The Watchers: A Game About Privacy

The Watchers is an augmented board game, co-designed by a team of kids, which teaches online privacy literacy skills to children 8+. Learn more at Gaming Privacy. A really nifty part of this project is that it is an augmented board game, as in you need the board game and iPad to play it.

Found this good little description of the game on their website:

The Watchers takes place in an inter-dimensional town called Union City. Tasked with protecting the city is a secret arms-length government agency, made up of the top agents from each dimension. The team must investigate a number of mysterious events surrounding the town’s hat-based augmented reality network, known as Hatnet. Through these investigations, players learn a number of real-world privacy concepts as well as developing their critical thinking and risk assessment skills.

The game comes out mid-May and I’m really looking forward to it!

Found via the great people at Atmosphere Industries.



May 7th, 2012 by admin

SOPA is Back in the USA, Now Named CISPA

Most people have probably heard about it, but I feel that it’s worth mentioning here. The American government is back at censoring the internet and removing domestic freedoms from Americans. First it was SOPA and now it’s CISPA.

CISPA Infographic by Lumin ConsultingInfographic designed by Lumin Consulting



April 16th, 2012 by admin

Getting Women in Games Development

The ever-excellent Mare Sheppard from Metanet and the Difference Engine Initiative gave a talk on the trials, issues, and complexities of integration of women-only events focused on women gamers at GDC yesterday. Gamasutra has a good write-up of her talk.

Another reason for the underrepresentation is pervasive stereotypes, which are automatic, misleading and often ingrained. Stereotyping “underscores the feeling echoed throughout our culture that women are abnormal, unusual and different,” she says. “This feeling that they don’t fit or don’t belong keeps many women from entering game development and similar fields.”

Sheppard says people are less likely to make eye contact with her or to shake her hand than they would be to engage with her male colleagues, especially in groups of people where she’s the only woman. People interrupt her more frequently in conversations and express doubt that she’s a programmer. “This certainly doesn’t happen at all times or with all people, but it happens a lot.”

I really wish I was able to see this talk, the word on the internet is that her talk was crowded and some people couldn’t get in!

Read more at Gamasutra



March 9th, 2012 by admin

Rick Mercer on Insane, Intrusive Law Proposed by Conservatives

It seems that doing business online is getting harder with every passing month in this country. This is not good. I’m sure most Canadians have heard of this, but I’d thought I’d bring it up again for good measure.

Here’s Rick Mercer on the absurdity of a law proposed under Vic Towes, who also alleges we support child pronographers. ಠ_ಠ

If you do anything on the internet and live in Canada you should be concerned about this Bill C-30.



February 23rd, 2012 by admin

Does Your Business Rely on the Internet? Canadian? Good Luck!

The Conservatives in Ottawa are trying to damage our economy again by destroying the internet. You know about SOPA and the insane propositions in the USA, but now those same media interests are doing the same pathetic actions up here. If you haven’t heard about Bill C-11 and live in Canada please read on!

Massive media conglomerates are lobbying the government to create shadowy legislation: an Internet lock-down, where Internet users are cut off for no good reason, where vast swaths of the Internet are removed or hidden from view, and where users are locked out of their own services.

A similar scheme in the US led to a huge public outcry forcing Big Media lobbyists to back off from their plan to impose the now-infamous SOPA and PIPA1 legislation.

Now, those lobbyists are turning to Canada through legislation like Bill C-11 and trade agreements called ACTA2 and TPP3. Internet law expert Michael Geist recently revealed that behind-the-scenes, Big Media is pushing for powers that include website blocking4, Internet termination for people that threaten their business interests5, and huge threats for sites that host user-generated content (like YouTube)6 in addition to the digital locks7 already in the Bill.

Taken together, these policies would fundamentally change the Internet, severely limit free expression, and hogtie innovators. This approach is backwards: it suffocates online choice and it’s patently unfair.

Politicians and policymakers have an opportunity to put Canada on the map as a leader in Internet openness and affordability. But they have to know that we’re behind them if they stand up to megacorporate lobbyists.

Tell the Prime Minister and the Industry Minister to say no to the Internet lockdown. →

TAKE ACTION NOW.

To put things in a larger, global, context take a look at ACTA.



February 10th, 2012 by admin
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