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POPSThe Future of Gaming I have tried to capture some hints about the future of gaming. As the author remarks: "For now, the only way to predict the future of gaming is to predict that all predictions will be wrong." Yet, it seems that in the not so far future, games are going to deeply affect the way we perceive our world. Especially the younger generations will be affected, and to some extent it is already happening. It seems that eventually games will not only affect our perception of the world, they WILL become a substantial part of our world.
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POPSLifelike Animation Breakthrough AMD last week released a new chip with a billion transistors that will be able to show off creations such as Emily by allowing a much greater number of computations per second. "If you're trying to process the graphics in a photo-realistic animation, in real-time, there's a lot of computation involved," said Mr Koduri. He said that AMD's new chip - the Radeon HD 4870 X2 - was able to process 2.4 teraflops of information per second, meaning it had a capability similar to a computer that - only 12 years ago - would have filled a room. AMD's chip fits inside a standard PC. But he said that the line between what was real and what was rendered would not be blurred completely until 2020.
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POPSNew games powered by brain waves In a report this week USA Today newspaper said game maker Uncle Milton plans to release a similar game this year. Called "Force Trainer" it is named after "The Force" powers of Yoda and Luke Skywalker in the popular Star Wars films. The game calls for players to lift a ball inside a transparent tube using their powers of concentration. "It's been a fantasy everyone has had, using The Force," the daily quoted Howard Roffman, president of Lucas Licensing, as saying. "Force Trainer" also uses electroencephalography, or EEG, to measure electrical activity in the brain recorded on a headset containing sensors.
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POPSSecurity Services Want Your Personal Data, Clippers! The plan will need international cooperation since many of the new CSPs are based abroad, notably in the US. "International cooperation"... as in global? Nice. .:) They say the planned new legislation would apply only to communications data - such addresses and names - but not to the actual contents of the communications. Intercepting the contents would still need ministerial warrants. Warrants? For eavesdropping, spying, invasion of privacy and data collecting? AAAhahaha, good one! That is SO old school. .:lol: Clearly concerned about a public backlash against the plan, officials stress that the government is not building up a single central database containing personal information of everyone in the country. Sure. We believe you. Yessiree! We sure do. We even get to pay for it ourselves! Won't that be fun. .:D
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POPSSpore - A Computer Game to Teach our Children Long Term Thinking This game is about evolution and exploring our universe at all scales from the microscopic to the galactic. It is about the 'Big Picture' of life, and how to think about it in a multilevel multiscale fashion. It will give a real grasp of the complexity and interconnectedness of life, and will educate the players holistic long term thinking and planning. Watch the fascinating presentation of Will Wright in TED. Toys may change the world by changing us. I am all for it, and can't wait playing :-)
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POPSHAVE A PIECE OF CAKE ART I'm going to be doing my daughter's wedding cake in just over a week from now. It won't be as spectacular as these cakes but it will be pretty. I haven't done a fancy cake in years.
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POPSHolographic television to become reality "It took us a while to make that first breakthrough, but as soon as you have the first element of it working the rest often comes more rapidly," he said. "What we are doing now is trying to make the model better. What we showed is just one color, what we are doing now is trying to use three colors. The original display was four inches by four inches and now we're going for something at least as big as a computer screen." There are no more great barriers to overcome now, he said. The breakthrough has made some long-time researchers of the technology believe that it could now come to fruition.
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POPSIAD, Internet Addiction Disorder "US academics have found that more than one in eight Americans showed at least one possible sign of problematic internet use, with some web surfers already starting to seek medical help." "The Chinese manual would be the first of its kind in the world, adding to the controversy over whether compulsive internet use should be officially viewed as a mental disorder." I think that eventually we will have to recognize it as an added capability of the human, the netting/wired sense or a sort. certainly not a disorder.
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POPSA game for life "The challenge is to learn enough about the brain changes induced by different technologies and types of games in order to be able to guide them, enhancing functions that result in a functional and behavioral advantage for each individual. If done properly, the motivating, almost addictive, nature of these technologies, may actually prove a very valuable ally to achieve desired goals in education, medical treatment, and rehabilitation." I do agree to the point that it is up to us, humans, to pour the meaning into the availability that is technology.
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POPSLess killing, more kissing "Nintendo brought casual gaming mainstream with the Wii and DS consoles. Facebook games are of Nintendo quality but add the compelling social aspect of playing with your friends and family across the internet." "Games have been popular activities since the beginning of civilisation. began as a social activity, a form of play, interaction, connection and sharing. On Facebook they have come full circle, using the latest technologies to connect us with each other and have fun doing it."
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POPSLet's see what humans can do What world record are you capable of setting? We believe every person on earth has potential to be the world's best 'something'. URDB's mission is to become the database where all such achievements will live.
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POPS"Do Humans Have 23 years to Go?" Play Superstruct and Find Out -Invent the Future! “The survival horizon identifies the point in time after which a threatened population is expected to experience a catastrophic collapse,” GEAS president Audrey Chen said. “It is the point from which it a species is unlikely to recover. By identifying a survival horizon of 2042, GEAS has given human civilization a definite deadline for making substantive changes to planet and practices.” According to Chen, the latest GEAS simulation harnessed over 70 petabytes of environmental, economic, and demographic data, and was cross-validated by ten different probabilistic models. The GEAS models revealed a potentially terminal combination of five so-called “super-threats”, which represent a collision of environmental, economic, and social risks.
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POPSWorld of Warcraft: Study in Disease Response An interesting look at behavior during an infectious disease outbreak. Why _anyone_ would go around deliberately infecting people is beyond me but no matter the amount of personal moral outrage, this is part of human behavior.
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POPSSo,ladies,are you password protected? Only downside is you will have to change the password every time someone figures it out :-) Don't you just love the space invaders top? To every female clipper that is a gamer at heart! (myself included)