November 19, 2008 by sean.

More on “brain training” [via techradar]:

Researchers at the Universite de Montreal found that cognitive workouts for athletes can boost their reaction speeds by up to 53 per cent.

Professor Jocelyn Faubert put a dozen football, tennis and hockey players through multiple object-tracking exercises, then measured their ability to absorb and manage lots of information simultaneously.

Posted in games and simulations, science, neuroscience, bionics | No Comments »

November 18, 2008 by sean.

Researchers use game theory to explain how natural selection can prevent individuals in a species from evolving toward a single optimum personality [via PhysOrg]:

“More generally, the question of ‘why personality variation evolves’ requires a more complex answer, which we’re only just starting to unravel as evolutionary biologists,” [Sasha Dall of the University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus] said. “The chances are that there isn’t just one reason, and which particular reason is relevant depends on the context. So far, our social awareness reason is one of the few that has been proposed to explain variation in a cooperative context. Social awareness also appears to work in an aggressive context: individuals adopt consistent levels of aggression to avoid getting in real fights, since if someone can predict you’re going to be aggressive, they will avoid provoking you; individual differences arise via frequency dependence again, as the more aggression there is around you, the less you should bother fighting – this is the famous Hawk-Dove game outcome.”

Posted in games and simulations, science | No Comments »

September 21, 2008 by sean.

From virtual pets to virtual boyfriends [via techcrunch]:

In Japan, girls are crazy over virtual boyfriends. Webkare (Web Boyfriend in Japanese), a mix between a social network and dating simulation site, is Nippon’s newest web sensation. Geared exclusively towards girls, the site attracted over 10,000 members just 5 days after its release on September 10, racking up 3.5 million page views in the same time frame.

Posted in games and simulations, fun, social networks | No Comments »

February 5, 2005 by sean.

“Night of the Hermit is one of many games available online that were created by fans of the dying genre. From Space Quest to Zak McCracken, fans determined to see the adventure continue have written their own chapters to the sagas.” /Wired News/

Posted in games and simulations | No Comments »

February 4, 2005 by sean.

“(A)nyone who uses a visual medium to communicate faces the same challenges as everyone else, whether they use PowerPoint, After Effects or Maya. You could argue that using PowerPoint is theoretically harder than other design challenges, because it’s a tool you use not just to compose graphics, but also integrate them with your physical presence as you deliver them real-time to a live audience. But in any case, the problem is the same — how do we communicate effectively with other people?  According to what was said at the event, the singular answer for motion graphics designers is: tell a story.” /beyond bullets/

Posted in games and simulations, software | No Comments »

January 27, 2005 by sean.

“Kids today don’t listen to music on the hi-fi or TV. They’re all into gaming and it’s by playing the latest hot video games that they discover new music and artists.” /cooltech.iafrica.com/

Posted in games and simulations, software | 1 Comment »

January 26, 2005 by sean.

Uplink is a game out of the UK about “High tech computer crime and industrial espionage on the Internet of 2010.”

I originally heard about this game via VirusFox: “And this goes for games as well. Some may or may not remember my fondness for a game by the name of Uplink. It’s a small game but it provides hours of entertainment. It might not seem like fun but if your into: computers, security, cyberpunk, etc. Do yourself a favor and buy the game.”

Posted in games and simulations, software | No Comments »

January 23, 2005 by sean.

“e23 offers game material, in digital form, from Steve Jackson Games, Issaries, and other selected publishers. Surf our site for the files you want . . . and get them instantly with a credit card or PayPal.” /e23/

Posted in games and simulations, software | No Comments »

January 20, 2005 by sean.

“There’s a new Interactive Fiction FAQ for those new the puzzly pleasures of these programs that are games, potential narratives, and worlds. Some of us put it together recently on ifwiki, which Dave Cornelson has installed as a resource (and collaborative writing space) for the IF community.” /Grand Text Auto/

Posted in games and simulations | No Comments »

January 18, 2005 by sean.

“One of the most hotly anticipated games of the new millennium has been R. Talsorian’s Cyberpunk 203X, the third incarnation of the definitive Cyberpunk RPG. After some rethinking, restructuring and much grumbling by fans (myself included), it appears that there’s finally a neon light on the horizon. The R. Talsorian website is now featuring a 15 page PDF preview of the forthcoming Cyberpunk 203X. But that wasn’t enough for us–we went right to the source, and spoke with Mike Pondsmith himself, to get some insight into what went into the new game, and what’s to come.” /Gamegrene.com/

Posted in games and simulations | No Comments »

December 31, 2004 by sean.

“Façade is an artificial intelligence-based art/research experiment in electronic narrative – an attempt to move beyond traditional branching or hyper-linked narrative to create a fully-realized, one-act interactive drama. Integrating an interdisciplinary set of artistic practices and artificial intelligence technologies, we are completing a three year collaboration to engineer a novel architecture for supporting emotional, interactive character behavior and drama-managed plot. Within this architecture we are building a dramatically interesting, real-time 3D virtual world inhabited by computer-controlled characters, in which the user (hereafter referred to as the player) experiences a story from a first-person perspective. Façade will be publicly released as a free download / cd-rom in spring 2005.” /InteractiveStory.net/

Posted in games and simulations | No Comments »

December 5, 2004 by sean.

“We’re living in a science fiction world. The headlines of our newspapers trumpet cloning experiments, the teleportation of atoms, computers controlled by brainwaves, robots that walk and play musical instruments, private planes that carry passengers to the edge of space, space probes that rendezvous with asteroids, and implantable devices that restore hearing to the deaf. When miracles like these are the baseline, how can fantasy measure up? More simply put: Why on earth should we read science fiction? Here are some of the reasons…”/BusinessWeek/

Posted in games and simulations, scifi | No Comments »

December 5, 2004 by sean.

“The Connections 2004 Military Modeling and Simultion Conference was held on August 23-27, 2004, at and near the US Air Force Academy in Colorado.

The goal of Connections is to increase the defense utility of all conflict simulations by facilitating their evolution toward greater comprehensiveness and accessibility. Our concept for reaching that goal is to encourage the Defense and Commercial wargame communities to learn from each other and from subject matter experts in those areas of conflict that are typically not modeled well. Methods to accomplish this cross-feed include: lectures, seminars, DoD and commercial wargames demos and several social/networking events.” /DOD Game Developer’s Community/

Posted in games and simulations | No Comments »