Google’s Stadia Problem? A Video Game Unit That’s Not Googley Enough

The tech giant likes to test and tweak. Stadia promised to change the industry and failed to deliver. From a report: Google’s streaming video game service Stadia had ambitious plans to disrupt the gaming industry, which is dominated by consoles. The tech giant had planned to pack Stadia with original content, announcing two years ago that it was hiring hundreds of…

Lawmaker Proposing ‘Grand Theft Auto’ Ban Says Video Game Contributes To Carjackings

Koreantoast writes: With the number of carjackings more than doubling in the city of Chicago during 2020, one lawmaker knows who to blame: the video game “Grand Theft Auto.” According to Chicago ABC 7, Democratic State Representative Marcus Williams believes the video game is causing the rise in carjackings, stating that “Grand Theft Auto’ and other violent video games are getting…

AI smashes video game high scores by remembering its past success

An artificial intelligence that can remember its previous successes and use them to create new strategies has achieved record high scores on some of the hardest classic Atari video games Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2269085-ai-smashes-video-game-high-scores-by-remembering-its-past-success/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

Apple is Trying To Drag Valve Into its Ongoing Legal Battle with Epic Games, and Valve Wants Nothing To Do With It

A new court filing has revealed that, as part of the ongoing legal battle between Apple and Epic Games, Apple subpoenaed Valve Software in November 2020, demanding it provide huge amounts of commercial data about Steam sales and operations going over multiple years. From a report: Apple subpoenaed Valve under the basic argument that certain Steam information would be crucial to…

Research Linking Violent Entertainment To Aggression Retracted After Scrutiny

Science magazine: As Samuel West combed through a paper that found a link between watching cartoon violence and aggression in children, he noticed something odd about the study participants. There were more than 3000 — an unusually large number — and they were all 10 years old. “It was just too perfect,” says West, a Ph.D. student in social psychology at…

Scientists teach pigs how to play video games

A new study has demonstrated just how quickly pigs can adapt to tasks that were previously totally alien to them. The fact that pigs are remarkably in… Source: https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/343818/scientists-teach-pigs-how-to-play-video-games…

Epic’s New MetaHuman Tool Lets You Craft Realistic Faces Inside a Browser

Epic Games has announced a new, browser-based software tool powered by its Unreal Engine called the MetaHuman Creator that can craft highly realistic human faces and help power more realistic body movements and facial animations. The Verge reports: Epic says the MetaHuman Creator can be used in conjunction with modern motion capture and animation techniques for creating lifelike movements and human…

Build colonies or save spacecraft in the best video games set on Mars

As real spacecraft begin to arrive at the Red Planet, let’s celebrate with Mars-based games like Surviving Mars, where you build colonies, and Tharsis, where you captain a doomed spacecraft Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24933210-600-build-colonies-or-save-spacecraft-in-the-best-video-games-set-on-mars/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

Amazon’s Next CEO Says He’s Committed To Making Video Games

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: One day before he was named the next chief executive officer ofAmazon.com Inc., Andy Jassy reaffirmed his commitment to making video games while acknowledging the stark challenges the team has faced, according to an email to staff reviewed by Bloomberg. Jassy expressed support for Mike Frazzini, the head of Amazon Game Studios and…

Elon Musk Says His Start-Up Neuralink Has Wired Up a Monkey To Play Video Games Using Its Mind

Tesla boss Elon Musk said in an interview late Sunday that a monkey has been wired up to play video games with its mind by a company he founded called Neuralink. CNBC reports: Neuralink put a computer chip into the monkey’s skull and used “tiny wires” to connect it to its brain, Musk said. “It’s not an unhappy monkey,” he said…