Reporting from the tenth annual HI-AI (pronounced ‘hi-eye’) games, I’m Roger Tannarick in Las Vegas. The Rubik’s competition in the 4 and 5 row divisions are heating up as well as the Arimaa
games. An AI named “Gravitas” is favored this year, the first AI ever favored. Gravitas lost earlier in the year to the HI champ, David Kolwicky decisively. Most folks except the two of them to meet in the final.
The NLC: No Link Content. Organization formed as a backlash against the shrinking number of actual content providers and the mushrooming number of sites that simply link to content and offer commentary. Joss Whedon is actually involved with this group.
Wikipedia and Wikipedia2 are constantly involved in political discussions. Wik2 was formed under the idea of an editorial board and writing standards. There are endless fights about control of information in the discussion forums of each.
Broadband has expanded out into the 20MB upstreams/10MB downstream speeds available as wireless almost everywhere. Purists search for a wired connection whereever they can. These connections are called ‘cabled’ connections. Fine hotels offer free wireless or cheap ‘cabled’ connections for privacy.
Phone companies offer cellular and home services in addition to internet. Phone companies are still trying to figure out a way to generate TV like content and make a profit. The first attempt at digital content by a phone company was a game show created by AT&T. Two players competed for cash and prizes by solving Sudoku puzzles in turn. The idea may have taken off more had an executive called it by its proper name, “Sudoku Solvers” instead of “Sudoku Samurai”. The idea that advertisers could offer prizes is being tried by Sprint, WalTel and others. (The home game plays a lot like Battleship™.) The first round had traditional 5 by 5 board. The second round had irregular shaped regions. The final round was a contest for each person to solve their own 3 by 3 board by taking turns. Each player could not see the others Sudoku. The audience at home, however, saw both boards on the screen at the same time.
The United States has begun the descent into second class citizens of the world. The EU has more political capital worldwide and the US has begun to stop offering troops worldwide. Gas is still about 2.85 a gallon – everyone uses hybird cars or retrofits their cars to be hybirds. Nascar has a Hybird division that races on Thursdays – detractors call it the “Golf Cart” series.
Large US Cities have begun to discuss offering fuel cell depots. Many large cities have specialty vehicles that run on fuel cells. The fuel is generated from converted sewage treatment facilities. It is advertised as greener, but its effects are disputable.