Not a typo, a hashtag.

Updated 24/05/2012: Die Gute Fabrik have issued an exceptionally graceful and carefully worded statement on the matter. UsTwo have pulled Papa Quash from the app store, which I think shows they’re doing everything they can to make this right. this tweet is kind of curious, but whatever relationship UsTwo and Sam Pepper had or have is none of our business. Sam is the only person to have not commented at all, and the Facebook page for Papa Quash appears to be falling into neglect already.

On Twitter this morning, I saw one game developer after another tearing UsTwo a new one. I joined in. here was my harshest tweet:

Though, when their entire studio seems to be a non-ironic shrine to Nathan Barley, who expected them to not be pricks?

They appear to have ripped off Johann Sebastian Joust, then put it up on Android and iOS markets. A lot of people were trying to avoid posting the link. at it, there is a pitch in the vein of “Hey we invented a thing!”. Discounting their cheesy “new iPhone craze!” marketing, the ubiquitous “this trailer was made in 2012″ dubstep, and the JJ Abrams lens flare effects, it was a badly handled launch. maybe not to the audience for the game, but certainly to the development community.

Let me be clear: UsTwo might not be bad guys, but this morning, they gave every appearance of being bad guys. damage control was very slow to kick in. Here’s a conversation that took place with the developer on Facebook:

So the/a developer claims he “emailed joust” and got their blessing. Someone else having a similar idea of how to use motion control is eminently plausible. UsTwo not knowing a thing about J.S. Joust: not so much. I can’t bring myself to type his apparent job title because it’s so idiotic, but their leader Mills apparently follows Die Gute Fabrik on Twitter. I also can’t think of many games events in the past year, especially in London, that haven’t had J.S. Joust running there. after Vlambeer and Radical Fishing, as well as NimbleBit and Tiny Tower, you would have to be really fucking dumb to launch a very similar title to J.S. Joust and not expect the mass roasting elicited from game developers on Twitter earlier.

At worst, UsTwo are villains. at best, they fucked up and prepared their way badly: no acknowledgement for J.S. Joust, no public dialogue in advance with Die Gute Fabrik or Doug Wilson.

I’m not proud of how harsh I was to UsTwo on Twitter earlier, though I’ll leave the tweets up:

Pretty much every developer I follow is disappointed with @ustwo. Because they’ve been cunts to @gutefabrik

Seriously, £600K dumped into making their own IP, and the best they could do is rip something else off? Also, that terrible trailer.

The only person I’ve seen urging level heads is Marie Foulston:

Maybe its a day to have opinions. I think people should hold themselves better & lay off personalised venom til both parties have had a say

She’s probably right, but I would hate for Doug to wake up and feel unsupported. Doug is part of a community for whom creators rights and at the very least credit are important. He prototyped an amazing game that many of us are still having a lot of fun with, and was far too busy finishing a Ph.D to also be able to explore commercialisation of the project. It’s heartbreaking for other indies to see a relatively rich developer appear to rip off his work and steal the limelight.

Here’s a last word from Mills (via @BritishGaming):

“Fakes and copycats quite simply have to absolutely f**k off to another paradigm.”

this entry was posted on Tuesday, may 22nd, 2012 at 14:29 and is filed under Conflict, Design, Games. you can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Functional Autonomy » Blog Archive » Joustice

Those who know Miami Heat’s Dwyane Wade say he’s a slave to fashion. if he weren’t an NBA star, he’d probably be a model.

This week, as he battles in the NBA semi-finals, Wade is also appearing in what is considered the fashion Bible: Vogue magazine.

The June issue features American Olympic hopefuls at the London Games; Wade is the basketball entry.

in his spread, he appears shirtless in shots taken by photographer-to-the-stars, Annie Leibowitz.

Monday night, an obviously-pleased Wade took time to tweet “a thank you” to Leibowitz and described as “a good friend” the Vogue’s editor, who is said to be the inspiration of the main character in the Devil Wore Prada.

“it was an honor to be shot by the legendary Annie Leibovitz for this Vogue piece. Also I wanna thank my good friend Anna Wintour for this honor,” Wade tweeted.

Here’s a segment on the article on Wade, who Tuesday night will play in Game 2 of the Heat’s series against the Indiana Pacers at the AmericanAirlines Arena.

it would be a cinch to dwell on Dwyane Wade’s record-breaking off-court style, a free point. Here’s a guy who can use color—pocket squares, shirts, ties that don’t just dazzle but change the game—like a three-point shot at the buzzer, the hoop that takes it home.

Wade is just about the only guy you saw runway-side in Milan (where he stopped the pre-show crowd wearing distressed jeans and a sky-blue blazer) who also once paused play in an NBA game—in which he was lead scorer­—to adjust the coach of the Philadelphia 76ers’ tie.

To read the entire article, go to Vogue.com

Miami Heat’s Dwyane Wade praised by Vogue for fashion sense — oh, and ball handling

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After giving up on that WiMax network that looked so promising a couple of years ago, but proved to be a very uninspired idea shortly after, Sprint is finally ready to kick off its own LTE network. And after finding out the carrier’s plans for the next couple of years in terms of coverage, we today have confirmation on what will be their first ever smartphone to support 4G LTE.

Like I said, we now have confirmation, because we pretty much suspected for some time now that the LG Viper will in fact be Sprint’s first 4G LTE phone. We even had a leaked document a couple of days ago that mentioned the handheld’s exact release date, which now seems almost set in stone.

The guys at Sprint will start taking pre-orders for the LG Viper on April 12, which almost definitely means that the smartphone will ship from the 15th of this month. on the other hand, you should keep in mind that the information is not yet confirmed, so if you happen to pre-order the phone, and not get it after three days, please don’t come back here and complain, torches and pitchforks in hands!

While the LG Viper’s release date doesn’t come as a big surprise for pretty much anybody in the mobile market, the smartphone’s pricing could well be considered unexpected. the 4-incher will start selling at $99.99 on a two-year contract, which, no matter how you look at it, is pretty darn cheap.

Okay, this might not be the strongest Android-based gadget on the block these days, but it still comes with a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, dual cameras (5 MP on the rear and VGA on the front), as well as NFC technology, and, of course, 4G LTE speeds.

As far as I’m concerned, the most disappointing features of the LG Viper are the screen’s low resolution (only 480 x 800 pixels) and the fact that it runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread. But then again, it’s possible for the handheld to be updated to Ice Cream Sandwich soon enough, so at least one of these two problems may eventually go away.

You also have to keep in mind that, soon after the LG Viper (on April 22, if we are to believe earlier rumors), Sprint should also launch its own Galaxy Nexus 4G LTE, so I think it’s safe to say that the carrier is preparing to get back on the map and once again challenge Verizon and AT&T’s leading positions.

How about you, guys? Would you go for a Sprint 4G LTE Android-based handheld anytime soon or are Verizon’s and AT&T’s offerings still more tempting these days? Before you answer my question, don’t forget to check out Sprint’s coverage map here, to see if the carrier is actually planning to roll out LTE in your area any time soon.

LG Viper, Sprint’s first LTE phone, to go on sale on April 15 for $99.99

Image courtesy: lorelle.Imagine a world san free knowledge. for over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopaedia in human history. right now, the U.S. Congress is considering a legislation that could fatally damage free and open internet. for 24 hours, to raise awareness, even the Wikipedia observed a black out. Of course, one needs no further explanation of what the message was about. And if that did not sound serious enough for you, lightning must have struck in the form of a tweet by Wikipedia …

Why the World is Against SOPA/PIPA

Blake Griffin has made a habit out of posterizing fellow NBA stars, which Kendrick Perkins discovered the hard way on Monday night. The Los Angeles Clippers dunk master threw down a massive dunk that made the crowd go crazy and made Perkins want to run and hide.

It also sent Twitter into a frenzy. As has become the case with every marquee sporting moment, everybody tweets their immediate reaction to the event. Griffin’s highlight-reel dunk was certainly no different.

Let’s watch the video one more time and then take a look at some of the best tweets about last night’s jam.

North Carolina star Dexter Strickland has seen his fair share of dunks throughout his young basketball career, but he makes his thoughts about Griffin’s crystal clear:

NBA analyst Stacey King predicted that Kendrick Perkins had one more stop before leaving town:

Denver Nuggets guard Rudy Fernandez was so excited about the dunk that he couldn’t even keep his response all in one language:

It wasn’t only those involved with the NBA that seen poetry in motion, as evidenced by this tweet from Oakland Raiders corner Chimdi Chekwa:

Darren Sharper also got in on the hype machine, keeping his message sweet and simple:

Bonus points to Kurt Helin for the throwback reference of Griffin’s dunk on Timofey Mozgov, which certainly rivals last night’s performance:

Not only was Griffin’s dunk a top play, but apparently it was also a life-changing moment:

Want a perfect example of how amazing people thought Griffin’s dunk was? LeBron James was willing to step aside to put it atop the charts for this season:

Not everybody is buying into the hype, however. there was also a vocal minority who couldn’t even agree on calling the play a dunk, for example:

Whether it was a dunk or a super-aggressive finger roll, I think everybody can agree on one thing:

That he is, Kasey. That he is.

Blake Griffin: Twitter Explodes With Reaction to Dunk on Kendrick Perkins

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WASHINGTON — For Democrats, there wasn’t much missing from President Obama’s State of the Union speech — except some thought there could have been a little bit more about Gabby Giffords.

Taking another step in her remarkable recovery after her near fatal shooting last year, Rep. Giffords (D-Ariz.) attended the address as one of her last acts before submitting her resignation Wednesday.

In what likely will go down as one of the most touching moments from a presidential speech to Congress, Obama stopped on his way in to wrap Giffords in a warm hug. But he didn’t carry that embrace of her to the podium.

Obama had mentioned Giffords in his speech last year, when she was still in a coma and represented by an empty chair in the House chamber. so while Democrats thought the president’s public show of affection was certainly adequate, they noticed an absence of words.

“I wish he had said something about Gabby Giffords,” said Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), pausing to collect his emotions before adding, “But I think that hug that he and she shared was probably statement enough.”

“Gabby and I were in the same class in Congress, so it was very special to see her in the chamber tonight,” added Yarmuth, who otherwise rated Obama’s speech as “the strongest example of leadership President Obama has ever shown.”

“I thought he would give a farewell to Gabby Giffords, who has really triumphed over some difficult times,” said Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.). “I’m sure he has reached out over and over again. But I thought it would have been a nice farewell to her until she comes back and makes her next step.”

“I think the hug said it all but, yes, there could have been a tribute to Gabby,” said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.). “She inspires this Congress; she inspires this country.”

Others thought the hug said more than words ever could. “I think if you watched when the president came in, there was a special moment where they hugged, and I quite suspect that a lot of newspapers will show that picture,” said Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.).

Words or deeds mattered less to Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who simply said he’d miss the Arizonan.

“Gabby Giffords warms everybody’s hearts when she walks into the room,” Ellison said. “She’s just a symbol of courage and fortitude, and I’m just sad she’s not going to run again because she was a great colleague.”

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Hug Was Nice, But Lawmakers Note Giffords’ Absence In Obama Speech

Daybreak Daily’s afternoon visit with those who reside in pop-culture land finds a melancholy rapper, comic books, other things, and the mystery music video.

OHHHHHH-KAY: Life’s such a drag, and 50 Cent wants to make it better – at least for others, per Rap Up, “in a darker tweet, he explained why he started his Street King movement, which feeds millions of starving Africans. “I’ll be honest I don’t think I’m gonna live much longer,” revealed 50. “That’s why I started my street king movement. I want to mean more in other people’s lives.” http://bit.ly/v3rsaj

SPIDERWHO?: DC Comics leaves a big footprint, per the Hollywood Reporter, “the Warner Bros.-owned publisher’s gamble to relaunch its entire line of comics with 52 new series has hit a home run, outselling Marvel books since the reboot went wide in September. “ http://bit.ly/ybogwC

BAD DEAL: Bounce back, brother, per the AP, “Nick Cannon is spending the first week of the new year in the hospital, with wife Mariah Carey by his side. Carey tweeted that Cannon is suffering from "mild kidney failure." his representative confirmed Cannon’s hospitalization. He is in Aspen, Colo., where he and Carey were vacationing.” http://apne.ws/yntycD

SNEAK PEEK: And free publicity, to boot, per Rolling Stone, “Journalists across new York have been invited to a Van Halen concert at the Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village this Thursday. Though nothing is official, word is the band are going to perform a 45-minute set. the group hasn’t played in public since the end of their 2007/’08 reunion tour with original frontman David Lee Roth, though they have been rehearsing for their upcoming world tour at the Roxy in Los Angeles for the past few months.” http://bit.ly/rrewo0

KARDASHIAN ALERT: This is really, really big, per PerezHilton, “Amber Rose just dropped one hell of a drama bomb, and it’s about to make Kim Kardashian’s life THAT much messier! according to the former Miss Kanye West, the reality starlet is the reason behind her split with the rapper, as she was openly seeing him – while she was also still dating Reggie Bush, no less!” http://bit.ly/w69toF

WOW: When you wish upon a star, per Deadline Hollywood, “in what is being hailed as a groundbreaking deal and the most comprehensive carriage agreement ever, the Walt Disney Co. has signed a long-term pact with Comcast for its entire portfolio of TV networks, including ABC and ESPN.” http://bit.ly/wpirsU

LONG QUOTE: Bascially, Demi Moore tells Harper’s that, yeah, she’s skinny, per People, “"I think I sit today in a place of greater acceptance of my body, and that includes not just my weight but all of the things that come with your changing body as you age to now experiencing my body as extremely thin – thin in a way that I never imagined somebody would be saying to me, ‘You’re too thin, and you don’t look good,’ " the actress, 49, tells the magazine.” http://bit.ly/xTPD9p

HUH?: just read it, per Access Hollywood, “Sinead O’Connor has apparently called off her divorce from Berry Herridge. “Spent beautiful evening of love making with [none] other than husband! Who turned up angelically we decided to be boyfriend and girlfriend… guess who had a mad love making affair with her own husband last night?” the singer, who previously announced she was splitting with her new groom after just 18 days, Tweeted.” http://bit.ly/wpI2SG

OF INTEREST TO SOME: Maybe, per Radar, “Troubled Teen Mom Jenelle Evans is struggling to keep her life on the straight and narrow, but as she puts her legal troubles behind her she still isn’t seeking custody of her young son, RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned.” http://bit.ly/wYvHcR

AND FINALLY: Today’s mystery music video. actually, two mystery music videos. which is your favorite?

No. 1 http://bit.ly/cCIc5y

No. 2. http://bit.ly/z0EQQI

–Skip Wood Follow me on Twitter @DaybreakSkip

50 Cent: ‘I don’t think I’m gonna live much longer’

A Google team leader explains how making Android’s source code open should make cheap smartphones and tablets available for people in the poorest countries

A minor Twitterstorm blew through on Wednesday when MG Siegler, formerly of TechCrunch, noted that Andy Rubin, the head of Google’s Android mobile division, had deleted his famous first tweet about “the meaning of open” (a command line expression explaining how to build Android from the kernel.org repository).

Update: he hadn’t deleted it; Twitter had temporarily lost it, but has now restored it, as it told Siegler:

“During maintenance we encountered a bug. it caused us to drop a very small percentage of tweets. one of those was Andy’s. As soon as we realized this, we began work to restore them. we were able to recover them quickly and they’ve now been restored,” Twitter spokesperson Carolyn Penner tells me (from vacation no less).

MG Siegler, noticing its [apparent] absence, wrote a fairly snarky post on its vanishment, which includes the tweet’s content.).

Where had it gone? no explanation in Rubin’s tweets, which simply ploughed on with his latest about the 3.7m Android devices activated over December 24 and 25 (do you think that might actually be the start of Christmas Day in Australia and new Zealand, when it would still be Christmas Eve in Google’s home in California? Even so, that’s a lot of devices.). to find out we had to turn to DeWitt Clinton, who is a “technical lead on Google’s developer team, focused on building product APIs, growing the developer ecosystem, and defending the open web”.

Clinton explains in a post on Google+ that Rubin deleted the tweet because kernel.org was hacked in August, and do the path to the archives had changed.

(As explanations go, it’s pretty lame: if you try to follow the path in Rubin’s tweet – http://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git – then you get redirected to the location of the current repository, at http://android.googlesource.com/platform/manifest.git. not only that, but if Rubin really thinks people are looking to his tweetstream for advice on how to “make” Android then he’s overplaying things, and if he also thinks that it’s simpler to delete a famous tweet than to add another one explaining the redirect, then he’s not quite got the hang of this “communication” thing. Which would be ironic, really.)

Update: with the restored tweet, you can confirm this for yourself. So that’s Rubin exonerated.

But what was more striking was the comment by Clinton about what he believes to be the benefits of Android – not for what it can bring to Google (because remember, anyone can fork Android – as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and a number of Chinese manufacturers have – so that it doesn’t use Google services such as Maps or location-based services or ads) but for what it can bring to the wider, unconnected world.

Here’s what he wrote:

I believe what Android is accomplishing is truly revolutionary. Mobile is the way that billions of people will one day access the Internet. and through that access, we will soon start to narrow the massive knowledge gap that currently divides the richest from the poorest populations. That there’s now an eminently capable open source mobile operating system, one that is free to use and free to fork, means that the knowledge advantage can be better and more evenly distributed across the planet than ever before.

For some pundits, it’s all about which companies are building the fanciest and most feature-rich handheld computers. Which, if we’re being honest about it, are devices for those that already have everything. when you’re at the top, it’s great to see the tech giants going head-to-head and competing for our dollars like this. having a few dollars, I benefit from that, too.

And yet in spite of that, I’m even more excited about seeing a $25 mobile device that has access to a killer web browser and endless mobile apps, and watching that device appear in the hands of a billion school children over the next 10 years.

We can debate endlessly about which device manufacture added what clever UI to which OS, or what carriers allowed (or banned) which hot little app, or which app store has the more sustainable revenue sharing model for up-and-coming Bay Area startups. But yet, no one is going to remember any of those trivial details in the long run.

Historians are, however, going to make note of how the open source Android platform (or its later forks and clones) played a role in facilitating everything from low-cost solar-powered devices in the remotest villages in India and Africa, to a hundred million tablets computers in the classroom each revolutionizing education for children all across Asia and the Middle East, to putting an internet-connected smartphone in the hands of every man, woman, and child in America, even those from the perpetually overlooked majority that simply can’t afford a shiny brand-new iPhone or Galaxy Nexus every Christmas.

So ultimately I don’t give two hoots about which vendor or which carrier gets to ship which device on which network with which apps. But I’m stunned, stunned, by the audacity of releasing the Android platform as free and open source software. not just because how it has already shaken things up at the top. But how it will go on to shake the rest of the planet upside down.

You can quibble about minor details (what’s the business model exactly? How affordable is $25 in some countries?) but that’s a pretty clear expression – closing the knowledge gap – of why broader ownership of smartphones (and perhaps tablets) is a good thing.

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Charles Arthurguardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

‘Closing the knowledge gap’: why Google wants Android to be open

Most NHL players will be more than happy to tell you how much of a pest Sean Avery is. It looks one of the league’s biggest pains in the neck may have bitten off more than he can chew with his latest antics.

The New York Daily News points out that the Rangers forward’s latest instance of chirping is directed at supermodel Kate Upton, of all people.

Upton recently attended a Rangers-Penguins game at Madison Square Garden, and somehow, the Rangers forward caught wind of Upton being in attendance. Naturally, Avery took to Twitter to drop the gloves with Upton and even brought Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist into things.

“@KateUpton since u couldn’t stop looking @HLundqvist30 last night now u can follow him…….#sorryhesmarried,” read Avery’s tweet.

In typical hockey fashion, Upton tweeted — er, chirped — right back at Avery.

“Weren’t you supposed to be focusing on a game?…at least we all agree I wasn’t staring at you,” she responded, clearly needing no enforcer to help defend her. 

It probably goes without saying that Avery should be focusing less on Kate Upton and more on what he’s doing on the ice, although that’s admittedly easier said than done. that being said, it’s been a rough year for the veteran forward. 

The Rangers waived Avery on Oct. 4, and Avery eventually found himself skating in the AHL with the Connecticut Whale.

Avery was eventually recalled by the Blueshirts in early November, but he’s been a relative non-factor since his return. He has just three points in 15 games and is a plus-2 in his time at the NHL level this season. He was pulled from the lineup by coach John Tortorella as recently as this weekend.

NHL players pestering — or courting even — Upton over Twitter is nothing new. just last week, Maple Leafs center Tyler Bozak tried flirting with Upton through tweets (who hasn’t tried that one?). Bozak fared about as well in that courtship as Avery did in a fight last season with former Bruins defenseman Mark Stuart — not well, not well at all.

Kate Upton Chirps Sean Avery After Rangers Forward Calls Her Out on Twitter – NESN Nation – NESN.com