I had my friends Malte and Anthony over for the week: not only did the Web 2.0 Expo take place here in Berlin but their company, iliketotallyloveit, also had been selected as one of the top ten finalists in the Zanox Web Services Contest 2008 for 1 Million Euros. During the course of their stay I had the pleasure to attend several events with them which offered me a better grasp of the vibrant local start-up scene.

Vibrant for the most part as the impressions I gathered seem to support Matt Marshall’s view that a lack of capital keeps German entrepreneurs more conservative than they could be: Rarely are German start-ups working on a visionary, cutting-edge idea but more often than not fall into the copycat run. Many the conversations I had included the words “They already offer this/ a similar service in the US but we…”.

It’s not all bland and blatant though as the winners of the Zanox contest proved. Unfortunately iliketotallyloveit wasn’t one of them but it would be unfair to say that the three victorious companies didn’t deserve the attention:

Webtrakk – webcontrolling, helps to measure the performance, control and improve websites’ commercial success and online-marketing campaigns
Triboo – e-commerce and high definition marketing of some sorts… unfortunately I don’t speak Italian
Servtag – near field communication based mobile solutions which offers easy and quick access to independent product information; it also allows to share your shopping habits by feeding your shopping habits to social networks

In this Servtag is similar to another interesting start-up I came across after the announcement of the contest winners: Barcoo.com

It turns your mobile into a barcode scanner and shows the information you demand e.g. by comparing prices, user ratings, giving information about ingredients of foods and their effects on your health (from the amount of fat to allergies), the carbon footprint of a company etc.

I liked these services for several reasons:
– First of all it is an original idea which doesn’t blatantly rip off existing sites but on the opposite has the potential to be successful outside of Germany.
– I could immediately relate to it: Earlier this year I needed to buy a printer/scanner and was simply overwhelmed by the variety of options; here some orientation through easy to access on the spot information certainly would have been helpful. Another example: You’re an eco-conscious shopper doing grocery shopping; with Barcoo you can base your purchases on how sustainable the suppliers’ business is.
– The idealism in case of Barcoo: Of course financial success is a motivation behind this project but from what I gathered the founders are also personally invested in that they supply a platform which supports consumers in making conscious choices they can identify with.

Servtag and Barcoo also go to show how potential future collaborations between the scientific community and start-ups might work: While Technical University of Munich is involved in Servtag, the Berlin based Humboldt University is associated with Barcoo which received funding under a European Union R&D grant – the tragedy which Matt Marshall laments, namely that Germany has a tremendous basic science research and some of the best engineering in the world but lacks the ability to connect engineers with company builders might still be a real one but as this example shows is none that’s unresolvable.

One question remains though: Who would be willing to pay for such a service? While Servtag can monetize on affiliate programs and share valuable information about shopping habits with marketeers in case of Barcoo the industry might not be enthusiastic about too much transparency, consumers not about possible extra costs of a subscription model and an ad-based solution would cost a tremendous amount of credibility.

Whatever the answer may be, Berlin’s scene will stay exciting.

-Jens

As ReadWriteWeb reports a regional court in Germany ruled that Google is violating German copyright law by displaying thumbnail previews of copyrighted images. From the piece:

German photographer Michael Bernhard and cartoonist Thomas Horn had sued the Google and demanded that their images be removed from Google’s index. According to the judge at Hamburg’s regional court, “no new work is created” by displaying thumbnails.

Google, of course, has no way of discerning whether an image in its index is copyrighted or not. Based on this decision, we would not be surprised if Google decided to block image search for German users. However, we also assume that Google will try to appeal this decision.

Ah ze Germans… Ten years after Google they still haven’t figured out the Internet: A conscious decision to prevent people from accesing valuable information about one’s visual work, hampering any form of self-promotion that would somehow resemble 21st century practices; all this backed by an unwordly, anti-business court whose ruling could potentially throw the Fatherland back into ze digital stoneage. And you thought having to pay for newspaper articles on the web was a bad idea…

-Jens (Thanks for the link Malte!)

One of the more interesting pieces of technology depicted in Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End is that which allows users to put a skin over reality, just as we currently choose different themes for our operating systems and web browsers.

Thanks to some smart people working out of the Universität der Künste Berlin (”The Berlin University of the Arts”), we’re one step closer to making that happen.

From the description of their project:

Carcade is a concept for an in-car videogame for the passengers, which captures the landscape and uses it as a videogame environment. Existing objects, for example trees and architecture, are recognized by the camera and enhanced by videogame assets. The game is influenced by the manner of driving of the car. If the driver accelerates, the game becomes increasingly difficult. If the car comes to a stop a different game situation evolves. We developed a small game concept and a functional prototype, with which we did a test drive on the street. A webcam is connected to a laptop running camera tracking software which recognizes the horizon and objects in the environment. The player has to maneuver a spaceship and collect points whilst trying to avoid crashing into oncoming enemies.

It is still early days, but watching their video will help you understand the technology a bit better. As it advances, that boring prairie drive between Calgary and Edmonton could become a lot more interesting if it took the form of a space battle, jungle cruise or otherwise more-scenic route instead.

In order to further cement the relationship between videogames and driving, iTWire reports (via /.) that a car designed for the Playstation 3 game Gran Turismo 5 Prologue has made into real life and was unveiled at the Paris Motor Show. It isn’t just a fantasy car, either. Apparently the GTbyCITROËN handles the same in real life as in the the game.

If you’ve played the Gran Turismo series of games, you’ll know exactly how hyper-realistic they are. In fact, I’m pretty sure I learned more about driving through the original Gran Turismo for PS1 than I did from the driving lessons I took when I was sixteen.

I’m probably not the only one that thinks that way, either. According to this CNN story, Allstate insurance will start offering specialized computer games to older drivers and that this could end up lowering their rates.

-Parker

A friend of mine who’s a prospective movie producer asked me to act as music supervisor for his (yet to be finished) diploma project. He needed some authentic country and 50s old school rock’n'roll for the soundtrack. Unfortunately there wouldn’t be a budget – and he would need the worldwide rights for an indefinite amount of time for all kinds of media (DVD, television, cinema…).

Confronted with this task I of course turned to the web – to Last.fm and Myspace to be precise.

As I’m neither to familiar with country nor with 50s rock’n'roll Last FM’s function to look for similar artists came in handy (beginning with Johnny Cash seemed like a good idea…) as did Myspace’s search functions, the possibility to listen to several tracks and to contact the band. The seedy bottom of the internet seems to be good for something after all. In regards to  presenting and discovering music it still has quite an edge on Facebook.

In short: There’s a vast talent pool out there, pretty much all our needs were covered by (mostly) unsigned or young and upcoming bands.

All this – again – made me realize just how important these platforms became for music and which great chances they offer for both parties involved. Even though we didn’t have a budget for the soundtrack what we could offer was a worldwide DVD-release which surely comes in handy in terms of exposing music to new markets – we got great tunes and the bands a chance to introduce themselves to a new audience, all without a middle-man or complicated license agreements.

Another example, even though in a completely different league, are my Australian friends from Operator Please, whose career certainly owes a lot to Myspace. Just recently, they were nominated again for two Aria awards (in one category they’re up against Kylie!).

So keep on posting your stuff onto the web, you never know when some random German movie person wants you for the soundtrack of his flick.

-Jens

PS
Check out the trailer for my friend’s old movie “Die Schwarze Kolonne” (The Black Platoon), a spoof on comic adaptations with German soap actor Tim Sander.

Gamepolitics just directed my attention towards this interesting mod for Half Life 2: Thanks to some talented modders gamers can now experience a virtual recreation of the walled East-Berlin.

Explains Garry’s Mod:

The anticipated BerlinWall map has been released. The map offers singleplayer experience from the view of an East German citizen, dreaming of living in the West Germany. The gameplay in the map is non-linear, you can take many paths to west. Also, avoid making mistakes, they can be deadly, and remember to check everywhere for some sort of weapons.

The map works the best in Half-Life 2: Episode Two, but like common Source-based maps, it also works in Garry’s Mod. Not offering the best gameplay experience in it, but works great for posing and comics.

This is the kind of stuff I love: Using the simulational nature of digital games to foster a better understanding of historical events as they offer a grade of immersion other media don’t, fostering much needed respect for the often chastised games in the process.

If the rules work accordingly. Unfortunately I haven’t yet had a chance yet to play this mod (as I’m using a Mac) but from what I’ve gathered this might not always be the case.

According users of this forum, parts of the game involve direct armed confrontations with guards. Violence of this sort certainly wasn’t part of the process of trying to flee from the socialist reign of terror as this would have been even more suicidal. Apparently it is also possible to run through barbed wire without getting injured, an aspect I find highly objectionable as one of the most gruesome deaths at the wall (or what was to become the wall) was caused but just that: Getting stuck in barbed wire, getting shot, bleeding to death.

These problems are increased by an age old problem: Trying to escape from East Germany certainly involved a lot of arbitrary factors – games rules don’t, otherwise that game wouldn’t be playable. Or to put it differently: Life’s not fair, games (mostly) are.

By speaking speaking of belittlement: Saving the “game” or a God mode weren’t options for these people who decided to take the ordeal of escaping upon themselves.

From what I could gather from the screenshots the problematic nature of this games also extends to its representation. Using Combine soldiers as an ersatz for East German border guards again is highly troublesome – just like using the iconic crowbar as a weapon – due to the connotations that spring up in our heads: The first thing I thought of was headcrabs.

As much as the creators of this mod should be applauded for trying there still are massive problems up ahead, but as a glimpse into games’ potential as a tool to teach it can be regarded as a thought-provoking – yet problematic – project.

-Jens

Not only did I get a chance to play Guitar Hero World Tour at the Games Convention (awesome drums, way superior to Rock Band’s) and beat my English speaking friend John and two 12 year old girls in a round of a German version of Buzz I also came across Douglas Edric Stanley’s controversial Space Invaders Installation that has players trying to fight off the destruction of the World Trade Centre’s Twin Towers.

Upon me asking what it was all about I was informed by a staff member of the Computergame Museum (the organiser of the exhibition), that it was a statement regarding America’s foreign policy respectively that the invaders represented the terrorists who were responsible for the destruction of the WTC. I could kind of see where he was coming from: The attackers as the alien “others”, hostile to our culture, blindly leaping forward without any regard for our Western values, fanatical in their compulsion to destroy, the inability to communicate and the fact that we won’t be able to win this war despite our wildest gestures (as conveyed by the game’s motion controls).

Trying to hit the red UFO (Bin Laden?!) by using arm movements in front of a symbol for one of the biggest tragedies of the 21st century did feel ambiguous to say the least. Eventually it left a shallow impression, I couldn’t see beyond a simple juxtaposition nor was I taken by surprise by an interpretation I didn’t think about before, a view which possibly could have shed a different, more compelling light on the installation.

Do I agree with the pulling of the piece? Not necessarily, after all freedom of expression is what differentiates us from the invaders. Also the fact that apparently it is OK to commercially – and cynically – exploit 9/11 (+ Pearl Harbour + several wars) by means of movies, books and merchandise while a non-commercial installation draws worldwide negative attention makes for an interesting imbalance – admittedly, in Stanley’s abstract work compassion for the victims is largely absent, something which differentiates it from other media deemed more acceptable.

Nevertheless, I still believe that digital games have the potential to make strong, insightful and relevant statements. As Leigh Alexander puts it on Kotaku:

Invaders! actually accomplishes everything we’ve constantly asked games to achieve - it draws mainstream attention. It provokes thought and discussion. It deals with a real-world issue. It’s open to interpretation. It’s independently-created art.

And it stings, doesn’t it, to see our hopes for the medium twisted into such an uncomfortable, painful shape. But let’s not let the pain force us to dismiss it. This is an achievement.

If a shallow, transparently controversial juxtaposition such as Stanley’s installation is capable of eliciting such a response then the future for digital expression surely looks bright.

-Jens

After long discussions the German Kulturrat, the umbrella organisation of the German cultural associations, today welcomed the federal association of game developers GAME, as their latest member. The rationale behind this move: Games are sponsoring all kinds of arts and artists, from designer to script writer to composer; they all benefit from the burgeoning industry.

Despite this somehow strange reasoning (games being “Kultur” because they help to sustain other arts instead of being accepted as cultural artefacts in their own right) Malte Behrmann, chairman of GAME, describes the decision as a milestone of German media policy. “For the first time an association of the game industry was incorporated in an institution of cultural politics. The game industry finally arrived in the cultural sphere. This is a great day for the German game industry!”

This whole procedure again goes to show show that in Germany new forms of media always need to be legitimised through the concept of Kultur – which on one hand can do miracles in terms of acceptance. After all culture epitomises an anti-barbaric distinction which perfectly serves for bourgeois self-legitimation – but then again this anti-barbaric distinction also prevents Gears of War 2 from being released in Germany and helps to perpetuate the patronising behaviour of the German state in terms of censorship.

Soon to come: Discussions about culturally valuable games whose market share is marginal at best (at least we Germans are trying our best to save the world again, even if it’s just the saving the virtual world from unnecessary brutalisation).

-Jens

Sorry for the delay, but some tummy bug prevented me from writing anything about the Obama visit in Berlin. Anyway, in case someone still cares, here’re my impressions:

From The Times

And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets.

The multitudes were fed indeed as was their thirst quenched. Welcome to Obamafest. I made the mistake to start my pilgrimage a little bit too late with the consequence that I was stuck somewhere in the middle of 200,000 people, barely able to see (not even a screen). But at least I could hear what Obama had to say.

He had to appeal to two very different sensitivities: To the German audience and, more importantly, American voters. In this respect invoking to the shared past and its struggle for freedom was a good strategy. Ernst Reuter was cited, Reagan called upon, and indeed walls came down at least sixteen times during the speech: Not only in Berlin, but also in Belfast, between the rich and the poor, between races and religions.

Yet I couldn’t stop wondering: Would the reactions have been as enthusiastic if a German politician – or, God beware, Bush – uttered those words? Probably not, Bush would have been laughed at, a German politician would have been criticised for a number of things. What one has to remember is that Obama did not only appeal to a shared past but also to the responsibilities of a shared future. For him this future, amongst other things, is fought for in Afghanistan. The deployment of German troops in order to rebuild this war-torn country is already controversial amongst the German left; possible combat operations would cause an even greater stir. Obama is going to pursue a more protectionist policy to counteract the recession, he supports the death sentence for child molesters, defends the right of Americans to bear arms. American policies under Obama will see more continuities than his German disciples probably wish for, albeit they chose to ignore it.

Something which also goes to show the naive romanticism of German sentiments towards the US. Not only would an Obama presidency mean a change in skin colour but also in world views; a sudden change in perception from anti-Americanism towards a promise of salvation, a world without climate change, without a war in Iraq, a dream that somehow must come true because this time one is on the good side (and Germans are especially prone to develop a certain spirituality when it comes to saving the world). McCain all the while remains the great unknown, the average German Obama fan probably doesn’t know much about him except that, you know, he’s the evil one and some puppet of the war lobby.

On a sidenote: I found it somewhat ironic to be in a crowd demanding “change” when the last time this nation was allowed to vote it opted for a grand coalition of Germany’s two biggest parties which is mainly characterised by being extremely inflexible. But then again maybe it’s exactly this yearning for modernity that German politics can’t fulfil that makes (up) some of Obama’s appeal. Cultural pessimism, promises to conserve the state of affairs, a desire for bygone days and clichés shape the political landscape; if Merkel was a man and therefore didn’t embody a grain of emancipated modernity some voters probably would have died of boredom by now. Along comes a new icon, young, exciting, promising and somehow progressive, causing people to screen their unfulfilled desires on him.

And there’s another argument for the young hopeful: In case Obama wins the presidency American tourists wouldn’t have to pretend to be from Canada anymore to avoid being confronted about the alleged evil-doings of their nation by self-righteous Germans and their drive to save the planet by ruling out gas powered heat lamps.

-Jens

Writes Techcrunch:

Facebook is starting to pursue social networks that have copied their design or features by suing German site StudiVZ. The Financial Times has reported that Facebook filed a suit in California against the German company for what it claims is an infringement of Facebook’s “look, feel, features and services”.

StudiVZ claims to have 10 million active members, and is the largest social network in the German-speaking world, covering Germany, Belgium, Austria and Switzerland. The network is actually comprised of three different sites, each one a separate social network aimed at different segments of the market. StudiVZ.net is the classic site for college-aged students, SchuelerVZ.net is for high school students and MeinVZ.net is for older adults (these three networks were very hard to decipher in German when I attempted to sign up).

As the German blog Netzwertig points out what Facebook basically admits with this is that studiVZ is the main hurdle for their expansion into the German market. Networking effects prevent studiVZ users from switching to the American competition and rumoured talks about a possible take over apparently didn’t lead to any result.

Netzwertig goes on to explain that after Facebook’s growth in the US, Great Britain and Scandinavia, regions where the service virally spread in an instant, slowed down it needs to exploit new markets. Consequently Facebook can’t ignore a tightly populated, affluent country like Germany.

Nevertheless: The launch in Germany was pretty half-assed, a minimum was spend on the localisation (which accordingly lacked quality) and marketing. The idea that new members turned up automatically didn’t work out. So now it’s time for plan B – sue the competition out of existence.

Netzwertig speculates that the chances of studiVZ still existing as an independent network in one year are marginal now that Facebook identified it as its nemesis. Eventually the outcome of this whole venture also very much depends on studiVZ’s current owners, the Holtzbrinck-Verlag, which acquired the service for 100 million Euros in 2007 but couldn’t capitalise on it yet.

Personally I think that there’s a reason that Mashable included studiVZ in their top 10 international Facebook clones list, pointing out that

StudiVZ is nearly identical to Facebook in terms of features, functionality, and interface.

As Anthony Barba explains studiVZ internally was even referred to as “project Fakebook”, a fact that was revealed later when error messages used the phrase “fakebook”.

The only reason I ever signed up for studiVZ was to stalk people I went to high school with (just as pretty much everyone else I know) – something I regretted immediately. Not only because I came across some characters of the past I’d rather forget, but also because of the absolute god awful functionality of this sorry, parochial excuse of a social network: Innovative developments towards a more comfortable service are virtually non-existent and I can’t connect with my English speaking friends abroad.

In short: The technology is just as sophisticated as one of the founder’s excuses:

One can’t confuse the platforms with each other. “The colours are different: studiVZ is red, Facebook is blue”

-Jens

Australia is the only Western democracy without a 18+ rating for videogames (the highest rating is 15MA+). Despite talks about changing this, it looks like this is not going to remain the same – one of the main reasons being South Australian Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson.

The problem is that all votes concerning a change in the rating system have to be decided unanimously. Unfortunately Atkinson’s Christian beliefs keep him from supporting such a change as this would inevitably bring foul and decadent evil to Australian shores and into clean, sane Australian homes – even though 88% of Australians support the R-rating. So much for democracy. Also: Even if there was a consensus to change legislation, it might still take years to come into effect.

Considering that the average Australian game player is 28 one should think that they should be able to make their own informed choices about what they’re playing. If they really want to play games they can get them anyway, either through imports or piracy. I’m sure Mr Atkinson is aware that stealing isn’t very Christian but this is something his policies eventually encourage. Also if games want to be taken seriously they should incorporate adult content, not only violence but also sexual content matter. Would the gaming equivalent to “The Last Tango in Paris” (whatever that might look like. Certainly not like Mass Effect. And that already drove conservatives crazy) be possible under these circumstances? Banning these things would basically amount to ignoring human nature.

If on the other hand one looks at the issue the other way round and considers which games Australia deems suitable for 15 year-olds the picture isn’t actually that bleak. Compared to my hysterical home country Germany, Australia actually seems very relaxed about violent digital games: Between mid-1996 and mid-2007 only 20 out of 7334 games released in Australia were deemed unsuitable for 15 year olds, a meagre 0,272 per cent*. Out of these 20 games, only four were banned for violence while ten were refused classification due to sexual content matter (= sexual violence, nudity, simulated sex/ sexual activity)(editors note: where can we buy these games?).

Games deemed suitable for fifteen year olds in Australia include the uncut versions of Mortal Kombat II and Dead Rising both of which were confiscated by the German public prosecution due to the depiction of excessive acts of violence. They also include Gears of War, Medal of Honour Heroes 2, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, Clive Barker’s Jericho and Crackdown, games which were refused a classification by German censorship authority USK, upon which their publishers decided not to release the titles. This moreover compares to 492 titles which were classified as not being acceptable for under 18 year olds by the USK between 1 April 2003 and the end of 2007 alone.

So while I can certainly understand the frustration of Australian gamers, things could always be worse. They could live in Germany.

*These numbers were obtained from all OFLC annual reports between 1996-1997 and 2006-2007. They do not account for withdrawn titles nor games that underwent modifications, e.g. the removal of certain violent scenes and game modes, to be released on the Australian market.

-Jens