A new, free-to-play online game is causing ripples of outrage across the internets, thanks to its depiction of the homeless.

The French-developed Clodogame (literal translation: Trampgame) tasks players with becoming “king of the streets,” with the eventual goal being to move in to the Palace of Versailles. Players start as a penniless tramp, and must attack other homeless people, pickpocket, and steal from sweet machines, public toilets and laundrettes to reach their goal. Users can choose a pet or learn to play an instrument to maximize their success at begging, all while keeping an eye on their alcohol intake. Yeah, it’s pretty tasteful.

While I’m usually against censorship, I’ve got to say this seems pretty damn crass. I’m all for parody and satire if there’s a genuine, well-considered message behind the mocking, but this seems like controversy for controversy’s sake.

That said, I’ll admit that I’ve yet to try Clodogame out myself, so I’ll reserve my final verdict for now. Maybe I’ve finally become a humorless old grump. Jim “I hate political correctness” Sterling at Destructoid would probably suggest so – he sticks up for the game in this post, remarking:

“The game sounds pretty damn brilliant, and I wish there was an English version. Of course, some people take the Internet too seriously [...]“

Hm. Meanwhile, Red Cross spokesman Jean-François Riffaud has commented:

It’s a disgrace, it’s degrading, it’s humiliating to make the homeless the butt of derision. The image portrayed is exactly the one against which we’ve been trying to fight.

I’m with Jean-François on this one, at least for the time being. If I play Clodogame and find it to be a cutting, multi-faceted piece of social satire, I may change my mind on that. Right now, the game’s exploitation of highly vulnerable people for entertainment’s sake just reminds me of Bumfights. Okay, stepping down from my soapbox now …

[Clodogame, via GamePolitics]

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Back at CES 2009 Sony was bragging that they were working on a 2TB size flash drive but at that point they still hadn’t got all their ducks in row  – hence they have nothing concrete to show off. That could all change soon as the company said today that they have finalized all the specifications surround the 2TB flash drive.

A new page on Sony’s boss-formats.org website has listed all of the details for the Memory Stick XC, which is really exciting especially considering that the form factor for these new flash cards are (on paper) the same as pre-existing memory sticks, which means that these high capacity juggernauts are most likely backwards compatible. The entire cast and crew are back, including Duo, Micro, and the HG variants. Additionally, the XC series also uses the much more efficient exFAT file system, while the PRO series uses FAT12/16/32. The 2TB Memory Stick Duo picture used in this story is a photoshop by yours truly, but this won’t be much different than the real thing. License agreements for the Memory Stick XC are now available to interested hardware manufacturers.

Source: Sony Insider :: Sony Finalizes Backwards Compatible Memory Stick XC With 2TB Maximum Capacity

hat tip to FreshBump

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MySpace and Silverlight

In unveiling its new deal, MySpace showed off a handful of new Silverlight-powered applications already available, including an animated friend list utility that can be added onto any profile.

“Silverlight empowers MySpace developers with more freedom and flexibility to design OpenSocial applications that provide streaming video, graphics and audio to a variety of platforms and devices,” the announcement says.

“Silverlight and the MySpace Open Platform will enable developers to rapidly create and deliver sophisticated MySpace applications with a custom look and feel through the flexible skinning of controls and data.”

Facebook and Flash

Facebook, on the other hand, is working with Adobe to broaden its support for Flash-based applications. While Flash was already available for Facebook developers, the site is now adding “official support” for the full ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform.

“With this client library, developers building rich Flash experiences will be able to easily access the social features of Facebook Platform from external websites using Facebook Connect, from applications on Facebook, or from desktop applications,” the announcement says.

“New ideas may include the next generation of social games, seeing friends sharing and commenting on video or music streamed through Flash, or manipulating photos of yourself and your friends.”

Weighing the Two

Despite some people’s strong feelings for Silverlight, the fact remains that the majority of Web users have no idea what it is — and, when prompted to download it to run any MySpace Silverlight application, may or may not even understand the request. Flash, on the other hand, is close to a standard as there is (even without the iPhone on-board). Most computer users already have it installed — about 99 percent, according to some recent stats published in The New York Times.

Despite Microsoft’s attempt to use last year’s Olympics as a launching ground for Silverlight, the platform is still dwarfed by the ubiquity of Flash. Combine that with the ongoing trend of Facebook gaining ground and MySpace losing market share, and it seems the Facebook-Flash pairing is the clear winner all around.

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The company’s new Flash indexing algorithm will let the engine find any kind of SWF content and grab textual content out of it. The system, Google’s software engineers explain, actually “sees” the files the same way a user would — by automatically clicking through the buttons and entering input. It uses a new Searchable SWF library provided by Adobe.

Interestingly, the library was also given to Yahoo — which, fittingly enough, has yet to finish and launch its own version of the Flash index function. Hey, give ‘em a few weeks. It’s not like Yahoo has anything to prove right now.

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The site has just revealed a new API for Flash, as discovered by ZDNet’s Garett Rogers. It’s something the community’s been requesting for years, but until now, only JavaScript support has been offered.

Google says the new tool will let you “manipulate and add content to maps through a variety of services, enabling you to embed robust, interactive maps applications on your website.”

Full documentation and a tutorial are now available on the Google Code site.

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