Maybe they’re on to something

I don’t know when it started but it but it’s a regular occurrence at my household. Sitting in front of the television with my netbook on my lap splitting my attention between the 2 screens and occasionally checking my phone. Apparently I’m not the only one. 60% of you are also doing the exact same thing. It can be quite handy to have the Internet at the ready when something interesting pops up on tv and you have the urge to check it out before you lose interest.

Is this the future of the consumer? Short term attention span, I mean really short term. So many things screaming for our attention and dollars that we will have our pick of entertainment by the second. Turner Sports might be on to something here. They will be offering multi platform coverage of sporting events integration of twitter, live streaming video, chat, and even mobile. Basically whenever and wherever you are, Turner Sports wants you to check out their content on the platform available to you.

I think I’m going to need more bandwidth.

ViDock Gfx allows multiple monitors to be connected to your notebook

ViDock Gfx is the ultimate graphics expansion for notebook computers taking advantage of the powerful ExpressCard expansion slot of modern systems, enabling additional displays to connect to your laptop portable computer. ViDock Gfx brings uncompromised desktop class speed and quality video to notebook computers.

Technical and compatibility information are available following the tech link. The below links bring you to see how different applications will benefit from a multidisplay setup.

It’s about your time. Ultimately, it’s about your productivity. Portable computing and mobile Internet helps to boost productivity, allowing flexibility and freedom, being productive anytime, anywhere. It’s about time to give the final productivity boost to portable computers users, to people like you -people addicted to portable computers. Imagine turning your notebook into a multidisplay workstation when working at your desk, with the freedom of choosing one or two or even three dream displays. Dream about having simultaneous control over everything, spreading your applications and documents on an extended desktop over several screens, nothing interesting being hidden. You may have not realized that yet, but you are dreaming of connecting ViDock Gfx to your notebook. (link)

Breaking news: academic games are lame

Academics have been flocking to use virtual worlds and multiplayer games as ways to research everything from economics to epidemiology and turn these environments into educational tools. A game called Arden, the World of Shakespeare, funded with a $250,000 MacArthur Foundation grant and developed at Indiana University was supposed to test economic theories by manipulating the rules of the game. There’s only one problem. “It’s no fun, ” says Edward Castronova, Arden’s creator and an associate professor of telecommunications at the university. “You need puzzles and monsters,” he says, “or people won’t want to play … Since what I really need is a world with lots of players in it for me to run experiments on, I decided I needed a completely different approach.” Part of the problem is it costs a lot to build a new multiplayer game. (story)