Instant Live CDs of a Concert? Testing to Begin in Boston

"Experiments are rife in the music business these days -- and Boston will be a test market for one of the most novel of them. Clear Channel Concerts, the nation's largest concert promoter, has ambitious plans to record live CDs of its shows and sell them to patrons within five minutes after those shows end. Clear Channel is targeting Boston as the first site for the new plan, according to sources within the organization.

Multiple CD burners would be brought in, and the live CDs would probably sell for around $15 in the same way that T-shirts and other merchandise can be purchased after concerts. No one knows what the demand would be, but the project is expected to begin at club shows within a couple of months, then be refined and work its way up to the amphitheater level, though that may not happen until next year, sources say." [The Boston Globe, via Furdlog: A Digital Intellectual Property Weblog]

They just never learn, do they? $15 for a CD-R. Are they being deliberately obtuse?

Growing Trend Of Video Screens In Automobiles Raising Safety Concerns

"First there was in home entertainment, now there's in car entertainment. It's a great way to keep people, or kids, in the back seat occupied. But there's growing concern that it can pose a danger when the driver is paying more attention to a movie than the road....

Ben Velasquez, SUV Owner: 'I want all my passengers to be happy, that's all. I know that when I used to be in my friends' cars I used to be real bored. In this one, you can't be bored.'

The Eddie Bauer Explorer we're talking about is a multi-media experience. You can play video games. But if you get bored with that, how about a movie? How about even two different movies, at the same time.

Velasquez: 'I wanted every passenger to have his own, individual TV.'
Nina Pineda, Reporter: 'Do you ever worry about safety concerns.'
Velasquez: 'No, because I don't pay attention to them while I'm driving. That's for everybody else. Everything that's in here, I've seen at least a thousand times, so... I just drive... If I really want to watch something, I pull over and watch. I mean I'm not going to drive and watch this. I don't want to crash my car. I don't want to hurt anybody.' " [7Online.com, via The Lost Remote]

The Sunderland Public Library has also gone blog for its main page. I love their tag line: "Serving the community of Sunderland, MA since 1794."

Aaron Schmidt has been turning the Thomas Ford Memorial Library's web site into a blog, and he's just about done. Actually, he's been converting it to several different blogs, one for each department or subject area (adult services, reader's advisory, etc.). Now everyone in the Library can help maintain the site, and I can subscribe to those sections that interest me!

Aaron's still playing with the design elements, but I love the idea. Excellent job!

"And it turns out that Andy and Larry Wachowski, the fraternal writer-director team behind the lucrative franchise, have been harboring a deep secret. 'They've made two and a half sequels,' divulges veteran game designer Dave Perry. That unexpected half sequel turns out to be an hour of 35mm film footage shot exclusively for the videogame Enter the Matrix, due May 15 on all major game systems.

The videogame's filmic element - starring the movie cast and shot on the Australian movie set - marks an important step forward in the burgeoning creative relationship between Hollywood and the game industry. The game also boasts a Hollywood-size price tag: a rumored budget of $20 million, roughly four times the average cost of developing a PS2 title....

The Wachowskis' master plan included a novel twist. Rather than rehash the plot of The Matrix Reloaded, the game tells a parallel but equally important story. You don't play as Neo - though he, as well as Morpheus and Trinity, definitely figures in the game. Instead, you play two characers who have supporting roles in the film: an assassin named Ghost, portrayed by Hong Kong action star Anthony Wong, and hovercraft pilot Niobe, played by Jada Pinkett Smith. ('Jada had to learn more lines of dialogue for the game than she did for the movie,' says Perry.)

More importantly - and and in a move that might have some significance in future tie-ins - the game and movie story lines will intersect in unique ways. Exact details of the crossover are closely guarded, but Perry offers one cryptic example. 'In the movie, you'll see a package. If you play the game, you'll understand how that package got to where it is in the film. We're guessing it's not via FedEx.

Between the film sequences lies a combat system similar in style to 2001's third-person action game Max Payne. But make no mistake - the moves are firmly grounded in the Matrix universe: Players battle Agents by pulling off physics-defying stunts (running up walls, slowing down time) and using martial-arts moves designed by the movies' fight choreography, Yuen Wo-Ping." [February 7 issue of Entertainment Weekly, sorry but the article is available online to subscribers only]

This is such a brilliant move. The movie AND the video game are going to be so huge. There will now be hundreds of web sites devoted to the game, and the gamers will spend even more time trying to tie together all of the ways in which the two intersect together. And all of this using supporting characters in the film. The game will instantly be the fastest-selling one to date, and the DVDs should be beyond incredible. The Wachowski brothers are the leading edge of the new directors that think and film in terms of video games. And after all, their entire story line depends upon always-on connectedness - in the Matrix's "real world" you're "always connected!