3pointD.com

Well, that’s what I’m calling it. we-make-money-not-art is calling it a video game you can play on a sculpture. It’s basically a platformer, played using “standard game controllers,” but with a “screen” that consists of a three-dimensional reification of a Mario-type level. I’m unclear how the images are getting onto the “screen” (a projection?) — and on whether to call it a screen at all. In any case, 3D games ftw! With a video on YouTube. The game, called xBlocks, was developed for the Play Experiences for the Next Generation segment of the Mattel Design Challenge 2005.

Om Malik and Niall Kennedy’s latest podsession deals with geolocative services provided via free WiFi like the stuff Google wants to do, starting in San Francisco. Malik has concerns over privacy — free WiFi may mean that not only can companies and government entitites know who you are, they can know where you are as well, due to the GPS services that are increasingly layered atop wireless broadband as well as cellular phone networks. Geolocation over WiFi should definitely add capabilities of various sorts, but what are we giving up in terms of privacy, security and the costs (in terms of targeted advertising getting pushed at the user, among other things) of access? Grab the podcast here.

Emergent Chaos flags the live launch of the Cabspotting project, which tracks GPS information for Yellow Cabs traveling around San Francisco and uses them to create maps and other geo-centric Web experiences. Nice example of how real-world information can be made to collide (sorry) with Internet-based technologies so as to create a new layer of information. This in and of itself isn’t so remarkable, but what inevitably happens is that this kind of geographical information gets combined with the collaborative forces of the Web 2.0 environment into something that will enhance what we’re able to do both on- and offline. That’s 3pointD at work.

The International Herald Tribune reports that Adidas is planning to launch a free massively multiplayer online soccer game as a promotion to coincide with the World Cup, which kicks off in June. The article makes it sound like the game will be of limited duration, though: “Billed as the first foray into so-called massive multiplayer games by a company outside the video game industry, The Ultimate Team will be a keystone in the Adidas World Cup promotions strategy when it is introduced in May for the duration of the tournament.” It would be great if Adidas could find a way to keep it going, as MMO sports games have great promise, if you ask me. Getting involved in an MMO is much like getting involved in a real-world amateur sports league; you’re fiercely committed and end up building solid, significant relationships with the other people involved, but in the end it’s a pursuit that doesn’t have much of an impact on anything outside it, just a way to take a break from the rest of one’s life. Here’s another, which does look like it’ll survive: Ultimate Baseball.