firehose

On the heels of today's NSA revelations, Senators Al Franken (D-MN) and Dean Heller (R-NV) have announced a new hearing for their transparency bill, slated for November 18th. The hearing will bring together top administration officials, privacy experts and, most importantly, a representative from Google, which is said to be reeling from news that surveillance agencies collected unencrypted data from its internal network.

The Franken-Heller bill was first introduced this summer as part of Franken's larger push for transparency, but the bill has been revised with new provisions to ensure the proposed reporting requirements cannot be used to justify any new data collection or agency spending. The bill is still less ambitious in curbing surveillance than the recently introduced USA Freedom Act, but proponents say it will help to reestablish trust in the agencies and the implicated companies. "While I personally believe that the practice of bulk data collection should be eliminated, the government can at least take immediate steps to increase transparency in programs that have many Americans suspicious," Senator Franken said in a statement.

In April, China took the drastic measure of shutting down 780 live poultry markets in order to stop the spread of H7N9 bird flu, a sometimes-lethal virus that had been quickly spreading. Reports of infection by the virus all but stopped following the shutdown, and researchers are now reporting that it was in fact the shutdown that caused the change. In a paper published today in The Lancet, researchers led from The University of Hong Kong report that shutting down live poultry markets brought about a "sudden and strong" 97 percent drop in the daily number of H7N9 infections in humans.

Shutting down the poultry markets caused a major economic loss

Though the correlation may seem obvious, the researchers note that prior studies hadn't explicitly confirmed that the shutdown was responsible for stopping the spread of H7N9. "Without this robust evidence, policymakers would struggle to justify further closures of [live poultry markets] because of the millennia-old culture of trading live birds and the potential huge economic loss on the poultry industry in China," Benjamin J Cowling, the paper's lead author, says in a statement. The researchers report that some have pegged the economic loss of closing the markets between April and June at more than 57 billion Yuan, or around $8 billion.

The researchers' analysis is based off of infection reports from four major Chinese cities: Shanghai, Hangzhou, Huzhou, and Nanjing. Though the researchers admit that there may be environmental factors leading to the declining infection rates that they haven't considered, they note that humidity — the only factor that's been proven to interact with transmission of the flu — didn't come into play in this situation. Should H7N9 be detected once again in poultry, the researchers suggest that live markets be quickly shut down. The option may be expensive, but the response is both rapid and effective for preventing infections from the dangerous virus.

Today, Sprint held a series of events to tout the capabilities of its just-announced "Spark" network, which enables cellular data speeds of up to 60Mbps — and by the end of 2015 CEO Dan Hesse says he hopes consumer devices could achieve speeds as high at 150Mbps. If Sprint can pull it off it would be, without question, a different kind of wireless service than what we've seen before. Different enough, in fact, that it's worth asking whether Sprint has plans to alter its famously unlimited data plans to accommodate it.

Hesse tells us that the answer to that question is "no," that Sprint is sticking with its clear and unambiguous unlimited plans. Cable broadband providers charge different rates for different bandwidth offerings, but that's not on the table for Sprint — yet. "Right now the answer is we're not planning to segment based upon speed," says Hesse. That's not to say that Sprint might not increase the price for the unlimited plan or change those plans in the future. Hesse told us that "we may and there are regulatory issues in doing that as well, but it's possible we could."

"It's like telling the airlines you can't sell first class seats."

"Regulatory issues" are apparently a vexing problem for Hesse right now, which makes sense as he's the CEO of a major wireless company with ambitions to launch a service that competes with wireline broadband providers. When asked if Sprint would consider offering data plans that looked more like those available abroad, Hesse said he was interested. Specifically, the topic on the table was "Zero Rating," which is industry parlance for an app or service that doesn't count against a customer's data cap. Could Sprint start making deals with the likes of Netflix, Facebook, or others for Zero Rating service? Here's Hesse:

My belief is yes, that there are a number of business models. Whether it's ... service providers [who pay] for better throughput through your network [or something else]. There's gotta be a business model for it. Things like Zero Rating, which is nothing but a benefit, actually, what's not to like if you have a special relationship with a particular application developer?

Hesse may see it that way, but whether regulators at the FCC would too is an entirely different matter. Wireless carriers have long resisted being made to adhere to net neutrality rules on their networks, and it's obvious that trend will continue even as those networks begin to match the speeds of traditional broadband. Recently, there was a small uproar over Comcast's practices with its unlimited Xbox 360 video service running counter to the principles of net neutrality, the sort of issue that's sure to come up on wireless networks soon. Hesse, as you might expect, isn't a fan of net neutrality at all — at least as it applies to wireless services. He went to far as to put the phrase in scare quotes as he spoke on the subject:

[Wireless spectrum] it is a finite resource ... but again I'm a carrier guy so it's hard for me to even understand, it truly is and I've been looking at "Net Neutrality" for a long time. It's actually a hard concept for me to get my head around. It's like telling the airlines you can't sell first class seats.

Metaphorical inaccuracy aside, it's obvious that Hesse is looking at ways for Sprint to begin acting less like the friendly, unlimited-everything-for-everybody network that it currently tries to be. That could one day apply to customer service plans, but more importantly, it could apply on the backend — with certain apps or service providers getting preferential treatment or access to Sprint's customers.

Of course, Sprint isn't ready to announce any changes and it shouldn't surprise anybody that the company is looking into these business models — or into ensuring the FCC allows them. AT&T recently suggested that application developers could one day start paying for the bandwidth they use to reach customers.

Dell users rose up mightily in June to tell the company that it was... shipping laptops that smelled like cat urine, according to the BBC. Four months later, Dell has finally figured out the the culprit: a palm rest.

The computer in question was the Dell Latitude 6430u, which many users claimed smelled like "cat pee.” Many seemed to think the smell was coming from inside the keyboard, so Dell suggested that those complaining give the keyboard a blast of compressed air. No dice; the smell of cat pee was strong in these laptops.

Dell announced late Tuesday that the palm rest turned out to be the source of the smell, and the company will start offering replacements to customers soon. But Dell did not name what, specifically, caused the smell.

Ladar Levison (left), is the founder of Lavabit. Jon Callas and Mike Janke (right) are the co-founders of Silent Circle.

Cyrus Farivar

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—At Wednesday's Inbox Love conference held at Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus, the founders of Lavabit and Silent Circle announced that they want to change the world of e-mail completely by putting privacy and security at its core.

The two companies collaborated to create the DarkMail Alliance, a soon-to-be-formed non-profit organization that would be in charge of maintaining and organizing the open-source code for its new e-mail protocol. The new protocol will be based on Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, or XMPP, and it's set to be released in mid-2014. The group will ditch the old protocol, SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), which is used for almost every bit of e-mail on the Internet.

“This is just another transport—what we’re getting rid of is SMTP,” said Jon Callas, the CTO at Silent Circle. “We like to laugh at it, but there are reasons why it was a good system. We’re replacing the transport with a new transport. E-mail was designed 40 years ago when everybody on the Internet knew each other and were friends.”

Inside Joke

Spell Dice

Heat

When I showed Intrigue off at Origins, a major publisher never quite got the game, and so I recreated it as The Art of War to simplify it a bit, and to make the schemes reinforce the subtle strategies of the game rather than add variance/complexity/interest. While I don’t enjoy that version as much, I do expect it’s a better game in the sense that it will appeal to more people. I also figured out how to expand the game from 3-4 to 3-5, which is a nice get.

Unfortunately, the feedback I gleaned from GenCon was that the game has no marketable hook. It plays differently from everything else out there, but how do you convince players who know nothing about the game that from the packaging? As such, this game is going into my pocket until a publisher who trusts me is looking for a card game.

Assault on Khyber Station is currently under consideration by a small publisher, but I recently tried reinventing it to see what I could improve. I learned why certain choices have to be the way they are, but I also found a few new options that make for a more thematic game. There’s more competition for aliens-on-a-space-station games than you might expect right now, but I think Khyber Station is good enough and different enough to stand out on its own. I’m building a big Lego version of Khyber Station. It should be functional in two weeks.

Apart from figuring out that The Last Planet could be a game of coral reefs competing for the bottom of the ocean over thousands of years instead of a tactical StarCraft tile game, I’ve made no progress. I only have so much time to devote to game design and I’ve prioritized projects that are further along and are easier to iterate on. I will get there, though. The concept is too good not to.The games I’ve been meaning to get to for over a year now, Black Hills & Hollywood Disaster, still haven’t been prototyped. On the plus side, I’ve been collaborating with Cardboard Edison on Rickety Bridge & Dino Alley. Whether either of those games go anywhere or not, the shared-design experience has been rewarding. I also have two games, Possibilities & Freudian Knot in Jason Tagmire’s recently successful Storyteller Cards manual.

Oh, and I almost forgot my untitled DBRPG. I haven’t tested it yet, but I’m signed up for two sessions at Metatopia next weekend, so hopefully I’ll see if it has potential or not then. Overall, I didn’t have as much success with publishers as I imagined I finally would, and I didn’t complete all the games I would’ve liked to, but 2013 was still a year of progress, learning and making connections, so I’ll take it.

Christopher Chung

The Bad: I talked about Bucket List as my newest design for 2013, and I was very excited to work on it since it used a theme that could invoke player emotions by wanting to accomplish the various tasks on the cards throughout the game. Although I did like the theme and the mechanic of drawing cubes from a bag, the game did not work well during playtests and I will most likely incorporate the mechanic in a future game.

The Good: I worked on several titles that I will be pushing hard in early 2014.

Polar Profits is a 2-5 player game where each player is a business tycoon trying to make money in the unlikeliest of places: The North and South Poles. Invest in companies run by animals and speculate on commodities like popsicles and ice cream. I will be looking for a publisher during the spring after more playtesting.

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing is a 2 player game where each player is a sheep farmer trying to herd sheep while avoiding a hungry wolf. This game will be a chance for me to try out self-publishing for friends and family.

Blossom

Blossom is a 2-4 player game, where each player is a gardener attempting to plant flower beds in order to pick flowers for bouquets in an effort to win a flower competition. (picture included) This game is the most polished and enjoyed by my playtesters, so I am currently approaching publishers with this game.

Chris & Suzanne Zinsli – Cardboard Edison (@CardboardEdison)

2013 has been a big year for Cardboard Edison. In January, we took our real-time card game Tessen to Unpub 3, where it was played by dozens of other designers and players–and a publisher. That publisher was A.J. Porfirio from Van Ryder Games, and he liked Tessen so much that a few days later he made us an offer to print the game!

We spent the spring and summer developing Tessen with A.J. Working with him is a real pleasure, and we’re a bit worried that he’s given us unrealistic expectations for future publishers! At the end of the summer, Tessen completed a successful Kickstarter campaign. If all goes according to plan, the game should be in stores in just a few months.

Since the Tessen Kickstarter ended, we’ve focused heavily on a new design called Cottage Industry. The game is about fairytale contractors who build up a magical kingdom while working within the kingdom’s strict regulations. It uses a few interesting mechanisms, like a storybook that changes the course of the game, and a version of worker placement that we’re calling “worker displacement.”

We’re bringing Cottage Industry to Metatopia in a few days, so we’ve spent nearly all of our spare time over the past month playtesting and tweaking. It’s a much bigger design than anything we’ve attempted so far, and we’re extremely pleased with how it’s developing.

We’ve put Skewphemisms on the back burner for the time being, until we’re able to make some contacts at mass-market publishers. This year we’ve also met so many great people, and we’ve been honored to play a lot of our fellow designers’ games. We’re excited to see what 2014 brings for Cardboard Edison and the entire gaming industry.

Nigel Pyne // Maverick Muse

At the beginning of the year I had one game I was intent on bringing to market – Of Shot & Blade. Of Shot & Blade is an adventure board game where two teams go head-to-head in a game full of action, magic and adventure. That’s the intention anyway.

But I’m jumping ahead of myself. As way of introduction, I’m Nigel Pyne, co-designer of War for Edath that was released in 2008, and I had been working on Of Shot & Blade for over a year with my brother – Lloyd ‘Ash’ Pyne – wearing the hat of Game Editor. Ash and I also created a different fantasy setting for the game – one that you can get to know as you play. And with him being our resident artist, and my wife, Debs, being an excellent Creative Director, we make up the Maverick Muse design studio (plus Mr Jones, the Schnauzer and Lieutenant Ripley, the Welsh Terrier).

Anyway, we began the year with the intention of conducting some final beta testing and then launching Of Shot & Blade on Kickstarter. And all was going to plan when, mid-year, the solution to a game design challenge I had set myself came into actuality. The challenge was to see if I could create a card game that could be played out of the hand with no surface required – think Top Trumps – but would have enough game and challenge to appeal to youngling and olderling gamers alike. I developed my design into a full-fledged game – Oddball Aeronauts.

In Oddball Aeronauts you go head-to-head in a game of high-jinks, airship dogfights in an oddball fantasy world. The oddball fantasy setting comes from the slightly off-beat mind of Ash who has also brought the world to life with his art. This game – being composed solely of cards – is a more appropriate game as our first Kickstarter launch and so we shifted focus to getting Oddball Aeronauts – and us – ready for Kickstarter.

Oddball Aeronauts is in the final beta testing stages (a page exists for it on BGG – the rules are there) and a free P&P is available for the curious, adventurous, downright nosey or just anyone really. Email if you’re interested – designers@themaverickmuse.com.

Meanwhile, in the mysterious mind of me, several other game designs have begun to form. Whereas at the beginning of the year I had but one design I was pursuing, as of now I have eleven (excluding Of Shot & Blade and Oddball Aeronauts) and it would appear that as a game design studio we are bringing our vision into fruition. We love creating original worlds and we love games with adventure so we’re bringing the two together.

I have developed another two ‘out-of-the-hand’ card games. Once Oddball Aeronauts has taken off (fingers crossed) we will see a line of such games coming into being. A common design element I seem to be fond of for our ‘bigger’ games is team-based gaming – two teams of one to three players going head-to-head. Curious! But it seems to be an under-explored area of board games so maybe I can carve out a niche here? Or does anyone have any idea why this type of game isn’t developed much?

In summary, 2013 has been a year of planning, progression, panoply – no, not related to Monopoly – and play testing. As for 2014? Well, I hope to contribute to Grant’s 2014 preview if he’ll have me back.

David Chott

Lagoon continues to be the only game I’m actively developing, as I prepare it for a Kickstarter launch in early 2014. It will be published by my own Three Hares Games. Here’s a current description of the game:

“Players explore the fantasy world of Lagoon with their druids by drawing and placing hex tiles that represent enchanted lands. Each site is inhabited by one of three ancient spirits that confer a unique magic power to druids in the site. Players shape the ever-changing selection of magic in the world by choosing which new sites to add, and which sites to remove by magically unraveling them. But every move alters the balance of power between the spirits, in their struggle for control of Lagoon’s destiny. In the end, one spirit will achieve primacy in the world, and the victor will be the player most responsible for bending destiny in favor of that spirit!”

I’ve run about 70 play tests of Lagoon to date, and the game system has not changed since intensive testing at GenCon in August. The core is solid. But there’s been a huge amount of experimentation with the magic abilities each site offers druids. Most of my efforts have focused on simplifying the action set. My goal is to make the game as easy to learn and play as possible, while preserving the most interesting choices the game presents players. But I’ve learned that determining a game’s target audience is equally important in this process so you don’t wander too far away from it.

I’ve learned a lesson about prototype iteration as well. Lagoon uses 24 double-sided hexagon tiles, so making prototypes is laborious. This led me to iterate less frequently than I needed to, until I realized paper-only prototypes worked almost as well as pasting the sites on rigid tiles every time. It really taught me the importance of removing barriers to rapid prototype iteration, since that’s critical to getting new changes on the table and testing them.

Two developments have been the most exciting for me. The first is that a good number of players really like Lagoon! It ranked number 3 on one reviewer’s top 10 games of GenCon, and a remote play tester I gained at GenCon recently told me it’s one of his favorite games. Second, I recently quit my job and switched to part-time consulting work so I can focus most of my time and energy on developing Lagoon and building Three Hares Games.

Michael Iachini

Where things stood at the beginning of the year: Chaos & Alchemy had been signed for publication by Game Salute, and they were starting to prep for a Kickstarter campaign.

I had recently abandoned my National Game Design Month project, Gods & Champions, since it ended up exploring a concept that wasn’t as much fun as I had hoped.

I had an idea for a “worker movement” game that I began designing on January 1. I was hoping that this would turn into something fun, but I hadn’t actually done any design yet.

Looking back on the year so far: While the Chaos & Alchemy Kickstarter campaign from Game Salute ended up launching several months later than I was expected, it was a huge hit! The game raised over $40,000 with over 1,000 backers. The art is looking fantastic, and I’m excited to see the finished products in game stores and gamers’ hands next year.

The worker movement game turned into Alchemy Bazaar. The design time on this one has been much longer than the ultra-quick process I went through for Chaos & Alchemy in 2012, but I think it’s going to be worth it. I pitched the game to several publishers at GenCon 2013, and I have three publishers who are interested (with a pretty good idea of which one is most likely to pick it up).

I also started a new design in March 2013 for a quick, light, cooperative game themed around mountain climbing, which I’m calling Everest. I pitched this to game publishers at GenCon as well, and I have one publisher who is deep into the evaluation process (they’ve paid to have some nice prototypes created via The Game Crafter, and those are currently with play testers), so there’s a real possibility I’ll end up with another publication soon!

Beyond that, I’ve done some design work on a game involving robots battling in an area (cleverly titled Robo Battle for now) and super-early design work on a game about building ridiculous mansions. I have a notion in my head for an adorable game for kids, but that one is just in the “in my head” stages for now. So, 2013 has been fantastic for me and for Clay Crucible Games!

Grant Rodiek // Hyperbole Games

2013 was a very challenging year for me, but it was the year where I figured out what I want to be when I grow up, so to speak. I believe the work I put into 2013 and the lessons learned will be things from which I draw for years to come.

At the start of 2013 I had high hopes for York, which was with a publisher. It was rejected, then again, and is now with its third and final publisher. I had a fantastic pitch at GenCon, so even if it fails, that moment was thrilling.

If this publisher says no, I will re-factor the game for a POD release. I spent money on the art, which I love, and have some ideas for how to make it affordable and appealing for those interested. A hint, if you’re curious, is that it’ll be a 2 player game.

I learned so much in the way of graphic design building York. My prototypes generally look better, faster, and are easier to learn as a result of better graphics.

I also had some delightful failures. I still couldn’t figure out Poor Abby, Helix was instantly amazing then instantly the worst thing ever, Extra Extra was never built, Drafty Dungeon was neat, but derivative, and so forth. But, the lesson was to constantly be creating. In 2013 I was always trying new things and experimenting and that has led to delightful fruit. I also learned to work on multiple projects at once, which means my brain is always firing in different ways.

I continued to network and develop relationships that I hope pay off, both in the way of friendship, and in potential game partnerships as I improve my craft and design better games. One really important realization I had around GenCon was that I very honestly realized who I want to work with, and who I don’t.

My greatest successes of 2013 have been Mars Rising (previously Blockade) and Flipped.

Mars began as a simple tactics game (somewhat as a response to the complexity of York), and has blossomed into this accessible yet complex, highly thematic, story driven tactical experience. I’ve gone through so many iterations and I really love where it’s at. I don’t intend to change the mechanics much, but instead, focus on scenario development. I have the first 3 written and in testing and will create as many as I need to tell the first campaign (of hopefully many). A publisher approached me over the summer, mostly liked the version I sent, and is waiting on my next iteration. I hope I’m up to the task.

Finally, there’s Flipped. I feel like this is my capstone project that combines so many things that I’ve learned in the way of tuning, design, balancing, graphics, and more. This is my first euro and it’s come together so quickly as I’ve focused on what makes it unique and what the game needs. I’m crunching to get this game to a publisher. We’ll see where it goes.

I hope you enjoyed this community post! I want to thank all of the designers who emailed me to participate. Share your thoughts on what excites you, or what you found interesting above, down in the comments. 

Before he became Co-Publisher of DC Comics — before WildStorm,  Batman: Hush, Image Comics, and an immensely successful run on the X-Men — Jim Lee was a kid from St. Louis who wanted to draw comics. He worked hard to break into the industry and, all things considered, you could say his efforts worked out okay for him. But like nearly any other aspiring young artist, Lee had his share of hurdles to climb, as evidenced by the old rejection letters from Marvel and DC that he recently posted on Instagram.

The postings were noticed by Marvel Comics: The Untold Story author Sean Howe, who published the ones from Marvel on his Tumblr. Lee, an avid comic reader throughout his childhood, went to college with designs on becoming a doctor, until he took an art class his senior year and decided he wanted to be a comic artist. That led to him sending in submissions to both DC and Marvel, which in turn led to more than one letter of rejection, and not all of them were kind:

Here’s a more positive one, from revered DC Comics artist and editor Dick Giordano:

And there are more where that came from. So if you’re an aspiring artist, and you’ve received a few of these, as hard as it may be to do so, we suggest you not get discouraged. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be running DC someday.

A Google Glass Explorer named Cecilia Abadie ran afoul of the California Highway Patrol last night, and came away with a ticket for distracted driving. The culprit? Her Google Glass, which the officer saw as equivalent to driving with a TV screen blocking her view. The consequences for Abadie are likely to be minor, but the incident raises lingering questions about the legal status of Glass on the road, at a time when the device is moving ever closer to mainstream use.

The main item on the ticket is for speeding, so it seems likely Abadie wasn't pulled over specifically for wearing Glass, but it's a sign of how far many institutions still have to go before they're willing to accept everyday use. While proponents claim the device doesn't distract drivers, both Delaware and West Virginia have passed laws against using Glass and other wearables on the road. In Abidie's case, the relevant law may have been a state ordinance against viewing monitors installed in a driver's field of vision, although absent any court ruling, it's still unclear whether the law applies to Google Glass.

For some time Facebook has studied your Likes, comments, and clicks to help create better ads and new products, but soon, the company might also track the location of your cursor on screen. Facebook analytics chief Ken Rudin told The Wall Street Journal about several new measures the company is testing meant to help improve its user-tracking, like seeing how long you hover your cursor over an ad (and if you click it), and evaluating if certain elements on screen are within view or are off the page. New data gathered using these methods could help Facebook create more engaging News Feed layouts and ads.

How long did you hover your cursor over that photo before liking it?

The Journal notes that this kind of tracking is hardly uncommon, but until now, Facebook hadn't gone this deep in its behavioral data measurement. Sites like Shutterstock, for example, track how long users hover their cursors over an image before deciding to buy it. Facebook is famous for its liberal use of A/B testing to try out new products on consumers, but it's using the same method to judge the efficacy of its new testing methods. "Facebook should know within months whether it makes sense to incorporate the new data collection into the business," reports the Journal.

Assuming Facebook's tests go well, it shouldn't be long before our every flinch is tracked on the site. So what might come next? Our eyeballs.