1. Where Are We Now? Mark Green School of Creative Media

2. Introduction  We’re at the end of the course: What have we learned? What have we learned? Where are we headed? Where are we headed?  The Mac and PC brought computers to the people, but what has this done for us?  This happened 20 years ago, your generation has grown up on this!  How has this changed our lives?

3. Introduction  We added the Internet about a decade ago, global communications and SPAM  We are now tied to our computers, they are starting to dictate what we do  When I was young my mother complained that I watched too much TV, now we complain that our kids are on the computer too much

4. Introduction  People are becoming addicted to the computer and what it provides  Is this a good thing?  We are just now beginning to understand how to produce media for the computer  Computer games are now an accepted genre, some people view the web as a genre, but not quite accepted, yet

5. Off the Desktop  Now we are faced with the possibility of moving away from the typical computer  The small screen, keyboard and mouse  Where will this go? What will be the new genres?  Will computers merge with the home entertainment system, large flat panel displays, wireless devices, etc

6. Off the Desktop  Or, will we see computers disappear into everyday devices  Now have mobile phones, PDAs and toys, how about home appliances?  Why not put them on the network (some companies are already doing this)?  We could have fridge art and creative laundry!

7. Off the Desktop  Do we want to have our mobile devices keeping track of us?  How do we want media served to us when we are on the go?  What types of services to people want on their mobile devices?  Your generation will invent the services, understand what people want

8. What Have We Learned?  Its not really quite there yet!  There are lots of ideas, and technologies, but it doesn’t quite hold together  As soon as we get one technology figured out, something new comes along  Just beginning to understand how to produce 2.5G services, and now everyone is thinking about 3G

9. What Have We Learned?  Hard for content developers to participate  Technology is moving so quickly there is no time to develop good content authoring tools  Back to using text to design web pages, no visual tools  No established standards and techniques, hard to find good books, etc

10. What Have We Learned?  Have to get closer to the technology to make good content  Need to do more programming and tinkering than other types of media  Harder to get things to work right, harder to see how to do what you want  Not a lot of good examples to draw from

11. Conclusions  New technology is usually hard  But this is where the big payoff is, both financially and artistically  At this years HKDEEA the best entries where mobile games and services  They were the most interesting and creative, and the companies were doing okay financially

12. Conclusions  HK mobile games and services compete on a global scale, they are as good as anywhere else  HK console and PC games are not near as good, cannot compete internationally  This is a new area where there aren’t established leaders  The extra effort can produce big winners