The colourful history of video games [infographic]

Over at COLOURlovers there's a very attractive infographic which ties in nicely with some of the issues I was talking about in one of our undergraduate modules last week (MAC129 and MED102), when we looked at the historical representations within video games. I thought some readers might like the infographic too. The artists responsible for this is Darius A Monsef IV. For the best view, click here:

Angry Bird Addiction [infographic]

Anyone with a smart phone since 2009 has a good chance to have played the Rovio game Angry Birds. There's also a very good chance that if you have played it once, then you'll have played it again. This is the game that has been downloaded more than 300 million times and is one of the world's favorite time-killers. If you've found yourself staring and prodding at a small screen into the late hours then you might be addicted (in a good way, as opposed to the silly "media-effects" tradition whereby we play GTA and go car-jacking).

The infographic, based on consultation with psychologists, by AYTM below might help you with your addiction.  1000 people were asked about their spending habits with regards to the game and it was revealed that young men aged 18-24 were more likely to convert from a free version of the game to a costed version.

Infographic by: AYTM Market Research

The seldom told tale of software piracy [infographic]

While browsing the web I came across the following infographic put together by Starmedia which tells the a story of software piracy (it's difficult to gauge how accurate the stats are given they are taken from a select number of sources). The historical overview is pretty useful for newcomers (or people born after the late 1980s).

Who'd have thought Windows XP would be more popular to download than Vista or Windows 7? Having said that, it's not as popular as Mac OSX Snow Leopard (no serial code required) or Lion. Photoshop still rules the nest as the most sought-after software (see my earlier caveat) despite being a jewel in the Adobe crown. They themselves refer to the 'Photoshop trademark is [being] one of Adobe's most valuable trademarks'.  Despite rampant piracy (because of?!) its position as the desktop image manipulation software for professionals and aspiring designers is entrenched and must make Adobe a tidy sum.

Guess how Google makes megabucks [infographic]

I found this interesting infographic over on Wired today and thought I'd share it here. Google makes around $3 billion per month on the strength of its advertising business - here are the top 20 words that make Google rich:

Facebook is not conducive to effective studying, is it?

One of my students posted this infographic on, wait for it, my module's Facebook page.  The conclusion it comes to is, well, inconclusive but there are strong hints that, in its current guise, social media is more of a distraction than it is an effective learning tool.  It also suggets that some platforms are better than others for engagement in the classroom (Twitter vs Facebook). What do you think?


Via: OnlineEducation.net