Trees, rocks, logs, and bushes make for a great playground. An elementary school in Vancouver, Canada, installed a lovely garden of playtime delights for under $9,000. The children seem to enjoy it as well: As the garden has grown over the last two years, its play value has increased. Kids play hide
Each year, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) puts out the results of its survey of gamers. In last year and previous years, the surveys showed that a fair amount of gamers were middle-aged, a trend that gave the impression that the gaming market was becoming broader. But this year’s surve
Cathode ray tube monitors (CRTs) are no longer being manufactured. Good riddance to those oversized monsters, right? Well, since CRTs have less lag than LCDs, retro gaming may never be the same. Why would anyone want to put up with the size and weight of a CRT these days? One reason is the refresh
A new research study looks at the possibility of deliberately forgetting a story from one’s past. Researchers had participants remember a short instance inspired by a keyword, pair another word with it, and then repeat this procedure for 23 more word pairs (read word, remember something associated w
Interactive proofs are when humans or some theoretical questioner ask a computer questions, and they can’t trust the computer to really understand what they’re getting at. Asking multiple computers different questions makes this style of proofing more efficient. But because quantum physics is weird,
Does it really matter which way you hang a Kandinsky? According to a study by George Mather at the University of Sussex, the answer is yes: Experiment 1 asked whether naïve observers can appreciate the correct orientation (as defined by the artist) of 40 modern artworks, some of which are entirely a
Murder in the Dark, Mafia, Hide-and-Seek: these free-to-play games have long been part of the neglected history of street games. Ludocity is a site dedicated to real-world street and social games and houses a list of game rules and events. Some of the games on Ludocity overlap with theatre, painting
It’s fun to play with LEGO, building things and then imagining how they fit into a world. The versitility of LEGO make them great tools for psychologists, who use them to asses spatial reasoning, as play therapy for autistic children, and to help salarymen and women think creatively. David Whitebre