Wired is reporting that Dave Lebling and Mark Blank, two of the co-creators of Zork and co-founders of Infocom, will be honored with the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ Pioneer Award at the DICE Summit in February.  Read the whole announcement here and then check out an interview conducted with Lebling by Wired writer Chris Kohler.  In an interesting twist, the interview is presented as a playable text adventure using Playfic, an online community that lets you write, remix, share, and play interactive text-based games with the world.

More precisely,  a Special Merit Award.  The Recording Academy yesterday released its annual list of Grammy Award nominees and at the same time, the 2012 Special Merit Awards recipients.  This year’s list includes the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.  Jobs will posthumously receive the Trustee Award at a special invitation-only ceremony to be held during Grammy Week on Feb. 11, 2012.  A formal acknowledgment will be made during the 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards telecast, which will be held at Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012, and broadcast live at 8 p.m. ET/PT on the CBS Television Network.

The Trustee Award recognizes outstanding contributions to the industry in a nonperforming capacity.  You can read the Recording Academy’s press release here.