Google’s interactive Doodle today celebrates the life and accomplishments of video game pioneer Gerald “Jerry” Lawson on what would have been his 82nd birthday. The Doodle lets you play five retro pixel-art platformers in your browser — with two even letting you play as Lawson. The Doodles’ creators want to inspire young people to follow in his footsteps, and it includes a built-in level editor and creator to nudge them on that path.Lawson was known as the “father of the video game cartridge,” which he developed as Director of Engineering and Marketing at Fairchild Semiconductor. In 1976, the company released the Fairchild Channel F home console, with Lawson serving as lead developer. The Channel F (the “F” stood for “fun”) was the first system with interchangeable game cartridges, a novel concept in an era when games were permanently coded into hardware. Interchangeable ROM-based cartridges were a massive breakthrough that let users build entire libraries rather than playing one game ad nauseam.GoogleToday’s Doodle includes games from guest artists and game designers Davionne Gooden, Lauren Brown and Momo Pixel. “The concept starts with the player as a little Jerry Lawson,” explained Brown. “This takes us through anecdotes about Jerry’s life, parts of his journey that he went about to create the cartridge. Once you complete the level, you then get to create your own game with an editor that allows you to reimagine the level design and innovate like Jerry Lawson... Continue reading at 'Engadget'
[ Engadget | 2022-12-01 18:15:43 UTC ]
Hachette has succumbed to moral outrage in rejecting his autobiographyWhen Hachette bought Woody Allen’s autobiography, they no doubt expected it to be controversial. And no doubt they expected it to be a commercial success.He is, after all, one of the great American writers and directors. And... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-03-07 19:00:13 UTC ]
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How J. Edgar Hoover used the power of libraries for (gasp!) evil. | Lit Hub History “Mechanical travel blunts our sense of the world.” On the reverie and detachment of the American road trip. | Lit Hub Travel On the magic sentences of Lauren Groff, creating action without verbs. | Lit... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-03-07 12:30:11 UTC ]
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Adobe has released a new Gmail add-on to make it easier for Creative Cloud users to share their work over email. The plugin allows you to attach synced files, libraries or mobile creations you have stored on your Creative Cloud account as links. Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2020-03-05 18:10:00 UTC ]
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Once a revered political figure the public looked to for advice on everything from crime to child rearing, J. Edgar Hoover—the former director of the FBI from its inception in 1935 to his death in 1972—is now known as a bigot who abused his power to squash progressive causes and spy on political... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-03-04 09:48:43 UTC ]
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This week, the ongoing protests in India in response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s controversial new citizenship law, which discriminates against Indian Muslims, have intensified and turned violent. But one bright spot is the fact that, as Maroosha Muzaffar reports at Ozy, some volunteers... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-02-26 16:11:24 UTC ]
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Taking a look at some of the world's most innovative libraries and library projects as a way of looking toward the future of these important institutions. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-02-26 11:38:35 UTC ]
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How a career in libraries is paying dividends for PW columnist Sari Feldman in her new role—grandmother. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-02-21 05:00:00 UTC ]
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As a girl, the author of “Wild” and “Tiny Beautiful Things” spent hours studying Scholastic book club catalogs. But “my family was too poor to pay for the books,” she says. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-02-18 15:29:22 UTC ]
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Libraries across Southern California are aiming to serve the immigrant readers of rapidly changing cities by purchasing books in a variety of languages. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-02-17 13:00:04 UTC ]
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Bradford Council has reversed planned £1.05m cuts to its libraries but says some services could still be moved to other buildings in a bid to make them financially viable. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-16 18:54:07 UTC ]
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As we all know, there is only one Valentine and it is every book. Luckily, Harrison Ford talking about how great libraries are is an acceptable human Valentine proxy for all books. Why—besides the fact that you can’t spell”Harrison Ford, you irascible Jedi” without “Library”—is Ford making PSAs... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-02-14 14:17:02 UTC ]
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Do some good and help these classrooms build inclusive libraries by donating or spreading the word about their projects. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-02-14 11:41:33 UTC ]
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As a girl, the author of “Wild” and “Tiny Beautiful Things” spent hours studying Scholastic book club catalogs. But “my family was too poor to pay for the books,” she says. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-02-13 10:00:03 UTC ]
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OPINION: Does seeing ad spend and number of advertisements really tell us that much? Continue reading at Stuff
[ Stuff | 2020-02-07 16:00:00 UTC ]
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From about 1890 to 1940, a half century of ultra-cheap editions of Jane Austen’s novels aimed explicitly at educating the working poor. Because these ill-printed and shabby versions of her stories never made it into the scholarly libraries that safeguard “important” editions, the hardscrabble... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-02-04 09:49:29 UTC ]
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First published in 1977, Usborne’s The World of the Unknown: Ghosts was among the most treasured books (and anecdotally, the most stolen) in school libraries of the late 70s and 80s. Many of my friends—a disproportionate number of whom are writers and artists—remember poring over the pages of... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-01-29 09:48:13 UTC ]
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ON HALLOWEEN 2016, former Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren tweeted, “Colleges should stop building vanity projects like huge libraries and billing students–full libraries are on our smartphones!” At the time, this statement sounded like garden-variety know-nothingism, ideological in the sense... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-01-28 13:30:27 UTC ]
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Ten libraries could be closed across Hampshire with others having their opening hours reduced after the local authority announced plans to slash £1.76m from the service’s budget. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-01-10 01:00:51 UTC ]
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Rakuten OverDrive, a platform for digital books (used by more than 43,000 libraries and schools worldwide), has released a list of its most-borrowed ebooks and audiobooks in 2019. There are no real surprises on the list, besides maybe the fact that so many people want to listen to a woman tell... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-01-08 19:19:19 UTC ]
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When libraries help people in cold weather, they become a critical service for teens, the elderly, and unsheltered people. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-01-07 11:35:59 UTC ]
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