This might be what a lot of us have been searching for: Diaspora*, which is being designed to be a “personally controlled, do-it-all, distributed open-source social network.”  Developed by four students at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Diaspora* is a social network built on privacy. Essentially, Diaspora* is software that will enable users to set up their own personal servers, called “seeds,” create their own hubs and have full control over the information they choose to share amongst friends.

The project has gained a good deal of support.  The team behind Diaspora* launched a funding campaign on Kickstarter to help them achieve their plan of being able to work non-stop for the next 3 months so that the software can be released by end of summer.  The initial goal was to receive at least $10,000 by June 1st.  As of today, they are fully funded at $189,797.

I’m excited to see how this pans out and will be following the team’s progress this summer.

Apple’s next iPhone found in a bar in Redwood City? For real? Take a look here: http://bit.ly/bVN5Ma (via @Gizmodo)

For those of you who missed last night’s episode of The Simpsons, enjoy!

In times of recession, entertainment is one area of the economy that usually doesn’t suffer as much as others.  I read an article in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago, however, that the major movie studios and DVD distributors have reported that DVD purchases are down.  Interestingly enough, video games sales have been increasing since October.

Last month The New Yorker published a really interesting profile of Cliff Bleszinkski, the Creative Director of Epic Games.  Epic produces Gears of War, one of the most complex and most popular video games on the market.  When Gears 2 was released last month, it sold over 2 million units in the first weekend.

Now that Christmas shopping is officially in full swing, I am curious to see how many of our clients pick up a new video game console, and whether it will be a PlayStation, Xbox 360 or Wii.