judging
Latest
Ex-Beats CEO's game taps our weird talent show fixation
The co-creator of the service behind Beats music has launched a game that plays on the public's love for shows like X-Factor and Glee. Called Chosen, it lets users either record and upload their performances, or act as judges to give other musicians the old Simon Cowell treatment on video. As in the televised versions, the cream of performers and judges will rise to the top of the rankings and get... well, bragging rights, anyway.
Microsoft patents asking your friends 'does my butt look big in this?'
Microsoft has patented an online personal appearance adviser for those of us without a hotline straight through to Put This On's Jesse Thorn. Simply upload a pair of pictures of yourself in different hair, makeup and clothing choices and let the denizens of the internet vote on which one makes you look the best. Sounding similar to HotorNot and FaceMash, this patent purports to shift the emphasis to help the style-challenged choose a suitable wardrobe. We just hope the company built in some snark-protection -- or else we might see plenty of ingenues with ruined self esteem arrive at the opera in a dinosaur costume.
Semi-finalists revealed in Atari's Pong Indie Developer Challenge
Atari's Developer Challenge has been taking submissions for possible Pong-inspired iOS games since late February (Disclaimer: I'm serving as a judge on the final panel for the contest, though I haven't done anything yet and am not being paid for my time), and the company has finally selected 20 semifinalists from more than 80 submissions. You can read through the list of the semifinalist studios on the link there. Quite a few of them, as some quick Google searches will show, already have their own apps in the App Store. The next step for the contest will be for these semifinalists to put together some demo videos of their proposed projects, which will be due in June. We judges will get a crack at the proposals then, and finalists will be announced on June 19, with the full winners list announced in August. The winners will get their apps published by Atari, with proceeds split between Atari and the original creators. It sounds like the contest is going well. I look forward to seeing what's been submitted!
MacThemes 2 public voting has begun
Phill Ryu writes in to tell us that public voting has begun for the latest MacThemes contest (in which three of the themes will be chosen to win $1000 in software and become available for ShapeShifter). There are tons of entries (55, to be exact), and they all look pretty darn good in my civilian opinion.Overall, the public is being pretty discriminating-- the highest score I can find is 3.5 out of 5. Standouts so far are Pluto, AOR, California, and Plexis, but voting just started, and it's supposed to go through next Wednesday, so I'd expect things to change between now and then.If you're bored, head over to MacThemes and pass out a few ratings for the cause. I guess the public rating will count for half of the final score (with judges accounting for another part of the score), so every vote counts. We should see the winners sometime after the 15th.
