NewsWare was launched yesterday on msnbc.com. It’s a set of apps, games, and widgets to interact with the news. The three main points of interest are the Spectra (pictured above) and two games that resemble a couple of popular arcade games infused with news.
Exploring the News
Spectra is like a fancy feed aggregator. You can choose feeds from the msnbc site and sort of a rotating whirlwind of news is formed. Once the tornado-type thing gets going, you can browse with a scrollbar underneath. That’s the first “view.” The second view, which is pretty fun, lets your interact with your webcam.
In this view, the news that shows up depends on what color is in front of the webcam. That blurry blob in the background is me after holding a red card to the camera.
It would be nice though to be able to directly interact with each individual news item. If I see an interesting headline, I want to find out more.
News in Games
There are also a couple of games with NewsWare – NewsBlaster and NewsBreaker. Most will probably recognize the games as a couple of classic arcade games. Can someone please remind me what the names of the originals are? I can’t remember for the life of me.
Here’s NewsBlaster:
and here’s NewsBreaker:
I could just look at my iPod to find the name of NewsBraker, but it’s all the way upstairs. Too far. Both games are the same idea. As you knock things down, stories appear. Fun stuff.
Arkanoid is the name of the game.
thank you :)
I’m at the OFFF Festival, and just saw Remon Tijssen of Fluid give a talk which included his work in this project. I found it interesting that the identity treatment for Spectera was developed after the animation/design.