11 AM | 08 Jul

Meet #Vortex: Part #Game, Part Ad-Targeting Disrupter [#geekgirl]

[As reported via Ad Age] “Meet Rachel Law, a 25-year-old graduate student from Singapore, who has created a game that could literally wreak havoc on the online ad industry if released into the wild.

Her creation, called “Vortex,” is a browser extension that’s part game, part ad-targeting disrupter that helps people turn their user profiles and the browsing information into alternate fake identities that have nothing to do with reality.

People who use the browser tool, which works with Firefox and Chrome, effectively confuse the technologies that categorize web audiences into likely running shoe buyers, in-market auto buyers, or moms interested in cooking and football.

“It’s a way of masking your identity across networks,” said Ms. Law. Ad Age visited the recent Design and Technology Masters grad at Parsons New School in Manhattan, where she sat working on her laptop in a sun-filled yet desolate lab space dedicated to collaboration among design and tech students.”

01 PM | 21 Mar

#Women Fighters In Reasonable Armor [#geekgirl]

“Masha Scream” [via WFiRA]

“Masha Scream” [via WFiRA]

…or “ladies that actually dress for dealing damage“:

Nothin’ wrong with sexy!

Cheesecake has its place.

But I like pictures of women who look like they are legitimately bad-ass. Women that don’t fight in high heels. Women that clearly give a shit about the practicalities of getting in a lethal situation. Women who could most definitely kick my ass.

Women fighters in reasonable armor.”

11 PM | 05 Aug

Second skin doco about virtual worlds

Second Skin, is a documentary about virtual worlds (WoW, Second Life, Everquest 2) and the lives they enhance and destroy.

Second Skin takes an intimate look at three sets of computer gamers whose lives have been transformed by online virtual worlds. An emerging genre of computer software called Massively Multiplayer Online games, or MMOs, allows millions of users to interact simultaneously in virtual spaces. Of the 50 million players worldwide, 50 percent consider themselves addicted. From individuals struggling with addiction to couples who have fallen in love without meeting; from disabled players whose lives have been given new purpose to gold farmers, entrepreneurs and widows, Second Skin opens viewers’ eyes to a phenomenon that may permanently change the way human beings interact.

Second Skin, opens in the US this August.

Info at: http://www.secondskinfilm.com

This August, Second Skin will become the first widely released movie about virtual worlds- a movie for the 50 million gamers who spend most of their time in virtual worlds, and all those curious to understand this phenomenon.