If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Sponsored by the Office of the Chinese Language Council International and the Michigan State University, Zon is a browser based “multiplayer, online learning environment designed to teach Chinese language and culture through gameplay”.
I personally don’t like very much this kind of educational games, I always find difficult to engage and loose interest after a few minutes. However, it looks like Zon has some interesting features, like the fact that almost everything can be spoken out.
The player can interact with almost anything, people (players and non-players) and objects, chat, get definitions and cultural or practical information. There are mini-games where you can earn cash. You can trade (and I hope can exercise the fine art of bargaining).
All in all it looks like a good idea but I am not into it, and it is sluggish…
It looks like there has been a lot of excitement in the micro-blogosphere recently since Robert Scoble relayed instructions the Chinese government sent to the Chinese web-sites requiring them to shutdown all entertainment channels during the 3 days national mourning in memoriam the victims of the recent earthquake.
A lot of people commented, criticizing the Chinese government and talking about violation of free speech and human rights, etc.
Ladies and gentlemen, on your own terms you are free and have free speech. What do YOU intend to do to commemorate the confirmed death of more than 35,800 people (expecting 50,000) or to help the 5 million people who do not have a home anymore ?
Elliot Ng on CNReviews.com also responded to these comments and I think he made a great work are explaining the lack of understanding that most westerners have towards Chinese people, read on
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born
The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats.
There is something coming, as opposed to Yeats I don’t think it will be the end of the civilization, but there is a war coming.
Weapons are ready and skirmishes have begun.
Going-Solo, the one-day conference organized by Stephanie Booth yesterday in Lausanne, is now over.
The conference has been filmed by Sébastien Baudet and videos are being uploaded to Dailymotion.
I must say that for a first shot it was a great one, interesting speakers, subjects that matter and a lot of useful information to grasp.
A great Bravo to Steph, big thanks to the members of the organization and lot of luck to Going-Solo. It seems that the next edition will be held in Leeds by the end of the year.
By the way, the wifi was not so bad but the microphones were no sot good 
Google just released a preview of their new Google Friend Connect service.
Google Friend Connect lets you grow traffic by easily adding social features to your website. With just a few snippets of code, you get more people engaging more deeply with your site.
This is not a social network by itself, this is something that enables you to turn your own web site into a social network. I can’t wait to try it myself on this blog and build my own social network…
