As the pain and loss of James's residential school experiences follow him into adulthood, his life spirals out of control. Haunted by guilt, he is unable to maintain a relationship with Lauren and their son Edwin. Edwin, mired in his own pain, tries to navigate past the desolation of his fatherless childhood. As James tries to heal himself he begins to realize that, somehow, he may save his son's life - as well as his own. When father and son finally meet, can they heal their shattered relationship, and themselves, or will it be too late?
Excerpt:
"This is the premise of Cree writer David Alexander Robertson's latest graphic novel, launched Monday at McNally Robinson. David spoke to SCENE about the challenges of writing a graphic novel and why he chose this medium.
What was your favourite comic book growing up?
I would have to say Spider-Man in the McFarlane era and Elf Quest. My favourite specific book would be The Killing Joke, which is a Bat-Man graphic novel.
What is 7 Generations about?
At its heart, 7 Generations is about a young First Nations man named Edwin and his struggle to find hope and meaning. The series looks at how the history of his ancestors, going back seven generations, has affected him today. It explores how history, our yesterday, can dictate our today and our tomorrow, and how understanding our history but not allowing it to define us can help us on a journey of healing. Edwin's struggle is to understand and accept history's role in his life but to take control of his life at the same time..."
"John from the Free Software Foundation sez,
'From reading the Nintendo 3DS Terms of Service, one could be forgiven for thinking that Nintendo is exiting the video game console business and entering the brick-making business.
The 3DS Terms are a perfect storm of 1) Updates will happen automatically without your specific permission any time the device connects to wifi 2) The device will constantly try to connect to wifi 3) Updates will specifically disable devices found to have modified software or unauthorized peripherals.
On top of that, Nintendo claims a license to photos and other user-generated material on the devices -- and those things are also automatically uploaded, along with user location data gleaned from wifi network proximity.
DRM prevents users from disabling any of these antifeatures, which is why DefectiveByDesign.org has taken an interest, encouraging people to send cardboard bricks to Nintendo. In the wake of all the Sony PS3 news, is this really the direction Nintendo wants to take things?
It gets better: Nintendo claims a perpetual, worldwide license to the photos and videos you take with your camera!
Nintendo 3DS Targeted in Anti-DRM Campaign (Thanks, John!)'
Thanks Boing Boing!
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McDonald's shows off a touch-screen kiosk installed in France in 2009.
(Credit: McDonald's Europe)"Welcome to McDonald's. My name is HAL 9000. May I take your order?"
McDonalds recently went on a hiring binge in the U.S., adding 62,000 employees to its roster. The hiring picture doesn't look quite so rosy for Europe, where the fast food chain is drafting 7,000 touch-screen kiosks to handle cashiering duties.
The move is designed to boost efficiency and make ordering more convenient for customers. In an interview with the Financial Times, McDonald's Europe President Steve Easterbrook notes that the new system will also open up a goldmine of data. McDonald's could potentially track every Big Mac, McNugget, and large shake you order. A calorie account tally at the end of the year could be a real shocker.
The touch screens will only accept debit or credit cards, adding to the slow death knell of cash and coins. This all goes along with an overall revamp of McDonald's restaurants worldwide aimed at projecting a modern image as opposed to the old-fashioned golden arches with a slightly creepy (to my taste anyway) clown guy hanging around the french fries.
This puts McDonald's one step closer to opening up its first Alphaville location. At least our new computer overlords will be nice enough to serve us a Filet-o-Fish. Maybe they'll even throw in an iPad with the Happy Meal one of these days.
Amanda Kooser's post via news.cnet.com
Sandvine’s Spring 2011 Global Internet Phenomena Report Reveals New Internet Trends
Netflix now represents 29.7% of North American Peak Downstream Traffic
Waterloo, ON; May 17, 2011 – Sandvine, (TSX:SVC; AIM:SAND) a leading provider of intelligent broadband network solutions for fixed and mobile operators, today announced the release of their Global Internet Phenomena Report: Spring 2011, including Internet trends from North America, Latin America and Europe, with specific spotlights on events such as Netflix adoption and March Madness® On Demand. Overall insights since the last report in the fall of 2010, reveal a growing appetite for on-demand applications that will continue to drive data consumption and network quality requirements.
Major findings from the report include:
- In North America, Netflix is now 29.7% of peak downstream traffic and has become the largest source of Internet traffic overall. Currently, Real-Time Entertainment applications consume 49.2% of peak aggregate traffic, up from 29.5% in 2009 – a 60% increase [see figure 3]. Sandvine forecasts that the Real-Time Entertainment category will represent 55-60% of peak aggregate traffic by the end of 2011.
- In Latin America, Social Networking (overwhelmingly Facebook) is a bigger source of traffic than YouTube, representing almost 14% of network traffic [see figure 4]. Real-Time Entertainment represents 27.5% of peak aggregate traffic, still the largest contributor of traffic in that region [see figure 5].
- In Europe, Real-Time Entertainment continues a steady climb, rising to 33.2% of peak aggregate traffic, up from 31.9% last fall [see figure 6]. BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing protocol, is the largest single component of both upstream (59.7%) and downstream (21.6%) Internet traffic during peak periods. In the UK, BBC’s iPlayer is 6.6% of peak downstream traffic, reflecting the demand for localized content in many markets. Overall, individual subscribers in Europe consume twice the amount of data as North Americans.
Sandvine’s reports and spotlights are made available through Sandvine’s suite of Business Intelligence products, including Network Analytics and Network Demographics. The reports are an ongoing series of Internet phenomena and traffic analysis studies that have been published since 2002. The information in the Spring 2011 study is based on voluntary and completely anonymous data, aggregated from fixed and mobile service provider networks spanning Europe, Latin America and North America. Sandvine’s global view, which includes over 220 service provider customers spanning more than 85 countries, makes the report the most comprehensive of its kind in the industry.
“The information and trends in Sandvine’s Spring 2011 Global Internet Phenomena Report, emphasize the need for innovative solutions to keep up with rapidly evolving consumer demands for content and connectivity. The dramatic growth of Netflix and its impending global expansion are prime examples of a growing appetite for real-time entertainment,” said Dave Caputo, President and CEO, Sandvine. “It is also important for fixed and mobile broadband providers to have real-time policy control capability, made possible by insightful business intelligence, in order to put sound strategic decisions into action.”
ABOUT NETWORK ANALYTICS AND NETWORK DEMOGRAPHICS
Sandvine’s Network Analytics and Network Demographics business intelligence solutions help get data out of the network and into the boardroom by offering unique insight into broadband network usage and trends. This data, presented in a series of handy, organized dashboards, help ISPs make informed operations, executive and marketing decisions. Sandvine’s network-wide visibility is unparalleled and offers unique insight into Internet activity and trends.
ABOUT SANDVINE
Sandvine’s network policy control solutions focus on protecting and improving the quality of experience on the Internet. Our award-winning network policy control equipment and software helps DSL, FTTx, cable, fixed wireless and mobile operators better understand network traffic, manage network congestion, create new services and revenues, mitigate traffic that is malicious or undesirable to subscribers, deliver QoS-prioritized multimedia services and increase subscriber satisfaction. With over 220 service provider customers in more than 85 countries serving hundreds of millions of broadband and mobile data subscribers, Sandvine is enhancing the Internet experience worldwide. For more information, please visit www.sandvine.com
MEDIA CONTACT
Sacha DeGroot
Sandvine
+1 519 880 2232
sdegroot@sandvine.comINVESTOR RELATIONS CONTACT
Rick Wadsworth
Sandvine
+1 519 880 2400 ext. 3503
rwadsworth@sandvine.comAIM NOMAD
Andrew Chubb/Simon Bridges
Canaccord Adams Limited
+44 0207 050 6500EDITOR’S NOTES:
- Link to Social Media Press Release hosted by Marketwire
- Hi-resolution pictures of the graphs/figures provided can be made available by emailing sdegroot@sandvine.com
- Raw video footage can be made available by emailing sdegroot@sandvine.com
- Direct links to all reports can be made available by emailing sdegroot@sandvine.com
- Follow Sandvine for Upcoming Internet Reports and Trends:
Excerpt:
"The article below is cross-posted from the Tribeca Film Festival's Future of Film Blog.
Transmedia as a buzzword has taken on a life of its own beyond the film world, translating to mobile campaigns, television shows, advertising, and even books. Whether called transmedia, multi-platform, cross platform or just cross media, filmmakers from all genres no longer just make films. Aspiring filmmakers in the social documentary sphere are facing the prospect of a media campaign of overwhelming proportions. But innovative and passionate socially-minded individuals are taking chances and creating blueprints for future filmmakers. Social documentary projects are increasingly more than social and more than documentary.
The transmedia world as demonstrated by pioneer Lance Weiler can be daunting for the grassroots social documentarian. In the ultimate expression of an immersive storytelling experience, Weiler created an ongoing narrative beginning with film, and in its latest iteration, as a real time interactive gaming experience taking place in Park City. Through cell phones, audience members became active members of a Pandemic 1.0 population being tracked online.
Weiler’s genius is a sense of realism and interactivity that is echoed by bigger studio-backed films, such as 2012 and the now infamous website for The Institute for Human Continuity, which calls into question the ethics of realism.
Others are more obviously immersive than real, but with similar effects. Consider the evolution of the NBC series Heroes, which expanded storylines and created new characters exclusively online and with audience preference. The Heroes narrative also draws heavily from the storytelling techniques of comic books, and by design attempts to lure that audience into the television world. The show’s Facebook page also boasts over two million fans...."
Grazie to Ryan Fitzgerald! I'm hoping they archive the talks!
Excerpt from a long detailed analysis -worth the read with useful links:
"...Here, I want to focus on two other things that I think are helpful. First, a list of handy-dandy resources for the do-it-yourself kinda researcher that Jen Laengert from TMKO — a music and entertainment law firm in Toronto — nicely compiled for me and which I have augmented with a few other sources. So, without further adieu, here’s a list of some useful resources for doing research and analysis of the Music and Concert Business in Canada1, although you’ll need plenty of judgement and more than just this useful list to be successful. I wish you well.
The second thing I want to stress is just how damn difficult it is to cobble together meaningful and accurate data that covers a reasonably long period of time, say since 1998 or so. Time is of the essence, because you want to capture durable trends, rather than exceptional years, which by definition are anomolies. That is, they stand out because they are atypical. And by durable trends, I mean nothing less than ten years, and the more the merrier is a great principle to lean on.
The music industry is and has always been notorious for picking and choosing years according to whatever suits their interest. So, for instance, in our own time, the world’s two leading music industry lobby groups — the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) — like to choose 2004.
Click on the two links that I just gave you for the RIAA and IFPI, and you’ll see what I mean. You can also go to your local branch of these international operations, like the Canadian Record Industry Association (CRIA) here in Canada, and see pretty much the same thing.
So why is 2004 so important? Because it was a historical all time high, and the slope down afterwards for ‘recorded music’ sales is tremendously steep by any measure.
And that’s only part of it, too. The other part is figuring out just what you want to measure, and how you’re going to do it. The industry likes to focus on record sales: I think we should cast the net wider...."