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DISH Network refuses to be outdone, brings its own 2008 Election mosaic
Just a week after DirecTV announced that it would be delivering eight feeds of 2008 Election coverage on a single channel, in steps DISH Network to prove that it's paying attention to its closest competition. Beginning today and running through November 7th, the satcaster's interactive mosaic will "update its multiple screen channel display to simultaneously air six 24-hour news channels during the 2008 election cycle." Viewers will have one-screen access on Channel 100 to FOX News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, CNN Headline News, CSPAN and CSPAN2, and in case that's not enough, users can also access the DISH Decision 2008 interactive application by mashing the "DISH" button on their remote.
Verizon gets political with FiOS1 local TV channel in DC Metro Area
Now here's an interesting one. Verizon, the carrier who offers up FiOS TV, is actually getting set to launch its very own channel. Granted, it'll only be available to FiOS TV users -- and for now, users in the Washington, DC Metro area -- but still, it's a touch peculiar (albeit useful). For FiOS subscribers in Northern Virginia and parts of Maryland, you'll now be able to tune into Channel 1 (FiOS1, predictably), which will reportedly act as a "one-stop shop for local weather, traffic, news, sports and community features." From now until November 4th, however, it will be airing "rebroadcasts of the three presidential debates and the vice-presidential debate, as well as key speeches from the Democratic and Republican conventions." There's no mention of FiOS1 making a debut in other areas (nor of it going HD), but we'd keep an eye out on Channel 1 just in case.Update: Seems FiOS1 has been available for a tick, but it's the political coverage that's changing things up. Thanks, urfloormatt!
Apple opposes Calif. Prop 8, donates $100k to 'No' campaign
Apple issued a short statement on its Hot News page today saying it is publicly opposing California Proposition 8, and donating $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Proposition 8 seeks to amend California's constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry. A "no" vote on the measure means marriages between same-sex couples would continue to be valid in California. "Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees' same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person's fundamental rights -- including the right to marry -- should not be affected by their sexual orientation," the statement read. "Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8." Update: Comments on this post are now closed. Thanks for your civil and constructive (mostly) responses.
EVE's second Council of Stellar Management applicants announced
EVE Online differs from other MMOs in a number of ways. Differences in game mechanics and setting aside, even the dynamics among the players is different than with your standard sharded MMO. The single server approach puts all of the players in one world, sometimes creating a tense social dynamic between the players, and especially between CCP Games and the EVE subscribers. The player-elected Council of Stellar Management (CSM) is an attempt to have a group of players bridge this gap, and represent the interests of the playerbase as a whole by advising CCP on how to keep the game in step with what the players want. Although the first CSM is still in office, the next election process is well underway. EVE dev CCP Diagoras posted a breakdown of the applications for the second Council of Stellar Management, listing statistics and information about those who have their eyes set on a place among the CSM, and plenty to read about each of the individuals in the running.
DirecTV's Election Mix channel brings maximum coverage to one place
DirecTV has a thing for offering up exclusives such as this in order to help fencesitters make the leap, so it's no shock to see the satcaster taking the multi-pane approach used primarily for sporting events to cover election night. As the US presidential election unfolds on November 4th, DirecTV customers will be able to catch eight feeds of coverage on a single channel alongside a real-time election blog that will "track the announcements and analysis on each channel as votes are counted, exit polling data is evaluated and electoral count projections roll in." The Election Mix Channel will be seen on slots 102 and 352 (for SD and HD, respectively) and will feature feeds from the four broadcast networks, CNN, FOX News, MSNBC and alternating feeds of Comedy Central (when it's doing live election coverage) and BBC America. Users will be able to hover over any of the eight blocks to select audio from each, and you can catch the mayhem beginning at 7:00PM ET on that fateful Tuesday.[Thanks, Bryan]
EVE's second CSM election process begins
CCP Games announced that it's time for EVE Online's next Council of Stellar Management election process to begin. Here's the message from the Council Election page: "The second democratic elections in EVE will start the 7th of November. Here you can enter your application to run as a candidate for the election. You will run under your real name with an EVE identity for others to relate to. You will have to be ready to appear in public or in mediums. Your account has to be older than 30 days. You are required to put effort into your position. Yet serving the EVE population is well worth it. Get all the necessary information here. Throw your hat in the ring and make history." Interested candidates will need to have their information submitted to CCP no later than October 17th (extended from their previous announcement that stated October 10th). The application, which requires a candidate to scan and submit an image of their passport, states: It is important to notice that your real life name, country, character name, campaign webpage and campaign message will be made public and available for everyone to see. Players elected to the Council of Stellar Management may also be required to appear on EVE-TV (should it make a comeback) and E-ON magazine, in addition to being willing and able to make the trip to Iceland.
Official iPhone app for Obama '08 now in App Store
We're officially a nonpartisan bunch here at TUAW (actually, quite partisan, but only for the Mac) but the announcement of an official iPhone application from the Obama campaign is still worthy of mention. Several high-profile iPhone devs & designers were involved in the project, including formerly-of-Tapulous Mike Lee, Louie Mantia and Tristan O'Tierney. Raven Zachary led the team that included Jonathan Wight and more, all volunteering to rush the app to completion.In addition to the obvious-but-cool features of the app (download news from the campaign, watch YouTube videos of speeches and endorsements), there is quite a bit of iPhone special sauce. Location awareness means you can see local events or find your nearest campaign office; a 'Call Friends' tool sorts your address book by priority, putting your contacts living in battleground states at the top of the list and letting you reach out to them with a single tap. Very sleek!Even though there isn't an official McCain campaign application for the iPhone, the App Store has plenty of election-themed apps for voters of either the red or blue persuasion. However you plan to make your voice heard this year, let us give you a gentle reminder that if you're an American citizen over 18, you need to make certain that you're registered to vote.Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
Presidential campaign contributions by game industry heavies
With just about a month before the United States picks its next president, GamePolitics has posted a piece on the presidential campaign contributions made by industry big-shots. Would you have guessed that Spore designer Will Wright was a McCain supporter? Turns out a lot of industry folks listed in the piece are leaning towards Obama, with thousands of dollars in contributions heading to the Democratic nominee. With some major executives contributing only a few thousand dollars to Obama's campaign, it's interesting to note that two of the biggest spenders are Star Wars mogul George Lucas with $33,100, and not far behind him, Harmonix (Rock Band) CEO Alex Rigopulos with $32,900. The ever-updated list can be found at GamePolitics.
EVE Online's first CSM term ending, next approaching
The latest EVE Online dev blog deals with the forthcoming changing of the guard, in terms of the player-elected Council of Stellar Management (CSM). EVE dev CCP Xhagen touched upon the fact that in the nearly 4 months that the first CSM has held office, it became clear(er) to the developers that their own views on some aspects of the game can be differ from how the players see it. While CCP Xhagen didn't list the CSM's accomplishments, he said that some of what the CSM brought to CCP Games won't be implemented until well after the new Council is elected, due to the time it takes to implement changes in the development pipeline. However, some of their efforts "will start to become visible in WAR 1.2 and the winter expansion." He also announced the dates and details for the second Council of Stellar Management, with a few changes made to the rules. CCP Xhagen said, "... the chairman is eligible for the chair-position again should he decide to step down as such and have the CSM vote a new one; 25% of actual voters are required to force a topic up to the CSM; the biggest change is the 21 year age limit to be a valid candidate." In addition, the timetable for the existing CSM stepping down and the newly elected Council moving into their role is as follows:
60 Minutes pulls out the HDTV cams for Obama & McCain Sunday
Best reason to watch 60 Minutes on CBS Sunday: It's the 40th anniversary, it features presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain, or that it's the first in glorious high definition? Multichannel audio is promised (has the tick-tock been remastered?) to go along with the crisp picture, but all that really matters is that September 21, 7 p.m. -- you know where we (and our HDTVs) will be.
Republican National Convention features LED video wall, HDTVs by LG
One of the biggest issues of the 2008 Presidential campaign will certainly be how much high definition does your candidate have? Next week in Minnesota the Republican National Convention will feature HDTVs from LG throughout the Xcel Energy Center, but the highlight will certainly be the 51- x 30-foot Hibino Chroma LED video wall behind the podium area. Stacked against an array of Panasonic projectors and plasmas from the DNC's show in Denver, we expect single issue (resolution, compression, plasma vs. LCD) voters will have a lot of thinking to do over the next few months.Read - A First Look at the 2008 Republican National Convention PodiumRead - 2008 Republican National Convention Names LG Electronics Official HDTV Provider
ABC's World News Tonight and Nightline enter high definition tonight
ABC's push for HD evening news comes to a head tonight, when World News with Charles Gibson and Nightline both hit your screen in 720p from the Democratic National Convention. Besides covering both conventions in HD -- and there'll be plenty of that in the '08 campaign -- when they return to the studio in September the HD love continues. 20/20, Primetime and World News on the weekend will all be HDTV-ready shortly after. B & C reveals ABC News is deploying the same Sony XDCAMs -- full HD newsgathering is on hold 'til 2009 -- used to bring home high definition Survivor this fall, add in a tropical location and it would likely be hard to tell which one we're watching.
Rock the Vote to canvas Xbox Live
Meet 1ickTh3P0l3. He can vote. But why tell him that? When Rock the Vote comes to Xbox Live on Monday (the start of the Democratic National Convention), it won't find the disempowered young citizens eager to be mobilized it's expecting. In fact, the Xbox Live community is a conglomerate of well-organized sub-divisions -- or "clans" -- which communicate through a modified, verbalization of "133t speak" with a large admixture of derisive language; including racial, ethnic, gender, sex, and religious slurs. These nihilistic hatemongers shoot first, typically with rocket launchers, and top it off with a teabag over your dead body. Oh wait, these are just the Xbox Live users under 18. Imagine how the ones of legal voting age spend their nights and weekends ... And you want them rocking what now? [Image credit: Jeff the Trojan]
EVE dev blog: Council of Stellar Management Summit recap
The latest developer blog posted at the EVE Online site is a brief report to the community about last week's Council of Stellar Management (CSM) Summit, the first meeting between the player-elected council of representatives and CCP Games. The CSM Summit gave the delegates a chance to discuss, face-to-face with CCP, how the players they represent would like the game to change. CCP Xhagen reports that CCP views this first meeting as being a 'resounding success.' The CSM delegates were well-prepared and clearly put a lot of time and effort into the topics on the agenda, Xhagen says. The next step in the process is for the discussion topics from the CSM Summit to be sorted in terms of viability and priority. This involves a few factors, namely the time and work required by CCP to implement the game changes. From there, the CSM will prioritize the topics in light of the technical feasibility already established through talks with CCP. Afterwards, the proposed changes will enter development pipelines; future patch notes will indicate which issues or changes are the result of the CSM's efforts. CCP Xhagen cautions that some requests will take longer than others to realize in the game, but stated that the devs will do their best to roll out the changes and communicate timeline estimates. Xhagen finishes by saying, "The most important results of the Summit may not be immediately evident, but the seeds planted by the CSM into the minds of the EVE dev team members are already sprouting."
WarCry interviews EVE Lead Designer Noah Ward about the CSM
EVE Online's Council of Stellar Management (CSM) is the title's first attempt at having elected representatives work with CCP Games on improving the game as well as the company's relations with its player base. The initial idea behind the CSM was that it would act as an oversight committee on behalf of the players, in the wake of the 'T20 incident' when a CCP developer unfairly provided a player corporation with certain resources. But this first CSM is largely tasked with improving the transparency of CCP's inner workings, while shaping the game to better fit the play styles of their constituency. The CSM has met online in recent weeks, and with mixed results, but they've now met in-person in Reykjavik, where they also had face-to-face time with the creators of EVE Online.Jordan Deam from WarCry interviewed EVE Online dev Noah Ward (aka CCP Hammerhead) about what this experiment in 'democratic community management' has yielded thus far, and what it may yet become. The interview focuses heavily on the dynamic between players wanting features added to the game and the undertaking necessary on CCP's part to make these changes a reality. Factional warfare has only just been realized in the game and was four years in the making. Ambulation, or 'Walking in Stations', is slated for a launch in the coming months, after three years of being in the pipeline, Ward said. Have a look at the WarCry interview, and decide for yourself if the CSM is living up to its potential, and if CCP is recapturing the transparency of a small, independent game company as it grows into a much larger entity.
McCain campaign releases facebook game: Pork Invaders
While most of our time on popular social networking site Facebook is spent trying to impress our cohorts with our favorite bands and films or attempting to propel porpoises into the far reaches of the spiral galaxy, we recently took notice of a new application added by Republican presidential hopeful John McCain's campaign staff: a simple flash game titled Pork Invaders, an obvious parody of the similarly titled arcade classic.Don't mistake the game's title to mean the Arizona senator harbors any disdain for unkosher meats -- rather, the act of firing vetoes at familiar patterns of descending pigs symbolizes the candidate's contempt for pork barrel spending -- the earmarking of funds for seemingly unnecessary projects. It's not a particularly good game, though it is worth noting when the U.S.'s prospective new leaders enter the intimidating world of game development. We hope for a swift response from the presumptive Democratic candidate's campaign -- Obomberman, perhaps?[Via GamePolitics]
What if politics were more like Pokemon?
If politics were more like Pokemon, we would be campaigning for Meowth. How can you lose when your platform consists of being totally awesome?But we digress ... One gamer has captured his view of this year's election lead-up with a mock Pokemon battle between the three presidential hopefuls. It has an obvious pro-Barack Obama slant and an anti-other candidates bias, but it's still clever enough to warrant a look no matter which politician you're leaning towards. Check it out past the post break as an animated GIF image and its evolved form, Youtube video!
Election '08 coverage to include more HD
Even though this week's Democratic debate was unfortunately-SD on ABC, we can expect more reasons to pay attention to the potential candidates in the days to come. CNN's Election Express has already deployed an HD news truck to cover the campaign trail, but CBS is close behind. The Eye plans to hit the conventions in HD, but it will take a while to move the newscast beyond upconverted standard definition video. NBC and ABC will also have the conventions in HD, but while NBC says its field equipment is HD ready, ABC doesn't plan to move beyond 4x3 newsgathering until the end of the year. Check out the rest of the details on TV Technology, we can't tell you who to vote for, but we wouldn't make a decision based on anything said in 480i.
Is WoW a hotbed of political activity?
Earlier this week, USA Today published a lifestyle article that made the claim that the population of World of Warcraft has gotten swept up in the political fervor of the day. According to one frequent WoW-player quoted prominently in the article, the buzz over the race between Hillary and Obama has reached such an ever-present crescendo that it's bled into our most prominent avenue for fantasy and escapism.While it is particularly interesting the way that the political dialog has overcome more tradition fare in /general and guild chats (and by traditional fare we mean Chuck Norris jokes), we'd hesitate to call this phenomenon an exclusive product of this election cycle. The fact of the matter is, this is really the first presidential election cycle that has taken place during World of Warcraft's life, so there's no way to tell whether this amount of election buzz is peculiar in any way. Are marches through the streets of Iron Forge in support of marginal Republican candidates par for the course? We honestly haven't a clue. Ask us in four years![Via GamePolitics]
The DS Life: Nintendobama
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/nintendo/The_DS_Life_Nintendobama'; The DS Life is a weekly feature in which we scour the known world for narrative images of Nintendo's handheld and handheld gamers. If you have a photo and a story to match it with, send both to thedslife at dsfanboy dot com.As a rule, we don't trust any politicians, especially the ones we want to trust, so it's rare that you'll ever see us championing the merits of any particular presidential candidate. Besides, the electioneering scene just isn't something we want to be a part of, like the straight-edge scene or the liking-music-that-no-sensible-person-should-ever-enjoy scene. We're too laid back and cynical to involve ourselves in the passionate debates these conversations often require.Still, when one gamer goes to the extreme to express his devotion towards his favored statesman by decorating a Nintendo DS Lite with the politician's face, we take notice ...
