Jordan Mechner, creator of Prince of Persia, gave the PAX East 2012 keynote speech.
Last week, Jordan Mechner was the keynote speaker at PAX East, Penny Arcade's annual three-day celebration of gaming and gamers. Mechner kicked off the event with his personal story of how creating Karateka and Prince of Persia indirectly led him to fulfill his life goal of breaking into Hollywood, and how he has since revisited those properties many times across various media.
For years, I've been trying to get my mother online. Rather than give up, I bought her an iPad.
She's never even used a typewriter and has always been reluctant to try using anything with a keyboard. Nothing I'd tried worked to entice her to computing -- from installing Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing on Dad's iMac to equipping it with voice control.
Artwork: Chip TaylorThe open-source content management system WordPress turned seven years old last month. In its lifetime, it has attracted a devout following: More than 28,000 people download WordPress every day, with over 11.4 million active installations, including news outlets and corporate sites.
To commemorate the anniversary, WordPress is leaping forward this month with the release of Version 3.0, nearly five years after the debut of 2.0. The biggest change is integration with the previously separate WordPress MU (Multi-User) variation, which allows multiple blogs to be operated from a single WordPress installation and database.
The summer blockbuster season has officially kicked off with Iron Man 2, an action-packed superhero flick that had the fifth-highest-grossing opening weekend in Hollywood's history. Whether you like the movie or not, at least one thing about it rings true — the plot and the characters provide a striking reflection of today's tech security industry.
he Apple iPad is already being hailed for its potential to revolutionize multiple industries. For professionals, the iPad has a niche in a lot of professions; and for consumers, it threatens to make extinct dedicated e-readers and other limited-purpose mobile devices.
These pundits are overlooking the iPad's more utilitarian functions, though, as Apple has made their tablet computer into something that belongs in every household's kitchen. For example, Steven Colbert points out that it can be used to make delicious salsa. Or if you bought your iPad whole to save money on its finer form, you can also see if it will blend:
ite the recession, Mac sales continue unabated. Whether it's a result of the Windows XP-to-Windows 7 upgrade debacle, the hip "Get a Mac" ads, or a halo effect from the successful iPod and iPhone lines, many consumers are probably celebrating their first holiday season as Mac users.
My sister-in-law is one such convert, and as a dutiful relative, I've tried to reflect her new status in my holiday shopping. But what do you get a new Mac user? My own power-user needs are very different from hers, but I eventually realized that regardless of the level of tech-savviness, every Mac user has the same basic needs.
Judging from the 150 million sites that make up the blogosphere, anyone can call himself a content publisher. But to stand out from the crowd, a blog needs more than just a stream of original content. A well-designed site needs a functional presentation that offers both author and readers the tools they need to create, find and share information.
A content management system (CMS) is a common way to organize data and tools, and WordPress is one of the most popular CMSs. One reason for WordPress's ubiquity is the availability of over 4,000 plug-ins, offering Webmasters seemingly endless ways to expand and customize their blogs. I've tried many WordPress plug-ins to fill different needs and have discovered 10 that I consider essential. This article describes those plug-ins plus a few more that you may find useful
With today's theatrical release of Star Trek, the starship Enterprise launches on its mission to seek out new life and new civilizations. Gene Roddenberry's vision for the future was founded on hope for humanity -- but what powers his crew's ongoing trek across the stars is incredibly advanced technology.
In 2009, we're still a long way off from warp-drive engines, having not yet solved simple problems such as avoiding space debris or sending astronauts to nearby Mars. Yet despite this slow progress, the silver screen is consistently portraying less fiction and more prediction.
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