From Ian Bogost's site, Watercooler Games: http://www.watercoolergames.org/archives/000794.shtml

The New York Times Publishes Our Newsgames
May 24, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

Today, one of my videogames is on the front page of the Gray Lady.

Almost four years ago, Gonzalo suggested "newsgames" as a genre that intersects videogames and political cartoons. Last year, my studio Persuasive Games took our own take on this genre with The Arcade Wire series (Airport Security, Oil God, Bacteria Salad, Xtreme Xmas Shopping), published by AddictingGames.com/Shockwave.com. Those games enjoyed considerable success, tallying at least 10 million plays or so. But Shockwave is still a gaming site, reaching gamers, not necessarily reaching ordinary citizens more broadly. And that's what news and editorial should do.

Today, I'm excited to announce that Persuasive Games has a new publishing relationship with The New York Times, in which they will be publishing newsgames we create on their op-ed page, as editorial content, not just as games. This is unprecedented, and at the risk of tooting my own horn, I think it represents another important shift in videogames as a medium. This is news/editorial in videogame form, rather than videogames trying to make news fun. The fact that the Times is often considered the national newspaper of record makes this moment even more notable, and gratifying.

The first game is Food Import Folly. The game is about the experience of extremely limited FDA inspection on food imports, and just what that scarcity of resources actually feels like. To play, you have to be a paid TimesSelect subscriber (NY Times puts all their editorial content behind the TimesSelect subscription wall). There's more info and screenshots on the Persuasive Games website.

Like most of our newsgames, timeliness was an important consideration. Food Import Folly was created in a week's time. Congrats to my team at Persuasive Games for their hard work. And look for more of our newsgames in the newspaper, in the near future.

Ninth Crime Mapping Research Conference

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/maps/pittsburgh2007/index.html 

About the conference

The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial data analysis techniques have become prominent tools for analyzing criminal behavior and the impacts of the criminal justice system on society. Classical and spatial statistics have been merged to form more comprehensive approaches in understanding social problems from research and practical standpoints. These methods allow for the measurement of proximity effects on places by neighboring areas that lead to a multi-dimensional and less static understanding of factors that contribute to or repel crime across space.

The Ninth Crime Mapping Research Conference will focus on the use and development of methodologies for practitioners and researchers. The MAPS Program is anticipating the selection of key accepted presentations for further development of an electronic monograph on GIS, Spatial Data Analysis and the Study of Crime in the following year. Its purpose will be to demonstrate the fusing of classical and spatial analysis techniques to enhance policy decisions. Methods should not be limited to the use of classical and spatial statistics but also demonstrate the unique capabilities of GIS in preparing, categorizing and visualization of data for analysis.

The Crime Mapping Research Conference is about more than mapping crime locations. Participants will discuss a range of issues including policy decisions, research methods to identify and dispel hot spots, and other applied practice solutions. The conference is about the study of society and elements of mapping technology that contribute to both crime and justice.

Proceedings

Conference presentations and proceedings now available.

• Innovations in Contextual Data for Crime Mapping - Opening keynote by Dr. Andrew Reamer (Brookings Institution)
• Presentations

Agenda

The conference will include workshop and panel sessions, as well as some plenary sessions. One plenary session will be about the "Coming Wave of GPS". The conference also includes a Map competition, Pre-conference workshops, and provides an excellent opportunity for researchers and practitioners to network with each other.

• List of panel presentations
• List of workshops

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Monday, June 18. 2007

The Redistricting Game

University of Southern California students developed the online game for the Annenburg Center for Communications to teach about the challenges (and partisanness) of redistricting. Along the way players learn that to keep their candidates elected they may need to examine ethical issues. The game is Flash-based.

From the [original News 10] site: The Redistricting Game is designed to educate, engage, and empower citizens around the issue of political redistricting. Currently, the political system in most states allows the state legislators themselves to draw the lines. This system is subject to a wide range of abuses and manipulations that encourage incumbents to draw districts which protect their seats rather than risk an open contest.

From O'Reilly Radar:

Posted: 12 Jun 2007 11:46 AM CDT

By Brady Forrest

The 2007 ACM International Symposium on Advances in GIS will be in Seattle from November 7th to the 9th. As they describe themselves:

The ACM International Symposium on Advances in Geographic Information Systems in 2007 (ACM GIS 2007) is the fifteenth event of a series of symposia and workshops that began in 1993 with the aim of bringing together researchers, developers, users, and practitioners carrying out research and development in novel systems based on geo-spatial data and knowledge, and fostering interdisciplinary ...   more »