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Update: Thanks to the generosity of Joost allowing unlimited invites everyone who added a comment and those who leave a comment from this point on will receive an invite.

For weeks on end I’ve been patiently waiting for a Joost beta invite. Why am I so excited about something that on the surface seems like Tivo™ for the web?

There’s an easy answer for that, so let me spill it. Before I do that however, I’d like to thank Paul for sending me the invite.

Joost Oozes With Quality

It doesn’t take a special decoder ring to figure out what Joost does. The official site describes its functionality quite perfectly:

The magic of television, with the power of the internet built right in. Joost puts you in control, and TV will never be the same again.

This could be construed as a bold claim, as if the creators/developers/masterminds (the people responsible for Skype and Kazaa) behind this operation could not possibly convince themselves otherwise.

Yet, when you connect the dots, evaluating the whole enchilada for a service like this (branding, web site and technology) you can’t help but be enthralled by the polish.

Spectrums, Rainbows and Magic

Have you ever looked through a spectrum? There’s a infinite amount of colors that appear if you hold one up to a light source. It’s interesting that the creators of Joost chose to theme their service around the concept of spectrums and color variety. Although, I must admit they do look a bit like colored Kryptonite, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Earlier today I was doing my best to describe the promotional video on the What’s Joost? section to a friend. Halfway into explaining how cool it was I realized it’s just one of those things you have to see for yourself.

At first glance the demonstration video seems a bit awkward, or at least it did to me. After watching it I realized it seems familiar and that’s because it’s somewhat like a medley of Batteries Not Included, Cocoon, The Last Starfighter and Tron. Like I said, you need to see it firsthand because my description just won’t cut it.

Beta Means Slim Pickings

I would say that my only beef with the service is that the channel offerings are slim at best and the video output ranges from near DVD quality to sub par Youtube quality. One moment it looks great, the next it just distracts from the overall experience but I’m sure in time it’ll improve.

As far as the content is concerned other than watching some “vintage” Ren & Stimpy cartoons with my daughter and a couple Discovery Channel specials on lions and pyramids, there’s nothing else that peaks my interest for the time being.

That will change as Joost continues to sign content providers but in the interim there just isn’t a lot to consume at the moment. Although, this is still in beta so that’s just par for the course. Joost has promised to continue signing content providers; for instance, they just added a variety of shows from providers like Comedy Central, VH1 (the channel you switch on when you’re bored, or, at least I do) and MTV.

Beta Invites

If you haven’t experience Joost yet, well, that’s just not right. I’ll tell you what, leave a comment and I’ll use the magic of the internets (and a handy script to randomly select a number) to choose three lucky people to send an invite to.

Ready, set, go!

Matthew Carter, born British but now residing in the Boston area, is the creative force behind many widely used fonts today including Verdana, Tahoma, Georgia, New Century Schoolbook and Helvetica, to name a few.

Carter began his career as a traditional typeface designer, studying under Jan Van Krimpen’s assistant P. H. Raedisch, where he learned the distinctive craft of punch cutting and eventually transitioned into using digital methods to create his fonts, a more expedited method than traditional processes.

In a presentation given to members of the AIGA (New York Chapter), Carter reflected on his many experiences with developing the fonts he’s so famously known for and revealed that many, if not all of his creations, were inspired by actual typefaces from historical architecture.

According to Wikipedia, Matthew Carter “co-founded the Bitstream type foundry in 1981, which he left in 1991 to form the Carter & Cone type foundry with Cherie Cone.”

Bitstream, Inc. was a first of its kind, a company formed solely for the purpose of the production and distribution of digital fonts and their respective licenses. Unlike traditional type foundries, where the typographers would sell wood and metal typefaces, Bitstream dealed exclusively with digital fonts.

If not for the hard work and impressive efforts of Matthew Carter, designers would be limited as far as font selection for print and web.

Whether he knows it or not, Matthew Carter has left behind a legacy that will continue to thrive in future generations, all because of his desires to preserve historical typefaces.

Here are a few random thoughts that I’ve had throughout this week, that on their own could potentially be expanded, but for the time being will remain in crystallized form:

Elementary Schools and Teachers

Ever since I accepted a position working as a cleaner (janitor, custodian, slop mop guy) at an elementary school I’ve gained a new perspective and greater appreciation in regards to everything that occurs behind the scenes.

Prior to working at an elementary school, I had a very one-dimensional view of how schools actually ran, seeing as though my last encounter with a peewee educational fortress was many years ago.

Yet, when you pull back the curtain and realize that teachers have flaws, library shelves do in fact get dusty and there’s a bittersweet human element to it all that’s hard to describe, only then do you realize why schools continuosly run themselves.

All of this boils down to the teachers themselves, who in turn are modivated by their student’s achievements, which fuels their inner passion to educate, looking past the spitballs and dirty looks, knowing full well at the other end there will be a result.

On that note, since we live in the era of Google, I was thinking how much smarter a teacher can seem if he or she has access to a computer in their room. With Wikipedia and Google at their fingertips, said teacher can instantaneously look up unlimited subject matter, print or project, and contribute endless amounts of information to the education process.

It’s really fascinating, considering when I was younger all we had is an Apple II and maybe, depending on if you were good or not, Oregon Trail with buffalo shooting action all at a grueling pace.

Wii!

For weeks on end I’ve been thinking about Nintendo’s recently unvieled and renamed console, Wii. I’ll admit that at first I was a bit taken back by the name (shocked even), seeing as though the console and it’s premise sounds kind of silly.

However, after thinking about it some I’ve grown to actually love “Wii” and all it has to offer. Especially after seeing the slew of E3 demos that have popped up on sites like YouTube and Gamespot.

There’s just no denying the fact that you’re no longer just playing, but participating in a game using their Wii-mote, which looks like your average TV remote but recognizes 3D space and movement. How cool is that? Way cool!

Spore

With sites like Total Spore appearing out of thin air, there’s something intriguing and undeniably mouth watering about Will Wright’s newest sim creation, Spore, that has the media and blogosphere and maybe your neighbors in a gaming frenzy.

Spore isn’t just going to change the way people look at simulation games, it’s going to turn the gaming realm upside down. From the previews to demo footage and demonstrations given by Wright himself, it appears to be a mish mash of evolution, creation, old school gaming, clay modeling, strategy and sci-fi (amongst other things) all rolled into one.

I haven’t been this excited about a video game in years, not since I first laid eyes on Simcity and Populous.

I’m often fascinated how someone can create illustrations out of tiny pixels. To me it’s no different than a more technologically-advanced form of Lite Brite art and it’s something, albeit jagged in appearance, that I’ve come to admire throughout the years.

Pixel art, now a full-blown art scene and experience depending on who you ask, was something I became familiar with in the early-80s (post Pong era) while playing video games in the arcade and on the Atari, where I clocked in several hours playing Frogger and Dig Dug. At the time it seemed a bit surreal that just a handful of green-colored dots represented Frogger.

Toss in a limited color palette and you (as Frogger) were faced with all kinds of enemies including speeding cars, hunger-surpressed gators and logs a plenty. Now it seems quite primative and even then it did as well, but still, it’s nothing less than admirable to think that we’ve (and by we, I mean those who enjoy gaming as a pasttime) been staring at colored squares for years on end.

In later years pixel art became more detailed and at times, depending on the game, there were sequences where I would be blown away at how beautiful the onscreen artwork looked. Games that stood out in my mind, even to this day, were the Castlevania, Contra and Super Mario series on the Super Nintendo as well as Another World and Flashback.

I’m sure there were others, but those games in particular inspired me to create my own pixel art after picking up a copy of the now defunct Klik and Play by Maxis (eventually resold to Clickteam), which I believe has since been rolled into other software packages after being acquired by another company years later.

According to the packaging, Klik and Play was the “ultimate game creation software for the PC” and allowed anyone, so long as you were willing to accept the rather steep learning curve, to create your very own 16-bit games with the aide of simple programming and pixel art.

Honestly, I paid less attention to the game creation aspects and instead focused on creating beautiful pixel art. Within a few moments of experimenting I realized that it wasn’t as easy as I had initially thought. Despite what I had convinced myself prior, this wasn’t the same as picking up a brush, dipping it in paint and spreading it across a canvas.

On the contrary, creating pixel art takes a great deal of patience and an understanding that whatever you’ve set out to create digitally is only a few hundred (thousand, million) pixels away. Yet, you need not let that deter you because once you’ve reached that goal and are able to look at something that’s complete, it’s a feeling like you’ve just been climbing Mt. Vesuvius and finally reached the peak.