The original Pokémon television show stressed friendship and loyalty. So why does Pokémon Go feel more like digital dogfighting? Pumping Pokémon full of "stardust," caging them in pokeballs and only bringing them out again for combat: Pokémon GO offers a far bleaker narrative than previous iterations of the franchise. What does it mean when our technology starts to cast aside the standards of decency and morality we hold dear? More
Tag Index / Showing 1 - 7 of 7 results for “gaming”
From Messaging to Gaming, Mark Zuckerberg Is Buying
Just five weeks after acquiring mobile messaging app WhatsApp (for a whopping $19 billion), Facebook announced Tuesday it plans to buy Oculus, the virtual reality headset startup that's been the talk of the town—the gaming town, that is—even though it has yet to send a single product to market. The $2 billion buyout includes 23.1 million shares of Facebook stock and $400 million in cash. Techonomy CEO and Bloomberg contributing editor David Kirkpatrick appeared on Bloomberg Surveillance Wednesday to talk about Facebook’s objectives in acquiring Oculus, both now and in the future. “They can win with this purchase,” Kirkpatrick said, adding that Oculus can help Facebook achieve its short-term goal of building a stronger gaming platform. More
Huawei Eyes Big Growth, ZTE Rolls out Game Box
Telecoms giants Huawei and ZTE are in the headlines for their newer product initiatives, as each tries to offset slowing growth in their core telecoms equipment business. Of the pair, Huawei’s news looks the most bullish, with the company targeting a sharp rise in smartphone sales as it sets its sights on overtaking Apple as the world’s second largest seller. Meanwhile, ZTE has formally rolled out its new gaming console, the FunBox, which looks a bit more exciting that I’d originally imagined and carries an extremely low price tag. More
You Can Teach an Old Brain Young Tricks
In recent years many educators have endorsed the benefits of video games in learning, both for younger students and at the university level. But now brain scientists have discovered that a multitasking video game can also improve the short-term and long-term focus of older adults, The New York Times reports. The study found that some people as old as 80 even showed neurological patterns of 20-year-olds after playing the game, which involved swerving around cars while simultaneously picking out road signs. More
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Why Gaming Is Working in Higher Ed
As a planet, we spend 7 billion hours a week playing video and computer games, and about 5 million of us are playing an average of 45 hours a week. It is no surprise that educators are taking a serious look at gaming theory and “badging” in the classroom to increase student engagement and motivation. Top tech institutions such as MIT acknowledge that the persistence, risk-taking, attention to detail, and problem solving commonly observed among game players are all “behaviors that would be regularly demonstrated at school.” More
Gamers Help Map Brain’s Machinery in Retina Unraveling Challenge
Citizen scientists playing the online game Eyewire are helping neuroscientists map the J cells of the retina—a task that will help understand the machinery of the mind. MIT professor of computational neuroscience, Sebastian Seung, described the approach at Wired 2012. More
An Education in Computer Gaming
For nearly a decade, gaming has been touted as one of the next big trends in educational technology. At first, many dismissed the use of computer games as learning tools, but now both educational leaders and gaming companies are starting to take the idea seriously. More
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