Friday Link Dump
* There’s a group trying to bring FIREFLY back for a second season. I don’t think this will go anywhere, but you’re welcome to fill out a short survey to give them some demographic data in their quest. Seems harmless.
* The next Dance Dance Revolution game — as well as an interesting turntable DJ-style rhythm game — were previewed at Konami’s Gamer’s Day.
* In 1989, COMPUTE! Magazine predicted the future of 2001 in computing. Some of the stuff is cute and laughable, but a lot of it is pretty near the truth. I liked this bit, which one might suggest predicted TiVo:
“Remote control is a big item,” Saffo says. “We’ll see it on everything that should have it and on a lot that doesn’t need it at all.” By 2001, computers should vaporize annoying VCR controls. “The VCR is much more difficult to use than it would be if a computer were controlling it,” says Lotus’s Robert Simon. “For instance, you could tell it to record all episodes of a particular series, rather than your preprogramming it.” You could also store the shows on optical disk for direct random access, without rewinding.
The rest of it talks a lot about the NeXT computer, object-oriented programming, and ‘optical disc’ storage. Yes, CDs were indeed very useful in 2001.
* What if your computer screen was also a webcam/scanner? That would be slightly cool.