Just for xxxxx and giggles.

I did a Google trend on Hello Kitty Online and here is what I got. Pretty interesting, it demonstrates a significant rising interest in the game according to Google in an explosive manner. It’s still a beta but it’s fun to see/watch.

What I thought was really interesting is that apparently people from Singapore like this the most! Followed by Malaysia and then Hungary?!

Gmail is having a systemwide outage affecting multiple countries, and a whole bunch of its 100 million users are screaming about it on Twitter. Around 20 million people visit Gmail each day, according to Comscore, and they’re all seeing the same message. The first outages were reported at about 2 pm PST, 44 minutes ago. The Gmail blog is silent on the outage, instead giving readers some useful tips on customizing web clips.

We’re waiting on Google for a comment on the reason for the outage, but I can’t help but suspect that my decision yesterday to abandon MobileMe/.Mac in favor of the super-stable Google apps may have been a factor. Sometimes Google does things just to spite me.

Meanwhile, the productivity of 20 million people worldwide just spiked upward. Thanks to Todd Garland for the creative image.

Having had a chance to preview and play the closed beta, which is still going on, here are some of my initial thoughts, also check out Kit Katherine who posted some nice screenshots, a more indepth preview will follow.

Hello Kitty Online starts off with the usual installer/updater and first time installers have already installed images of this game as one can see like on Joi ito’s photostream below.

Once logged in you enter a newbie area, Sanrio Harbour, where you get to learn how to play the game. The game smacks completely like your typical japanese RPG. Think Final Fantasy or Legend of Zelda, and amplify the cute kittiness by about 100 million times and you are basically there, both the good and the bad. The game has the same elements of collection and repeat aspects that traditional RPG’s have (go collect 20 strawberries), go find that hidden key in the golden deep caves of sanriolandia, you know that sort of thing.  Your earnings are then put to good use in developing your assets and characters and you, of course, level up. Which RPG is not complete without levelling and avatars? It also offers a tamagotchi like feature of maintaining pets that are rare, cute and weird all at the same time!

The graphics are incredibly beautiful and cute, it’s like a burst of cheerfulness coming your way, the music is like warm applepie with little bits of sugar and cherry candy flowing your way, totally adorable.

Look at this, Toontown eat your heart out! Compare this to Toontown, the beauty of the game is no comparison, here is a screenshot of Toontown to take a look, what a difference.

I guess it was meant to be different.

The game plays in a cheerful happy manner, right not there are a few things that still need fixing but where the game really shines is the avatar and farming/housing system.

The above was taken from Kit Katherine’s blog! Anyway, you build a house, construct it with friends and guild members, you farm away and sell your goods, create juices and make spaghetti, be a cook sort of thing. The system is fun, it takes a long time to do it (mine is not finished yet) but it is a novel concept I have not seen anywhere before, the team work aspect is also interesting

More articles on this are on Zergwatch and Kit @ Vox.

So I got this in my inbox today…so who are the lucky winners? A sample of an entry is below…

Thank you for your enthusiasm for Hello Kitty Online! We’ve received hundreds of applications on Dream Studio, and are currently in the process of selecting those who will be getting the closed beta accounts.

We will be sending an email soon with more information on which of you have been chosen, more information about the closed beta and download instructions. You can also check for updates on the official game site and the official Hello Kitty Online blog.

Furthermore, we are proud to announce that Sanrio Digital will be working with our European partner Burda:IC to bring you HKO in 6 European Languages including German, French, Italian, Turkish and Spanish. The current Asian closed beta is in English, but keep an eye out for the European closed beta coming soon! Fans from Europe can already look out for news and announcements via SanrioTown.

We will keep you posted on further developments to the Hello Kitty Online closed beta testing. Good luck to our applicants!

According to the web

Beta sign up count up to 30,000 40,000 and rising

Thank you for all your enthusiasm; we we’ll stop counting for now, thank you everyone for your support, we will do our best to give you a wonderful experience, Hello Kitty style!

A very cute countdown to 2008 video of the up and coming 3D animation for a very Happy New Year!

I came across this writeup on a recent case of censorship on the web over supposed nudity.

You can read the article to get more of the details, but what gets me is that a users entire account on flickr gets blocked because of one count of nudity (and it sort of looks artistic anyway), a poster in Hong Kong gets prosecuted. There is the question of where do you draw the line? What happens if someone posts something political, would it be ruled indecent on the count of violence and other type of subversive activity?

Hong Kong is becoming more and more like Singapore! As a matter of fact, Singapore is trying to loosen up in comparison to what I read here, there must be something else up or am I missing something? As Ying points out, the newspaper stands in Hong Kong are full of far more suggestive sexuality and nudity than this art picture, what is the big deal?

Or perhaps, the big deal is that the source actually posted the picture in protest against the posting of pornography links? Then that would even be worse, it would be going after protesters and is a case in point of practising censorship in the name of indecency.

Internet Radio is under siege, the greedy music companies are at it again to try to profit only for themselves, what was now known before is that an organization known as SoundExchange, controlled by the big music labels has been collecting royalties for radio for artists but likely never paid them a cent. This is despicable and it’s this kind of greed that explains why nobody minds if the record labels go away.

This is a Cartel and it’s racketeering in an official way. Save Net Radio, let your congressmen know that this is wrong and spread the message.

More on Ying’s blog.

"TorrentSpy, one of the world’s largest BitTorrent sites, has been ordered by a federal judge to monitor its users. They are asked to keep detailed logs of their activities which must then be handed over to the MPAA. Ira Rothken, TorrentSpy’s attorney responded to the news by stating: ‘It is likely that TorrentSpy would turn off access to the U.S. before tracking its users. If this order were allowed to stand, it would mean that Web sites can be required by discovery judges to track what their users do even if their privacy policy says otherwise.’"

Isn’t this a case for the EFF? Why haven’t they looked into this?

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This message is to inform you about recent efforts by the motion picture studios to shut down TorrentSpy. As you may know, in February 2006 the major movie studios and their Washington lobby, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), filed a lawsuit against TorrentSpy and other search engines.

We guess that hiring hackers and turning a blind eye to identity theft is not enough for the movie studios and the MPAA. Now they want to know who you are, what you search for, and what you download. In short, it is the view of the movie studios that websites should not allow anonymous use and your activity on the Internet - anywhere - is their business.

The really scarry thing is that if we lose this court battle, the movie studios will be able to go after any search engine or website and force them to collect data about YOU. It is not an exaggeration to say that losing this fight is a nail in the Internet’s coffin.

We have spent the last year challenging their relentless campaign against the 1st Amendment and personal privacy laws Worldwide. We have succeeded in delaying the court order to turn on logs while we appeal it. TorrentSpy will not create logs of what you do on the site without your consent.

While we use Google Analytics for website statistics, TorrentSpy servers have never tracked your IP Address, the searches you make, or how you use the site. We are dedicated to your privacy and we are fighting for your rights!

Despite the fierce rivalry that obviously exists between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, it’s obviously not about the money, and it looks like despite everything that when they finally do retire, they may actually become good friends.

What most people don’t remember is that 10 years ago, Microsoft bailed out the ailing Apple when Steve Jobs just came  back to revitalize the ailing company, imagine that, 150 million USD and Steve Jobs joining the board of Apple precisely 10 years ago. The timing of this move demonstrates to me that there is both tactics and a wider mutual relationship and respect between the two parties that perhaps the world will never truly get to see.

Yes, they are competitors, but they are friends too. I am sure of it.