Mobile WiFi Hotspots – Karma a New Possibility?

There’s a new mobile hotspot game in town and, on paper at least, looks really useful for mobile implementations where you provide devices out in the world and need access to the internet (like with ARIS).

The Karma rides on Sprint’s 4G LTE network (the old version is WiMAX and so not very helpful most places). Data is $14/GB and never expires. No contract. Connect up to 8 devices. You can pre-order the units for $100 for the next 29 days, at which point the price goes up to $150.

I don’t think I can get anyone to buy one for me, but I might just have to get one anyway. I’d be happy to find something to replace my aging 3G MiFi’s on Virgin Mobile.

Questions

What about you? Have you found devices, networks, and data plans that work for you in your neck of the woods? Is there anything on the horizon that looks interesting? Have you tried using your own phones as personal hotspots to run games for others?

Getting Started with ARIS and Scrum

This is a repost from my Local Games class today. I thought it might be helpful to others too. It’s a short list of timely references to getting started with ARIS and Scrum. Minimal.

The new ARIS is not totally up and running, but we can still do some real damage, like the Death Star in Jedi. We just have to keep straight which versions we are using until it’s officially launched.

Augmenting Reality With Sound

Recently, I decided to document some older, informal work from the past couple of years so that it might live more broadly than in my memories and those of my closest collaborators (as too much of this work does). I sat down to write a brief overview of a game Jim Mathews and I have been playing around with on and off for a while, Soundscapes. I did that, but I also ended up thinking a lot about the topic of audio as an element of AR.

Variation on a Theme: Rupee Collector Assignment

This semester in my Local Games in ABQ class, the first assignment I gave was to play (together) and remix (on their own) Rupee Collector and its first remix It’s Dangerous to go Alone. This was accompanied by a viewing (on their own) Kirby Ferguson’s Everything is a Remix to set the tone.

The design was only on paper, we had not yet looked at any tools. There was a little nod to practicality, but nothing specific. My intent was to get students feel like they were making something on the first day, and to try to avoid the problem of “I’m not creative”.

The students’ designs were pretty fun. A few notes I have from the experience: