http://sites.google.com/site/dreamsidemaroongame/Home

Surprisingly, even though I’m an Apple user x2, I honestly haven’t given the iPad as a device much thought because I’ve been too busy doing other stuff and because I knew the internet would catch me up (and yeah, laughing at the particularly clever period jokes), but this point really resonated with me. I am SO FOR doing whatever possible to close digital divides. In my library science program, two professors are currently running two outreach projects (there may be more that I’m not aware of)–one that helps train senior citizens to use technology, and another that assists people with cognitive disabilities in learning basic technologies (like bookmarking a favourite website, performing a google search, etc.). I’m volunteering with the latter project, but I wish I could work on the former, too. I think you’re right about the possibilities available for digital immigrants– if people take the time to notice, care, and help. Now I need to pay more attention to the actual specs of these products, and not the hype, so that if/when I’m an information professional/librarian I can utilize these technologies, and plan outreach projects, accordingly.

You know what else was interesting about your post? You talked about how *we* would have failed if we don’t create new art in new forms. *We* would have to be the new coder-artists. I don’t code, so I look at these things only as someone who consumes what others produce. That’s not an awful thing. But it’s never been the only thing that’s excited me about art.

So I think it might be time to read a new kind of book.

2. You make a point I haven’t seen often enough: the iPad is going to be a super-flexible node and control surface for all sorts of things. I mean, the iPad as portal into Google Docs? Awesome. The iPad as most amazing video game control ever? A-W-E-S-O-M-E.

2a. One of my favorite iPhone apps is called OSCemote, and it transforms the iPhone into a controller that can send signals to another app via the OSC protocol. That’s it. It does nothing on its own; you need something else to control. But it’s really cool — the control surfaces it provides are really simple & lovely — and when one of my music-hacker friends hooks it up to Ableton Live, the results are astounding. I think you’re right to predict that that sort of thing is going to be huge on the iPad.