Lately I’ve been reading an interesting book, ‘Proust was a Neuroscientist’, by Jonah Lehrer. In the book Lehrer makes the case for artists discovering or outlining scientific concepts well in advance of scientific confirmation of these ideas. It’s a great read and the connections the author points out are really compelling insights. As I think about the premise of the book I realise there are many examples of similar cross-pollinations related to the field of new media. I thought I’d list some examples I’ve found interesting. What I find interesting about all these example is they are people re-thinking creative processes that many would consider fully evolved.
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I came across an interesting company this week Foomojo, they are the makers of Foopets. Foopets are virtual pets that you can embed on your webpage, a kind of web-based Tamagochi.
Here’s mine:
I’ll give a disclaimer right now, I love pets, especially dogs. I have a flesh and blood border collie at home, but I hate these types of service toys/apps (as cute as they may be). By service toys/apps I mean you have to be constantly at their service. If mine appears to be dying or unhealthy please refer to my disclaimer above. I also think I would have found this product much more interesting if I hadn’t given my kids Nintendogs for their DS’s a year or so ago. Foopets seems to be a very similar, although somewhat less developed, version of this popular DS game. There is innovation here though, one that I’m surprised Nintendo didn’t jump on.
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