News and Analysis

News of the Day 3/18/2010

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Google/Viacom are angry at each other, movie studios unoriginal, and another Kindle app! It's a very unsurprising day in Must Know Geek Career News!

Career:
One great advantage of networking? Brainstorming with others!

Economics/Geekonomics:
One other contribution to the Great Recession? An SEC that wasn't well funded. Intentionally, perhaps?

A deep analysis that helps you realize that the economy of 2002-2009 really was sort of lousy.

Geek Law:
Viacom once tried to buy YouTube. Part of the whole nasty case is all the juicy details coming out, such as Viacom apparently uploading videos to YouTube while slamming it, and more.

Movies:
American movie studios going nuts for remakes of foreign films. What, you expected originality? I still think Hollywood is surviving on force over concept.

Publishing:
Kindle software for Mac. What more needs to be said? Though interesting insight that the sofware being widely distributed *IS* a way to sell people on getting a Kindle . . .

More shakeup at Barnes and Noble: The CEO steps down, the Digital Head replaces him. More forward motion in this age, or more?

Wealthy Russians investing in news. You have an idea of what that's gonna mean, news-wise. Now, another question – how long until sovereign wealth funds get in on the act?

Technology:
Google working on creating an internet-TV device? Looks like it. Perhaps it could be Android-based? I of course wonder if this is more of their "destabilization" strategy.

Video Games:
There's an engine to make 3D Games on the Android called ShiVa, from Stonetrip. Not only good for Android developers, but this makes me wonder if it's open-source nature makes development easier as TOOLS can be made easier.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Does Android mean more tools and easier development- and a potential future edge over the iPhone?

– Steven Savage

Worldwide Geekonomics and Immigration

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So as I noted yesterday at GDC, part of what intrigued me was aggressive recruiting by groups employed by or part of their nation's governments to recruit gaming talent and companies.  I mentioned the Canadian group, the Scottish group, and others.  All were quite nice people, and many got a kick out of the fact that I actually tracked economic issues, and I had some great conversations. 

I'm such an econogeek I actually had a discussion of the possibilities of Scotland using the pitch of dual urban-rural lifestyles to attract young talent, and had a discussion of Canadian entrepreneurship with the Canadian contingent (it's quite an entrepreneurial country).

This and recents article by Richard Florida on changing immigration had me thinking:

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Metal Card! I Choose You!

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I was at GDC when I ran into a gentleman discussing a hard truth about programming – that a game developer (and I'd say any developer) should get some experience in computer languages that get their "hands dirty" as opposed to doing all the work for them.  .NET, Java, Flash, etc. are all good, but a little experience with C, C++, or gods help you assembly will quickly teach you the reality of technology.

(For those of you not initiated to the mysteries of programming, simply there are some languages that do a lot of work for the programmer such as managing memory, etc.  Other languages give you finer control over what you do, but also expose you to the guts of the operating system and things like managing memory, accessing resources, and more.)

The gentleman I talked to then gave me his business card.

It was made of metal with his name, email address, and website printed on it.

Yes.  His business card was made of metal.

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