a playground for grown-ups

The SPORE Creature Creator is now available for download.

Of course, it's not free, but it's still a pretty good deal for US$9.95.

My son was playing with some monster creator from the Sesame Street website yesterday, but this is far better. I can't wait for the actual game to be released.

Firefox 3 is officially released.

Help set a Guinness World Record by downloading it before June 18, 18:16 UTC and enjoy a better web.

Sounds like a good deal, right? All you have to do to help FF3 set the record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours is download Firefox 3 now – it’s that easy. We're not asking you to swallow a sword or to balance 30 spoons on your face, although that would be kind of awesome.

I figure it was just a matter of time when someone combines gaming with amusement park ride.

Disney becomes the first theme park that implements this concept, and it sounds quite interesting. At the Anaheim theme park in California, Disney used big screen monitors and allow people on the Toy Story-themed ride to shoot targets using a controller and compete with fellow riders for the highest score.

Perhaps this moves gaming one step closer to mainstream entertainment, and perhaps it will help non-gaming parents to realize that gaming is just like any other types of entertainment for children, and it doesn't necessarily rot the brain or turn children into geeks.

Source.

SETH SCHIESEL from the New York Times interviews the venerable Mr. Miyamoto:

IT’S O.K. to liken Shigeru Miyamoto to Walt Disney.

When Disney died in 1966, Mr. Miyamoto was a 14-year-old schoolteacher’s son living near Kyoto, Japan’s ancient capital. An aspiring cartoonist, he adored the classic Disney characters. When he wasn’t drawing, he made his own toys, carving wooden puppets with his grandfathers’ tools or devising a car race from a spare motor, string and tin cans.

Even as he has become the world’s most famous and influential video-game designer — the father of Donkey Kong, Mario, Zelda and, most recently, the Wii — Mr. Miyamoto still approaches his work like a humble craftsman, not as the celebrity he is to gamers around the world.