I've been trying to think of something useful to blog about over the past week… scouring the news, the blogs, the boards.  But the truth is, it's awfully quiet out there.  Is it because the excitement of the new console releases has faded?  Is the industry simply in basic blocking-and-tackling mode, trying to get new titles out the door?  

Is anybody home?  Tell me something interesting… I'm starved for juicy information.

Barry Minor's post and video on Cell-based raytracing has created something of a stir. After being "Slashdotted" the video has more than 40,000 views on YouTube. He's clearly struck a powerful nerve within the graphics programming community. I can't wait to see what's next.

In the happiest surprise of the day, I learned that Catherine Helzerman, one of the creators of Game Tomorrow, is leaving her job at Sun to rejoin us here at IBM. Look forward to getting you back on board, Catherine!

A warm welcome to the newest contributor to gametomorrow.com, Mike Acton.

Mike Acton is a Senior Architect at Highmoon Studios (Vivendi-Universal Games) working on PS3/Cell research. Mike is also the director and adminstrator of CellPerformance, which is an all-volunteer effort dedicated to researching and publishing code and articles for the Cell community.Most recently, Mike was the Lead Special Effects Programmer for Darkwatch at Highmoon Studios (previously Sammy Studios) in Carlsbad, CA. Previously Mike has held Lead Programming, Playstation 2 Engine Development and Research roles with Yuke’s, VBlank and BlueSky/Titus. He worked for Sony Interactive Studios in PSX development.Mike has made regular appearances as a speaker at SCEA develpment conferences and has spoken at GDC.

Mike Acton is not a framework-happy C++ programmer. He actually likes C. And assembly. In his spare time he develops hardware on FPGAs in VHDL.

He prefers vi.

We’ve been quite excited about the positive response we have received on GameTomorrow. We also, however, acknowledge that activity here has not been what it should be and we’re going to be stepping things up in the weeks to come. Among changes you will notice are:

• Increased activity from our core members
• New members including our first members from outside IBM (look for intros/posts from them soon!)
• New members from within the IBM development community
• Our first ever game review section where we will see first hand reviewers’ opinions on game technology in real use

If you have any suggestions on how to improve the blog or if you would like to be a contributor, please send email to gametomorrow@gmail.com

I’m happy to say the upgrade is complete. I’ve also relaunched the forum with a new look and I encourage everyone to signup. Topics are the same as discussed here with some additional categories and the posts are not moderated so you can see your comments right away.

Today I will be upgrading to a later version of WordPress, the software used for this blog. I say later instead of latest because I’m still too chicken to go to 2.0 (because that would involve upgrading mysql, which might cause compatibility problems with other things running on the server). More information than you wanted to know perhaps.

In any event, hopefully the upgrade will be seamless and you won’t even know it happened, but just in case you see a glitch in the next few hours, you know why. I’ll post again when finished.

Here’s what I plan to do:

• upgrade to WP 1.5.2
• add a Google sitemap, that will allow GT to show more prominently on searches
• add a technorati link that will allow people to see other sites that link here
• provide “chicklets” that will enable viewers to easily subscribe to GT using your favorite news reader be it myYahoo, Bloglines, or something else
• provide a “post to delicious” link, as many people are using it for their online bookmarking system

On another matter… As you know, our tagline is “IBM leaders discuss the future of gaming.” For sometime we have been pondering the idea of extending membership to key experts from elsewhere in the gaming community. Agreement with IBM’s positions is not a requirement, however a high level of expertise in your field is. If you are interested, the first step is to post on existing entries here. After you have made at least five posts, please send mail to admin@gametomorrow.com with a little background and what you would be covering as a regular contributor.

Let me be the first to welcome you to GameTomorrow, a new collaborative weblog focusing on the future of gaming, and how it will impact our lives beyond the confines of the console or the PC. Our contributors are IBM leaders who are involved with games and game-related technologies — whether it’s inside the consoles, within massively multiplayer online environments or the business of gaming. They’ve come together on this blog to spark more discussion about the long-term implications of gaming and third-generation user interfaces.

Our starting line up:

• Ron Eisses is a business development executive for IBM’s Digital Media group.
• David Laux is a global executive for games and interactive entertainment on IBM’s emerging markets team.
• Michael Ash is a business consultant in IBM’s Media & Entertainment group.
• Bruce D’Amora works on visual and geometric computing at IBM’s Watson Research Lab.
• Jim Kahle is an IBM Fellow and leads the Cell processor development team.
• Kathy Papermaster is the director of IBM’s STI design center.
• Ted Maeurer manages the Cell software development center.
• Barry Minor designs 3-D graphic software in IBM’s Austin development lab.
• Mike West is a multimedia architect for IBM’s pervasive computing team.
• Ilan Spillinger is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and is director of game and low-end processors.
• Jeff Brown is a Distinguished Engineer in IBM’s Engineering & Technology Services group.
• Albert Wong is an avid gamer and an IT architect with IBM’s Linux and Grid services team.
• James Snell is a longtime gamer and works on IBM’s software standards team.

As an avid gamer and specialist in emerging software technologies, my personal contributions on this blog will be an exploration of gaming experiences and how such important trends as social networking software will impact the way we communicate and play online. Other contributors will focus on the technologies, like the IBM Cell processor, that power the gaming experience. Still others will focus on the business of gaming. Given the broad range of experiences and points-of-view of the contributors, the discussions on this weblog are expected to be diverse and lively. However, it’s not a true discussion unless our readers get involved. We want to hear from you: about your experiences; about where you think gaming technology is going; about how these important technologies are impacting lives.

This is going to be fun.

- James Snell, XBox Live Gamertag “Diamond Lane”