Stringing 75 Monitors Together Makes For One Killer Display

The Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas just set up the world's highest resolution display, linking together 75 30-inch Dell monitors to make one extreme display

As our meta page continues to grow, having a similar, albeit more modest, setup of monitors will allow the user to efficient browse this page. At the moment, we recommend at least a dual monitor setup to view THEGAME-online.com, but would certainly love to see G.3 and its content across 75, 30-inch flatscreen monitors.

Originally posted by BlueTooth -- 11/29/2008 12:05:00 AM

Pros Vs. Joes: A GAME Level (c.2000)

Pros Vs. Joes from Spike TV, brings sports competition to a new level as regular guys get the opportunity to compete against their sports heroes.

We talked about this type of cross level competition in our primer on THE GAME Types and Levels (c. 2000). Creating, building, then integrating a layer of pro vs. amateur athletic competitions into THE GAME is an essential component to increasing the level of participation in THE GAME.

To see what Pros Vs. Joes is all about, you can play previous episodes at Spike orFancast.

Oeiginally posted by BlueTooth -- 11/28/2008 11:08:00 AM 

Big Pimpin' (2000)

Originally posted by BlueTooth -- 11/28/2008 10:53:00 AM

Michael Vick and Terrell Owens Against THE HORDE

When I began to watch college football in the mid-80's, I remember watching the Oklahoma Sooners and their wishbone offense run by Jamelle Holieway. The wishbone's utilization of three running backs and a running option quarterback, instead of a balanced run/throw offense that I was used to seeing in the NFL, fascinated me. To me it resembled a "swarm" or running backs.

After seeing the wishbone in action, I began creating new "strange and unconventional" running option formations and inserting pro and college (as well as players that I created) backs, linemen, receivers and tight ends who I wanted to see run these "swarm" or "stampede" formations. I even created wild plays on my Sega Joe Montana Football game for the PC to create my "dream teams" and "dream formations" (as much as the game would allow formational creativity); changing the names of players to plug in the players I wanted to see run the offense. As my formations evolved, I created games where 20 would face 20, then it went to 30-30, then 40-40, and so on (I'll scan my original drawings/sketches of formations and post it here)

So I smiled when I saw the following Nike commercial starring Michael Vick and Terrell Owens facing a horde of defenders. The flying Gatorade cooler intended for a streaking T.O. adds a memorable touch to an already memorable commercial.

Originally posted by BlueTooth -- 11/26/2008 12:18:00 AM

We need some audio juice!!!

If you could indulge us for a moment...we've been working hard to get G.3 up and running for early 2009. The team is running on fumes and it has voted to play Good Charlotte's, "I Don't Wanna Be In Love (Dance Floor Anthem)" in the war room. God save us all!

Originally posted by BlueTooth -- 11/17/2008 12:07:00 AM

The Killers: Read My Mind

One of our all-time favorite songs here at THE GAME (and according to lead singer, Brandon Flowers, the best song he's ever written). We love the layers of images in the video: the backdrop of Tokyo, a care-free romp through the neighborhoods, meeting up with Gachapin, a Japanese Elvis impersonator....The video apparently has nothing to do with the song's lyrics, but it comes together nonetheless.

Originally posted by BlueTooth -- 11/16/2008 11:35:00 PM

All-American Football League: Blending College and Professional Football

All-American Football League: Blending College and Professional Football

I really like the idea of the All-American  Football League. If you haven't heard about this football league, the premise goes like this:

"The new All-American Football League® is a for-profit professional football league that takes the traditions, passion and pageantry of college football to the level of a major American professional sports league. One of the AAFL's key twists on professional and college football is that AAFL's games are played in the spring and summer, filling a huge void in football fans' schedules and complementing the college and professional leagues that play in the fall and winter. The AAFL harnesses the pent-up demand for football in markets that are also home to major Division-I football universities by establishing teams in states such as Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Michigan, Texas and Arkansas. In several cases, the AAFL teams' home stadiums are in major Division-I football stadiums. Each AAFL team may reserve a certain number of local players for its roster. Agreements with Host Universities could require the universities to provide the universities' marching band and cheerleaders for home games to re-create the atmosphere of a major Division-1A college football game."

Having the AAFL's professional teams establish working relationships and affiliations with their local Host Universities establishes a foundation and framework where hybrid "pro-NCAA" leagues and teams can emerge and develop.

In the early days of THE GAME, the founders discussed at various times adding a component to THE GAME; a football league (or any other athletic league for that matter) that would be an extension of the NCAA and NAIA's football programs--a "4-plus" league (a league for student-athletes who have graduated after four years--or even those who have not), if you will. While maintaining the independent rules and operations of the NCAA and NAIA's member programs and the independent rules and operations of professional leagues (past and present) such as the NFL, CFL, USFL, WLAF/World League/NFL Europe/NFL Europa, XFL, UFL, WFL, etc., the "pro-NCAA" or "4-plus" league would be a hybrid of the two levels. In a "4-plus" league, one could find, for example:

• Pro players, while still being paid by their professional teams, rejoining and representing their alma mater in the "4-plus" league.
• Players who excelled in college (who are not currently with a pro team)--continuing to excel in the "4-plus" league on the "4-plus" team of their Host University (or possibly another Host University).
• "4-plus" teams wearing the exact uniforms of their Host University (maybe even having pro players simultaneously wear the jerseys of their alma mater while wearing the helmets of their pro team) or "4-plus" teams wearing the uniforms of their Host Pro teams while representing their Host University.
• "4-plus" teams playing in their Host University and/or Host Pro team stadiums with all the traditions, passion and pageantry of the Host University.
• "4-plus" Host Universities fielding multiple teams or vice versa for Host Pro teams.
• Graduate and professional students playing for their Host University or their alma mater in "4-plus" leagues.
• "4-plus" teams facing amateur, semi-professional, professional and other "4-plus" teams.
• "4-plus" players being compensated. Details of the pay scale, considering there will be a tier of very well compensated professional players in the league, would have to be worked out.

Some foreseeable obstacles to the formation of such a league are obvious:

• Why would professional players, who are paid very well, want to participate in such a league and risk injury?
• Who would finance the league? NCAA? NAIA? The professional leagues? A joint venture?
• What kind of system could/should be constructed which would allow the flow of players in and out of the "4-plus" leagues to/from professional teams and so on?

The primary obstacle to the formation of a "4-plus" league would be a financial one; specifically financing the league and the salaries/insurance that would be required for the injection of professional players into the league. Since the "4-plus" league would be open and extensible for all football leagues that are currently in operation or will be in operation in the future, sharing the risk of starting the league would perhaps be the best course of financing the enterprise.

Originally posted by BlueTooth -- 10/08/2008 09:59:00 PM

Bridging Worlds: Blending the Real World, Virtual Worlds and Everything in Between

Over the past several months, many people have been noting and asking us, "I'm still not sure what THE GAME (G.3) is. What is G.3?"

Phenotypically, G.3 is an evolving, open and collaborative supercompetition. Genotypically, the G.3's "genome" consists of every object, market, competition, idea, invention, created work, etc. that has been and will be created. The G.3's genome grows and evolves by adding and bridging these objects, markets, competitions, ideas, inventions, created works, etc. from the virtual/fantasy worlds with everything in the physical world; blending and mixing, for example, online and offline, fiction and nonfiction, old and new, past and present--as well as the future, digital and print, ideas that have proven to be successful and ideas that have not; the list is infinite.

Currently, the "genetic" nodes that make up G.3 come from anything and everything in the domains of sports and recreation, business, politics, internet, science, technology, arts and entertainment, and life/style; creating a supercompetion.

New G.3 nodes that are created and evolve from this blending and mixing can create new nodes that can include composite entities and composite worlds composed of virtual bits, real world elements and everything in between. As these new entities and worlds continually come into existence, grow, evolve and blend together, an essential element of G.3's growth and success is going to be its ability to connect seemingly disparate worlds. One example of this is bridging the digital and real worlds. Some of these linking applications exist today. Others will need to be created and/or developed.

From the perspective of a G.3 participant/consumer, there are ideas and technologies being proposed and ideas that currently exist that bridge the real world and virtual worlds:

• Location-based games and live action role-playing games are two specific frameworks that can bridge the digital and physical worlds. Participants can participate in a competition and/or a scenario in a physical environment while simultaneously utilizing technology to provide a competitive advantage and/or to enhance the participants experience.
• Multiple-Computer User Interfaces: “Beyond the Desktop” Direct Manipulation Environments is a paper by Jun Rekimoto, a researcher at Sony. He proposes a concept called "multiple computer user interfaces" (MCUIs) which dynamically combines multiple digital devices to perform a task, similar to combining several physical devices to perform a task in the physical world. By utilizing MCUIs, users can participate in a collaborative environment; moving information using “hyperdragging”--dragging and dropping a digital object between a PC, for example, and a digital table, digital wall and/or even a physical object; creating a link between digital and physical objects. Very interesting paper! Youtube used to have a demo video of MCUIs in action; if the video is reposted, we'll post it here.
• Hardlinks are hyperlinks for physical objects. BUILDhardlink.com explains: "Just as a hyperlink takes you from one web page to another, a hardlink takes you from a physical object's reference identifier to a data store of information about that physical object. The medium for this communication is your cell phone. To use (BUILDhardlink's) service, point your cell phones browser to the top-level domain (TLD) gateway at hardlink.mobi." Here are some ways one can utilize hardlinks.
• Virtual economies are observed in MUDs and massively multi player online role-playing games (MMORPGs). The largest virtual economies are currently found in MMORPGs. Virtual economies also exist in life simulation games which may have taken the most radical steps toward linking a virtual economy with the real world. This can be seen, for example, in Second Life's recognition of intellectual property rights for assets created "in-world" by subscribers, and its laissez-faire policy on the buying and selling of Linden Dollars (the world's official currency) for real money on third party websites. Virtual economies can also exist in browser-based internet games where "real" money can be spent and user-created shops opened, or as a kind of Emergent gameplay. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
• Mytago uses tags that work like common barcodes to connect the offline and online worlds. Instead of using a barcode scanner, you use your phone camera to "scan" tags. You can take a snapshot of a tag with your phone camera and later get the details of the tag on your PC. The tags are created by you and linked to the the information you provide. Mytago allows you to scan the tags posted by others to get more information about an event or service and/or you can create your own Mytago tags to promote your own event, service or cause. Clearly, there are useful and interesting applications for Mytago in the development of THE GAME.
• Semapedia.org is a community-driven project whose goal is to connect the virtual and physical world by linking information from the internet to the relevant place in the physical world. You can create and distribute Semapedia-Tags which are actually cellphone-readable physical hyperlinks to Wikipedia or other Wikipedia projects such as Wikibooks and Wikinews. You can create Tags by copying and pasting a Wikipedia URL into a creation-form app . Starting the app will generate a custom PDF file to download and be printed. Once created, you can put the Tags up at their physical location. Others can now use their cellphone to 'click' the Tag and access the information you provided them. Like Mytago, an interesting way of linking the physical and virtual world using a ubiquitous cellphone.
• The future of credit cards - earning virtual currency for spending in the real world. Very soon, proclaims Make Magazine, "credit card companies and game makers will reward their customers who spend money in the real world using private label 'rewards' credit cards. The credit card companies will use gifts of virtual currency such as Blizzard's World of Warcraft gold and Second Life's Linden dollars".
• A research team in Dartmouth College proposes, "that in order to have a seamless integration between the physical and virtual worlds, and to maximize the scale of adoption, the system should rely on devices that people already use every day." They propose the use of sensors embedded in commercial mobile phones can be used to infer real-world activities, that in turn can be reproduced in virtual settings, such as Second Life.
• The HP Memory Spot was proposed in 2006. The Memory Spot chip incorporates a processor, memory and a wireless receiver, all bundled together in a device 1.4 or 2 mm² (about the size of a grain of rice). HP says that the chip is so small that it can be built into almost any object. They have proposed several possible uses including ensuring that drugs have not been counterfeited, tagging patients' wristbands in hospitals, authenticating prescription-pill bottles, adding multimedia to postcards, incorporation into books, and storing image files on printed pictures to print an identical copy.
• Linden Lab Builds Bridge Between Second Life and Real World With New Voice-Driven Instant Messaging Client
• In May 2007, Starfruit placed a few virtual telephone booths in Second Life. From these booths, users in Second Life could send free SMS text messages to mobile phones anywhere in the real world. In July 2007, Starfruit opened its first real product shop. Users could send real gifts from Second Life to real life recipients. A Second Life user could buy a virtual flower or chocolates in a Starfruit shop. The recipient could in turn redeem the gift and receive the flowers / chocolates delivered by Starfruit's retail partners to the recipient's real life home, making it possible to send real gifts from Second Life.

• More ideas and possibilities are being posted/discussed and nodes are being mixed and created daily on THE IdeaBOARD forums ------>>>.

Originally posted by BlueTooth -- 10/05/2008 02:45:00 PM