Categories
Internet and technology TV

Watch out Apple! Tablet makers are onto you! (TV ads)

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It looks like Apple has got on the wrong side of many technology companies!

With the huge success of Apple’s iPad it’s no surprise that others would follow in their footsteps and release tablets of their own. But it hasn’t been until Google’s announcement of Android 3.0 Honeycomb, Google’s foray into tablet-specific OSs, that hardware makers see a strong chance to get a slice of Apple’s juicy cake it had taken for itself.

Mind you people, tablets are great devices, although they are usually not absolutely necessary to anyone yet. But hardware makers do not care about that and will still continue to flood us with tablets of all kinds (do I already fear a market saturation?).

In any case at least two companies have seen very fitting to tackle the Mac people by directly stabbing their backs.

Don’t believe me? Watch the following commercial for LG’s Optimus Pad!

“The war is not over”? “Optimus will destroy evil!” pronounced right as the “good” robot smashes the brushed aluminium one into a building with a red apple painted on it? The “good” robot crushing an apple in his hand? Talk about being subtle… This is an Apple criticism all the way down!

You have to give it to the LG people though. The commercial is hilarious, with lots of references to the Transformers movies (DreamWords LG, Padmount, directed by Michael Boy and Steven Spillback as executive producer, among others).

But that video is not all there is out there. Motorola also showed a commercial for their upcoming Motorola Xoom tablet during the Super Bowl. It’s premise? To make fun of all the Apple fanboys who all look the same. Watch below!

This video doesn’t lack any Apple references either. Everything from the 1984 book the man is reading to the white iPod-like earphones everyone else is holding to with their hands. The irony here is that while Apple begun their first commercial by criticizing how everyone was using the same computer and they needed to be different and break free, Motorola now brings up the fact that it is now Apple who has assumed the monopoly spot.

Watch out Apple! You are no longer the only worthy competitor in the tablet space, and your new opponents are looking forward to hit you hard with revenge!

Categories
Videogames

Super Mario Bros a cappella on a Norwegian TV show

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Norwegian TV shows are awesome. On the LIVE TV contest "The Big Choir Battle" (Det Store KorSlaget) this group sang, with one of the most popular tunes in the world, which happens to come from a videogame: the main Super Mario Bros theme by Koji Kondo (with some extra melodies)!

Having this kind of things going on in popular LIVE TV shows will probably help alleviate the stigma that videogames still have in the eyes of the public opinion, and I hope we will see more of these references in everyday culture to make videogames a more common form of entertainment for everyone.

Watch the video of the song below:

Categories
ITU Copenhagen Videogames

Brainstorming in search of a fun videogame idea

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The results of the initial brainstorming: a whiteboard full of completely unrelated ideas with other connected concepts in the post-its.

How do you come up with a videogame idea? Sure, you might have in mind something like “I want to make a videogame like GTA IV but adding this and that!” or “my perfect game would be like Final Fantasy but with this story”.

But how about getting an entirely original idea?

That, folks, is what we have set out to do for our new project for the Game Development course at the IT University of Copenhagen.

With our new magnificent, marvelous Italian slave-driver (he made me do some errands, and he’ll pay for that!) Valerio di Donato in the lead as project manager, we started today with our brainstorming session in an attempt to think of something cool, fun and engaging.

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Valerio holding the remains of today’s meal – Not even during lunch did we take a break!

While we still don’t have a definitive idea we sure came up with a lot of fun stuff. We will of course keep thinking about them and soon we will have a pitch to post around Smile.

Wish us good luck!

Later on… our group presentation and more pics!

Categories
General blogging Internet and technology Stupid things

Fired for holding a glass of beer on Facebook! – REALLY?

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Ashley Payne, 24 years old, as seen on her Facebook album – Photo taken from CBSNews.com

Wow. Just WOW! This is exactly the kind of thing that really upsets me. The fact that some people understand so wrong the idea of the distinction between public and private life.

According to CBSNews.com in a video report, a 24-year-old public high school teacher in the US has been offered to either resign or be suspended from her job because of one picture she had on Facebook in a trip to Europe.

In her PRIVATE photo album she can be seen visiting some Italian and Spanish bars and, in some of the pictures, she is holding either a beer or a glass of wine. As Ms. Payne herself commented, she just did what any normal adult would do on a vacation trip to Europe.

But one parent didn’t seem to think the same. He somehow managed to see the picture and proceeded to call the high school’s director to complain about it. This led to the accusation against Ashley Payne, who decided to resign.

Have we gone mad?

These are not pictures of a teacher drunk in the middle of the street we are talking about. They are pictures about the normal, private life anyone has.

I can understand that she, as a high school teacher, has certain responsibilities towards the students she educates. But it’s not like she has been publicly posting the photos in the school’s halls or anything. It’s her private Facebook profile, in which she has none of the high school students as a friend, and therefore, they can’t see her pictures at all.

Why, then, is this happening?

It’s not the first time something like this has happened either. I have already heard way too many scared comments from US friends saying that they do not want any pictures of them with a beer close by because it will lower their chances of getting a job, that many companies look at their prospective employees’ Facebook pages before hiring.

Really? Well, yes, it happens. But it makes me think why an employer might be so interested in these things. Are they looking to hire an employee who never drinks? It’s understandable that they wouldn’t want to hire a person who is always partying out and appears to end up in a bad state every time. But getting to such extremes as to decline someone because they have a social life is plain crazy.

And it really worries me that this is happening way too often in the USA. In fact, I really believe that the North-American society should learn a little bit of common sense from the European.

I’ll put myself as an example: I have pictures in parties in Spain, the US and Denmark all alike. In some of the pictures I can be seen holding a drink. Now though, those pictures are not available to everyone, but only to the people I have explicitly allowed to. In any case I am quite public about my personal activities (even though I respect other people’s privacy wishes) and I do not mind if, for example, a teacher of mine sees a picture of me at a party.

Because after all, should a teacher be concerned that a student of his is drinking? If the student is underage of course it should concern the teacher. But otherwise it shouldn’t be as long as the student keeps passing his exams and turning in the homework. The same goes for jobs: if the employee is doing his tasks, what does an employer have to say in the matter of him going out at night?

If you want to hear more on this topic I suggest you watch the following video from CBSNews.com in which, besides telling the story of Ashley Payne, also offers some interesting comments about online privacy.

Categories
Pamplona

A picture is worth a thousand words – FCOM video

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I might already be out of the University of Navarra, where I took my audiovisual media studies for my bachelor’s degree, but one thing is certain: I’m still fond of it.

Which is why I love so much watching the many videos the Communication School releases on special occasions. If you remember watching the Lipdub from last year then this is pretty much its spiritual successor.

A fun video to watch that makes its point clear. Especially entertaining if you recognize the faces, of course. Even more when it includes teachers who have taught you in it.

I might study in Copenhagen now, but I still love the FCom, and it’s things like this that make me proud of where I started my studies. Watch the video below!

 

Categories
Internet and technology Mobile Stupid things

The 7 types of iPhone users

As seen on Daily Mobile, the following picture will show you the 7 different types of users you can find with an iPhone. Which one are you?

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