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'Black Mirror' short promo films will star Latinx influencers
You don't have to wait until June 5th to get your next fix of Black Mirror -- although it might not be what you were expecting. Netflix has announced a trio of Little Black Mirror short promo films with thematic links to the technology-gone-wrong series. They're aimed at a Spanish-speaking audience and will star a host of Latinx social network luminaries offering their take on the franchise, including Rudy Mancuso (who also directed and scored the series), Lele Pons and Juanpa Zurita.
Google adds US Latino art and culture to its online museum
From US presidents to the history of fashion over the course of three millennia, Google Arts & Culture has been using the latest tech to showcase and preserve vital aspects of history and culture for everyone to enjoy, regardless of where you live. Now, they have announced its latest virtual collection: Celebrating Latino culture within the US.
Can big data and AI fix our criminal-justice crisis?
America, land of the free. Yeah, right. Tell that to the nearly 7 million people incarcerated in the US prison system. The United States holds the dubious distinction of having the highest per capita incarceration rate of any nation on the planet -- 716 inmates for every 100,000 population. We lock up more of our own people than Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan or Russia. And once you're in, you stay in. A 2005 study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) followed 400,000 prisoners in 30 states after their release and found that within just three years, more than two-thirds had been rearrested. That figure rose to over 75 percent by 2010.
Sling TV adds local content to its Latino streaming service
Sling TV recently began catering some services to Spanish-speaking subscribers. In June, the company introduced Sling Latino, a standalone package for people who only wanted access to video content in Español. Today, as part of these plans to reach a broader audience, Sling TV announced it's adding local broadcast feeds from Univision and UniMas to its Latino streaming service. This will give viewers the ability to watch programming that's restricted to certain areas, such as local news shows.
GameStop sees highest-volume stores on US/Mexico border
GameStop COO Paul Raines notes that Latino consumers are apparently quite important to the profitability of the company. Speaking with Hispanic Market Weekly, Raines reveals that the highest-volume stores in the company are those located along the US-Mexico border in Texas -- which has led to discussions of the chain expanding into Mexico.GameStop isn't directly targeting the Latino community with Spanish-language ads and signage, so much as hiring bilingual associates. Raines states that of the company's 5000-plus stores, between 600-800 are in areas where the Latino population is over 40 percent. [Via IndustryGamers]
Telemundo kicks off national HD broadcasts April 23
Say hello to the first Spanish-language network offering HD at "both the local and network levels," we'll be checking out not only telenovelas in high definition, as Telemundo gets started with the 2009 Billboard Latin Music Awards April 23. Stats have shown a high rate of acceptance of HDTV within the Spanish speaking community, and Telemundo cited a survey indicating half of the respondents own an HDTV already. The first cities with HD on deck are Los Angeles, Miami, Las Vegas, Chicago, New York, Dallas, San Francisco, Houston and Puerto Rico, with the rest falling in line over the next year. Univision, you're up.
Found Footage: iPod Latino
Wow. iTunes Latino finally has their own silhouetted iPod commercial--and it doesn't look anything like those "seen that done that" soccer or football ads. Yet. This commercial aired last night during Heroes on NBC, where your intrepid TUAW correspondents spent the entire time looking for Apple-related material and not paying any attention to things like Sulu and Audrey from Carnivale or jokes about Superman's unusual fashion choices. Check it out in glorious QuickTime on Apple's site (you can even watch it in HD). Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
Joseph Saulter: 'Why should I have to be a white man?'
Joseph Saulter, chairman of game design and development at American Intercontinental University, has been a vocal advocate about the role of minorities within the industry.Speaking about Microsoft's Blacks in Gaming gathering last night he says, "It's great to see that things are happening and we are getting toward the vision, but it's still not the reality." He says the potential influence that diversity would bring to the industry isn't being recognized. Explaining he's spent his life as a black man, he half-jokingly says when he looks around the game industry he feels himself asking the question, "Why should I have to be a white man? ... Meaning I bring a unique characteristic in my African-American culture. It would be nice to bring my cultural expertice into an arena. We go into this white business -- and it's not that the business is white. It's that the culture in the business is white. I'd like to see people create what I am in games and be accepted for what I do."Saulter says the industry is like a "horse with blinders" on when it comes to issues of diversity. It's not that they are outright ignoring minorities, it's just that the focus is so straight ahead and narrow, companies don't take the time to reach out. He says there are programs like the Urban Video Game Academy based in Atlanta, Maryland and Washington D.C., which attempt to get kids into game design and should be looked at as an opportunity by developers to find potential talent. He compared getting a job in the industry like riding a horse. He believes that minorities don't care if they get knocked off the horse, that's only fair -- but they'd still like a chance to ride.
Criticism of racial stereotyping in games
A piece on BlackVoiceNews explores blacks playing and portrayed in video games. The two part piece (1 and 2) by Ricard O. Jones expresses his views on the harm to blacks by racial stereotyping and obsession with gaming. Based on a 2006 Kaiser Family Foundation study that revealed black youth play video games 90 minutes a day, 30 minutes more than white youth, that "it stands to reason that blacks are the most negatively effected" by the game media's portrayal. Jones uses the "poor self-images" from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to illustrate his point. In all fairness though, the first two GTA's had a generic white guy and an Italian mobster stereotype as the anti-hero. The question being: Would it have been better not to have Carl Johnson at all? Take-Two took a bit of a risk using a black protagonist nestled in the Cali gangsta' culture of the early-'90s.Portrayal of diverse characters in video games is a simple issue of marketing and numbers. Jones states this in the first piece's closer, "The video game industry is all about money. No one really cares about your skin color or gender if you are a well-trained video game designer or illustrator. The problem is that [black] youth and adult players see themselves as players and not designers or illustrators. Therefore unless they're motivated to get on the business end versus the player end of the video game phenomenon they will continue to be portrayed in a negative light and also miss out on a ten billion dollar a year industry."The impact, influence and potential of minorities will certainly be part of the discussion at the Game Developers Conference's Diversity: The Window of Opportunity headed by Joseph Saulter. A similar session last year pointed to more blatantly offensive games like 25 to Life, which were crass compared to the more refined GTA: San Andreas.See also: Jade is Latina, Asian, Black ... who knows?[via GamePolitics]
iTunes + iPod Latino TV Ad
Apple has just posted a TV ad promoting iTunes + iPod Latino, which we covered a few days ago. It is of the familiar dancing silhouette variety with the familiar Apple slogans in Spanish (as is appropriate).Slow news day? No, why do you ask?Thanks, Ruben.
Apple Announces iTunes Latino, Telemundo and mun2 in iTunes Store
Apple has launched a new Latino section in the US iTunes Store featuring Latin music, music videos, television shows, audiobooks and podcasts. "Latin music has been a huge hit on iTunes and now we're bringing music fans even more of what they love in a dedicated area on the iTunes Store," said Eddy Cue, Apple's VP of iTunes, in a press release. In a related press release, Apple also announced new shows from Telemundo (iTS link) and bilingual programming from their youth-oriented mun2 network (iTS link). Latin TV shows, telenovelas and reality content are all now available in the iTunes Store as well, rounding up what looks like a strong new offering for Apple's darling content store.
Dexa, the new Hispanic MVNO, launches in LA
If you've been looking for an MVNO that speaks your language, and that language happens to be Español, then you're in luck. Dexa is a new GSM-based MVNO that plans to cater to the large Hispanic demand for prepaid phone service. The best guess for the actual carrier is Cingular, because Dexa is copying their marketing speak of "fewest dropped calls." That means there won't be data available to Dexa customers, just voice service, since Cingular doesn't provide data to MVNO customers. Right now Dexa is only available in LA, but with the large Hispanic market in the US we have a feeling they could be expanding fairly soon.
