We're out of the Recession despite things still being lousy, There's more anime-based film on the way despite a big cancellation, and the Move isn't really inspiring anyone despite being motion control. Despite the ups and downs, let's look at your must-know geek news!
Career:
Why only 1% of people make money online.
Economics/Geekonomics:
Buying a foreclosed home? Guess what, you may find you don't have a right to it, and your insurance doesn't help. Remember how we were discussing issues in determining actual ownership of a home? Gets worse when banks are selling them. Even worse if you bought one . . . so expect more lawsuits, and when this hits the wide news-o-sphere, people more reluctant to buy foreclosed homes.
Pension fund managers are sticking with stale assumptions. Yes, yet another economic time-bomb.
We are apparently out of the recession. It's just that the economy still stinks, and stinks badly for a lot of people. I still buy a potential for a double-dip, but even if not things are going to be tough for awhile.
Where did our money get invested in the last decade? Yep, housing.
Location:
Richard Florida shows us Artistic/Cultural Creative density of various regions – and there's a few surprises. More on his great population-density series, and invaluable for people thinking of moving.
Culture:
Is 'The Social Network' a kind of hit piece against Facebook founder Zuckerberg? This author thinks so and goes into some depth.
Anime and Manga:
Looks like the Cowboy Bebop film is dead. Meanwhile we have a spectacular live adaption of Space Battleship Yamato coming. The latter I see, with a good dub or sub, doing well over in North America – that might do more to open western-eastern adaptions.
Multimedia:
Doctor Who Games get a 'second season'. Looks like this bit of multimedia synergy is paying off – and I've heard the games are decent to good. The fact the games are apparently in continuity (for such continuity Doctor Who has) is also intriguing – I'd love to find out if that adds appeal, though I suspect it does.
Technology:
Citras, a cloud-storage technology company comes out of stealth mode, has raised $10 million, and some neat new technology to make cloud data management easier. Plus they're in San Jose. Resume time people . . . they can't spend $10 million all on their own.
Video Games:
Slashdot has a rundown of Playstation Move reviews, none of which sound surprising – works good, some calibration issues, not a lot of titles. As I'll post later this week, I think motion controls are just going to be "normal" . . .
Gameloft has sold 20 million games through the app store. They've published 100 different games in that time – I'd love to see some stats on what sold.
QUESTION: If Space Battleship Yamato does well internationally, what other adaptions could it spawn – and could live-action anime be a boost for Japan's media?
– Steven Savage