kramer
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Dude, he invented the friggin' iPod. Have you heard of it?
Meet Kane Kramer. In 1979, he filed a patent for a device called the IXI, an early digital device that held about three minutes of music. He let the patent lapse a decade later, and never saw a penny from Apple's blistering success with the iPod. You might think this was a story of a bitter man with an agenda against Apple. There, you'd be wrong. Apple was dealing with a lawsuit from Burst.com in which they claimed to have originally come up with the idea for the iPod. Apple asked Kramer to testify on their behalf, talking about how he filed his patent years before Burst did. Instead of fighting further, Burst and Apple settled out of court. Kramer was paid a consultancy fee for traveling to California and making his deposition. "The questioning by the Burst legal counsel there was tough, ten hours of it. But I was happy to do it," Kramer told the Daily Mail. "To be honest, I was just so pleased that finally something that I had done which has been a huge success and changed the music industry was being acknowledged." Presumably on friendly terms, Kramer is negotiating now for compensation from Apple with regards to his original idea. [Via Valleywag.]
Gaming has image problem, Nintendo to fix
Seth Schiesel, a writer for the NY Times, recently put up an article about the image problem with the videogame industry and how it was, for the most part, its own fault. An attendance at the recent Ziff Davis Electronic Gaming Summit provided the inspiration for this piece, which talked about the state of gaming and its effect socially. Stating that gamers are often outed as socially inept at the mention of enjoying video games, the writer claims that even given the financial success the industry has seen, its still not the mainstream and widely-accepted activity that we all think it to be. Seth noted that Nintendo was the only company who seemed to "get it."Enter Carl Howe of Blackfriars Communication, who agrees that the industry is not innovating like it should beyond first-person shooters and becoming the entertainment power house it needs to be. Carl sees hope, however, in a company who decided that the standard controller just wasn't cutting it and that people don't just want flashy graphics on their handheld. They might want to teach a puppy to sit or see how quickly they can solve 100 math problems. And Nintendo is going to be the one to reach out to those looking for entertainment beyond plasma grenades and rocket launchers, to casual gamers who might be curious, but aren't looking for a free-for-all deathmatch where whoever gets the sword first wins.We can still have those games, but we want something new, something fresh, something that will once again make our eyes open wide and our mouths fall to our chest, something that will make that small stretch of hair on the back of our necks straighten and cause a chill to run down our spine. We want to experience the feelings we did when we first got into gaming and if anyone can make that happen, it's Nintendo. Maybe then your dad won't laugh at you when you say you've been playing a game for the last few hours, instead asking if he can give it a whirl.[Via N-Sider]
The Wii zeitgeist, via YTMND
The net's been busy this weekend. Here's a smattering of YTMND clips that best capture the zeitgeist of Nintendo's mighty Wii announcement. Few of these are safe for work. You've been warned. Gonads and Strife remake (Overall choice award.) Wii all want to change the world (Most comforting award.) Wii wii hahahaha! (Simple. Effective.) Kramer goes Wii (Whoa. Nintendo ON is like, totally real.) Wii will, wii will rock you (Captain Obvious award) Why can't wii be friends? (PS3 and Xbox 360 choice award) Ev-wii-body hurts, sometimes (Emoboy choice award.) Wii wii simulator (toilet humor award) Gunther-style (best sound-track award)
