Author Profile

  • Maarten van Sprang maarten
  • Url: http://www.maartenvansprang.nl/wordpress
  • Posts: 11
  • About the user: Maarten has a Bachelor degree in Communication and Multimedia Design and is working for Humanique as an interaction designer. Right now he is also finishing his thesis on the New Media Master at the University of Amsterdam. He's is very interested in new media (obviously), gaming and music.

Author Archive

Apple bombs blogosphere with an airstrike

Maarten van Sprang | 16 January 2008, 2:54 pm | 1 comment | tags: , , , , , ,

For the next few days Apple will rule the blogosphere and all of that had to do with the keynote presentation Steve Jobs gave at the MacWorld 2008 conference. It started yesterday and will probably continue throughout the rest of this week with massive coverage on various blogs and websites. This post looks at the needless struggle to acquire the same information seconds before the other blogs do.

Wii can do so much more with a remote

Maarten van Sprang | 10 January 2008, 4:11 pm | 2 comments | tags: , , , , ,

To start off 2008 I’d like to show you some interesting videos by Johnny Chung Lee, a Ph.D. graduate student on human computer interaction. He uses the remote from the Nintendo Wii to create spectacular user interfaces. Three videoclips after the jump…

…All I got was this lousy t-shirt

Maarten van Sprang | 04 December 2007, 4:03 pm | 5 comments | tags: , , , , , , ,

In this article I dove into the world of internet memes and tried to find a indicator for the viability and liveliness of these phenomena. As I will show I did find one and although it might be a highly questionable one, it does point out that people who pick up these memes want to carry out that they know what everyone is talking about.

The faces of gaming

Maarten van Sprang | 15 November 2007, 1:20 am | tags: , , ,

Game faces by Philip Toledano Besides playing games, one of the greatest pleasures would be watching other people’s expressions while playing games. When people are playing games they totally forget to how look normal and start showing their real emotions. What is more fun than watching people who forget that they are being watched?

Comparing dirt

Maarten van Sprang | 06 November 2007, 3:44 pm | tags: , ,

One of the most popular blog-phenomena can be found in the celebrity gossip corner. In contrast to the paper tabloids these weblogs can be way faster with the latest gossip and are generally more sarcastic. I will bring forth 4 different digital tabloids and introduce all of them before concluding on the differences and similarities.

Thanks for the add

Maarten van Sprang | 22 October 2007, 6:04 pm | tags: , ,

Image by Scott JohnsonMyspace started in 2003 as a stage for aspiring bands and musicians, but evolved from a subculture platform to a mainstream profiling and networking giant. I want to have a look at the social constructions within Myspace and how Myspace is being looked at after it has become the number one networking site.

Collaboration under censorship

Maarten van Sprang | 15 October 2007, 5:37 pm | 3 comments | tags: , , ,

In response the problematic situation in Myanmar, social activists, students and Buddhist monks gathered to stand up against the totalitarian regime of the Burmese government. Blogging is the only way to get censorship free news and forms the heart of Burmese democracy. This article show how collaborations between bloggers, both local and international, can create a worldwide movement against the totalitarian regime.

Ignis Solus

Maarten van Sprang | 10 October 2007, 10:16 pm | 3 comments | tags: , ,

In this little machinima movie, Valve shows of their new rendering style in the upcoming game Team Fortress 2. The cool thing about it is that it almost looks like a genuine Pixar short. But everything you see is rendered in real-time, which looks amazing if you ask me. The videoclip also illustrates some highly recognizable multiplayer scenario’s like having a huge…

Cold war in RIA-land

Maarten van Sprang | 09 October 2007, 2:51 pm | tags: , , , ,

Web 2.0 gave the old web a brand new face, and with that, it added cultural and technological changes. Cultural change in the form of weblogging and social networking/bookmarking, technological in the form of User Generated Content and Rich Internet Applications (RIA).

For a change a want to address the latter. Because I’ve got the feeling that there is a cold…

Nietzsche on hypertext

Maarten van Sprang | 08 October 2007, 3:14 pm | tags: , ,
Previous in series on ‘Nietzsche’
Next in series on ‘Nietzsche’

This week’s assignment made us compare new media issues to Nietzsche quotes. I came across the following quote:

This quote immediately triggered the post-modern idea of differance, that all meaning gets postponed and that one will never get to the original intended meaning of a message. When you transfer this derridian idea to the…