NDM

YouTube reveals $1bn music payouts, but some labels still unhappy

A recent piece of research by VideoInk and video analytics firm Tubular Labs claimed that music videos account for 38.4% of all views on YouTube, reinforcing the Google subsidiary’s position as the world’s biggest streaming music service.

“We’ve paid out to the music industry over the last several years over a billion dollars,” said vice president of YouTube content Tom Pickett during a panel session at the Midem music industry show in Cannes this week, during which he also stressed that “we are all-in on music”.

Not everyone is convinced. A key theme of this year’s Midem has been continued resentment towards YouTube and its parent company from musicians, independent labels and industry bodies alike. Pickett was heckled during his panel session, and the conference also saw regular anti-Google outbursts from speakers.

NDM

Video games, Down's syndrome and my brother – a personal story

In 2005, when my brother Euan was still a schoolboy, we used to play a lot of Tekken 5 together. If you’re new to this famed video game series, it’s a one-on-one martial arts simulation - a ferocious yet endearingly flamboyant experience in which kangaroos trade blows with Bruce Lee clones, and winged demons grapple with Mexican wrestlers. And I’m fairly sure Euan is the most savage, unprincipled Tekken 5 player ever to lay his traitorous fingers upon a PlayStation 2 controller. Some combatants prefer to open a bout with a stunning punch to the lower body, but Euan was rarely that noble. “Wait a minute, I want to show you something,” he'd declare, scuttling out of reach. I'd dutifully wander over to his side of the arena, all patronising solicitude, and he'd kick me in the face.

Euan is a dirty fighter. But he's also one of the most fearlessly imaginative people you'll meet. And in its own small way, our shared gaming hobby is proof of this.

NDM

How online gamers are solving science's biggest problems

For all their virtual accomplishments, gamers aren't feted for their real-world usefulness. But that perception might be about to change, thanks to a new wave of games that let players with little or no scientific knowledge tackle some of science's biggest problems. And gamers are already proving their worth.

In 2011, people playing Foldit, an online puzzle game about protein folding, resolved the structure of an enzyme that causes an Aids-like disease in monkeys. Researchers had been working on the problem for 13 years. The gamers solved it in three weeks.

A year later, people playing an astronomy game called Planet Huntersfound a curious planet with four stars in its system, and to date, they've discovered 40 planets that could potentially support life, all of which had been previously missed by professional astronomers.

This will give all gamers a upper hand with problem solving, this could attract more gamers to solve unthinkable scientific problems, this story will encourage the gamers to play more this could be a problem. This story was directed at young adults and teens. I believe that they will be pleased to hear this story because it will encourage them to want to play more.

NDM

Facebook: reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated

A striking study by researchers at Princeton University this week made headlines for its claim that Facebook would lose 80% of its users by 2017. Now, in an effort to point out flaws in the study, a Facebook analyst has applied similar methodology to predict the impending doom of Princeton University.

In a paper published earlier this week, John Cannarella and Joshua Spechler, from Princeton's mechanical and aerospace engineering department, compared Facebook’s spread to that of an infectious disease. After noting a fall in the number of times "Facebook" was typed into Google as a search term, they concluded that the population was gradually becoming immune to the attractions of the social network.

The research was widely picked up – including by the Guardian – and quickly went viral. Since then, commentators have lined up to debunk it, and Facebook itself stepped on on Thursday. Using Facebook Likes to illustrate the popularity of America's top universities.

Unfortunately I believe Facebook is going to die out soon because of all the new social networking sights, there are more things to do on other social networking sights. However there are still people that use this web sight but not as much as they used to in the past. This is a problem for the people own Facebook unfortunattly this will effect them financially   

12 years of slavery Official Trailer !

12 Years a Slave is a 2013 American-British epic historical drama film and an adaptation of the 1853 memoir of the same name by Solomon Northup, a New York State-born free negro who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. in 1841 and sold into slavery. He worked on plantations in the state of Louisiana for twelve years before his release. The first scholarly edition of Northup's memoir, co-edited in 1968 by Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon, carefully retraced and validated the account and concluded it to be accurate. In the pre-civil war based in the United states, a free black man named Solomon Northup from up-state New York is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty at the hands of a vindictive slave owner, as well as unexspected kindness, Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity.

The use of Alverado's theory with the representations of black males makes an excellent  links with this film. The film 12 Years A Slave links with the pittied section of Alverado's theory as you can see that the film was based of slavery making the audience feel sympathy for the black characters.

Another section of representations in Alverado's theory is exotic an example of a exotic black person is the singer/song writer Beyonce, as you can see in the music video she presents herself as a seductive female with the use of her body movements and body langue. Ibelieve this is a great link to Alverado's theory of exotic. 

The film 'Get Rich or die trying' is a good example of a dangerous representation, as you can see in the film it contains features such as guns, knives, drugs and violence. This film shows the ways of receiving or making money illegally, also it has many gory scenes of black males dying within the film. This film has a gangster image or gang-bangers and fights, I believe it grasps the representation of Dangerous excellently.

I chose Kevin Heart to link with the humerus section of representations in Alverado's theory, as you can see Kevin Heart shows he is a very talented and funny comedian, he presents himself as sarcastic and also self concious and changes it into a way of humour, he is very succesful at what he does and enjoys making jokes about his family. This shows he doesn't really care what people think about him.   









                                      

NDM

Tetris is back - for the PS4 and Xbox One

During the summer of 1992, between my first and second years at university, I was working at a video game studio in Leamington Spa. We were supposed to be coding a game called Tank Commander for the PC, a long forgotten battle simulation – but one day someone brought in a Game Link cable, which allowed the connection of two Nintendo Game Boy consoles together. Of course, we immediately loaded up the Tetris competitive mode, in which any lines you cleared on your own screen would be cruelly transferred on to the bottom of your opponent's stack. Work ground to a halt and didn't really start up again for several days.

Most gamers have Tetris addiction stories. Since Russian programmer Alexey Pajitnov first developed the falling shape puzzler while working at the Moscow Academy of Sciences, it has sold hundreds of millions of copies on more than 50 different hardware platforms. Scientists and designers have pondered over its incredible appeal, the extraordinary compulsion people have to fit variously shaped tetriminos into a bucket. The beauty of Tetris is its simplicity – you need to understand no archaic conventions or rules of gaming. It is also essentially about something that we all find intrinsically satisfying: tidying up. Tetris is about imposing order, even if the task is Sisyphean, because the shapes don't stop falling until your stack reaches the top of the screen. And then it's all over.

NDM

Motorola Moto X review: less 'hello Moto', more hello Google

The Motorola Moto X is the first flagship smartphone from the inventor of the mobile since it was acquired by Google, and as such is a Google phone through and through.

Motorola hopes that the Moto X, together with the excellent Moto G budget smartphone launched in November 2013, will be enough to turn the company's fortunes around from a sustained loss over the past six quarters since it was acquired in May 2012.

The Moto X was originally launched solely in the US in August 2013, and has taken almost six months to reach the UK. It was originally touted as the "self-driving" smartphone, due to its ability to respond to the keywords "OK Google Now" triggering searches, controlling music and making calls even while the screen is off.

Motorola says it spent several months fine-tuning the Moto X's speech recognition to handle the varied accents around the UK - an important point if it is to function, as Andrew Morley, director of Motorola UK stressed, so you "really can use it without your hands, through the natural communications medium of voice."