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We’ll Meet Again takes collaborative gaming offline

The Ear Force PX51 is a lot of headset—$296.95 worth of headset, to be precise. It is billed as an “advanced gaming audio system.” It comes with many features that are prefixed with “dual-”, which makes sense insofar as most people have two ears. All of that is a complicated way of saying the PX51 allows you to hear what is happening in a game and communicate with others, all for the princely sum of $296.95. That’s nice, I guess, but what if you wanted to play a game and talk to someone else with slightly less technological intermediation? We’ll…

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9 Squares captures the wonderful dialogue of gif culture

Remember Hollywood Squares, the 1990s American quiz show in which panelists—including a definitely-not-high Whoopi Goldberg—were seated in three stacked tiers, each of which contained 3 boxes? There were audience participants, sure, but Hollywood Squares was really about the interaction between the boxes in its 3×3 grid. an ongoing dialogue about creativity  If Whoopi and her eight aged colleagues had been replaced with animated gifs, it would have looked something like 9 Squares, a bimonthly digital art project currently being hosted on Tumblr. Every two weeks, nine designers / animators are given a four-color palette and asked to create a three-second-long…

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Ace Hotel and The New York Times teach you how to solve crossword puzzles

Crossword puzzles are the perfect meditation for the modern logophile. Imagine a world where people could come together in a studio-like setting in order to solve crossword puzzles in complete harmony. Puzzles over poses. Coffee instead of yoga mats. Ace Hotel and the New York Times are hosting a winter series called “Pencils Up, New York” featuring tips and tricks on how to perfect your crossword puzzle-solving skills. Your dreams are coming true! Someone from the New York Times will be in the Ace Hotel Lobby hosting a crossword puzzle group-solve event, and you get to play along using either…