOW FOOD: We enjoy Japanese food culture, such as Japanese dishes and tea ceremony, and safe local ingredients.


• SLOW HOUSE: We respect houses built with wood, bamboo, and paper, lasting over one hundred or two hundred years, and are careful to make things durably, and ultimately, to conserve our environment.


• SLOW INDUSTRY: We take care of our forests, through our agriculture and forestry, conduct sustainable farming with human labor, and ultimately spread urban farms and green tourism.


• SLOW EDUCATION: We pay less attention to academic achievement, and create a society in which people can enjoy arts, hobbies, and sports throughout our lifetimes, and where all generations can communicate well with each other.


• SLOW AGING: We aim to age with grace and be self-reliant throughout our lifetimes.


• SLOW LIFE: Based on the philosophy of life stated above, we live our lives with nature and the seasons, saving our resources and energy.

Right up my alley. Much as I love technology, progress, and all that good stuff, I feel very strongly that the constant, competitive drive to achieve/ win/ accelerate is counter-productive. It narrows horizons, shortens memories, and grinds people down. You can see it in the ICT industry, where the first product to market often turns out to be substantially less impressive than its inevitable imitators/ competitors. We, the prospective customers, are confused by the choice of several alternatives, none of which works quite the way we'd like... an example off the top of my head is the daft battle between Blu-Ray and HD DVD. Which format will win? I don't care, and I don't want to have to care.

Ideas like Slow Life, organic food and sustainability point to the growing popularity of quality over speed. I'm all for it.

Bonus link! Check Momus' blog right now for some endearingly bonkers Japanese car advertising.

 

OMFG!

Enjoy 5 minutes and 24 seconds of electric guitar mayhem as Jerryl shreds Pachelbel's Canon in D.

Another gem from Google videos.

 

Big news for geeks and fanboys

For anyone that hasn't already seen it, the move to Intel chips that Apple have been talking about has happened, with the first Intel based machines from Apple.

Personally I'm kinda dissappointed that they've stuck with the same old PowerBook design, feels like it's becoming a bit dated to me (even if the Queen likes it). But the biggest news is that Microsoft and Apple are both happy to let people install Windows on the machine. Here's a couple of quotes:

Apple -

"That's fine with us. We don't mind," Schiller said. "If there are people who love our hardware but are forced to put up with a Windows world, then that's OK."

And from Microsoft -

"Any new machines that are on the market that run Windows are great," said Scott Erickson, director of product management and marketing for Microsoft's Mac business unit.

Why oh why did I just buy a new PC laptop, I could have been tripping over my power cord in style ...