Category Archives: Gaming

Real life vs. online life: For kids, is there a difference?

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Image: bob al-greene / mashable Welcome to Small Humans , an ongoing series at Mashable that looks at how to take care of – and deal with – the kids in your life. Because Dr. Spock is nice and all, but it’ s 2018 and we have the entire internet to contend with. When Amber Petersen noticed her seven-year-old daughter was spending progressively more time playing games online, she reached back into the 1800s for a little instruction. On a summer day this year, as Brooklyn explored a virtual playground on Roblox, the popular gaming platform designed for young kids, Petersen read out loud from Meet Kirsten , a kids’ chapter book based in the 1850s that’ s part of doll-maker American Girl’ s historical fiction series.   “ I thought it would encourage her to open her mind since she had been so immersed in her video games prior … Continue reading →

How Playing Video Games Affects Your Body And Brain

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Video games are one of the most popular and commonly enjoyed forms of entertainment of our time, yet there’s a lot of controversy around them. The World Health Organization recently decided to add “gaming disorder” to its official list of mental health conditions, stating that gaming behavior could qualify as problematic if it interferes significantly in other areas of people’s lives. Some people have also suggested there are links between playing video games and violent behavior, especially in the wake of tragic events like the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. “I’m hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts,” President Donald Trump said after the Parkland shooting. President Obama had similar questions after the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newton, Connecticut. “Congress will fund research into the effects that violent video games have on young minds,” he said at the time … Continue reading →

100+ Ghost Stories To Read In The Dark

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1. She nearly died in an elevator. I heard this when I was in Korea. One day a girl was walking home late night after work or something. It was dark and around midnight. She lived an apartment where they had elevator. She got in the elevator and when the door was about to close, a strange man with very red hoodie entered the elevator. He apologized for scaring her and asked which floor she is heading to, without making an eye contact. She told him out of fear and the man casually press the button and the one below. As they were on the way, he asked her for her cell phone if he could use it but she declined out of suspicious and isolated herself in the corner. After seconds of silence, elevator arrived to the floor below the one girl was heading to and the door opened. The … Continue reading →

The future of human-robot interactions looks a lot more optimistic after this video

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Picture: Rockstar Games / Eidos Montreal / Naughty dog – Amalgamated by mashable It’ s Villain 7 days here at Mashable. In honor of the release associated with Venom, we’ re celebrating all of our favorite evildoers from film plus TV all week long. Odd, scary! Its not all video game needs a villain, but worth keeping can make a strong game even better. Villains provide us reasons to fight. They inspire the story. Sometimes, they even view the error of their ways and change teams. Usually though, villains symbolize the ultimate threat, the last obstacle in order to overcome before you can lean back in fulfillment as a game’s credits roll. SEE ALSO: The women of ‘Ozark’ give new meaning to the male-centric crime genre There’s a long and colorful good memorable video game villains. We’re position them here based not upon who’s “best, ” but rather whoms “worst. … Continue reading →

A giant crawling brain: the jaw-dropping world of termites

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At least half of termite studies used to be about how to kill them. But science is discovering their extraordinary usefulness In July 2008, Irented asmall yellow car in Tucson, Arizona, and drove it south towards Tombstone. My passengers included an entomologist and two microbial geneticists, and Iwas following awhite van with government plates carrying nine more geneticists. We also had 500 plastic bags, avacuum flask of dry ice, and 350 cryogenic vials, each the size and shape of apencil stub. We had two days to get 10,000 termites. The goal was to sequence the genes of the microbes in their guts. Because termites are famously good at eating wood, those genes were attractive to government labs trying to turn wood and grass into biofuels (grassoline). The white van and the geneticists all belonged to the US Department of Energys Joint Genome Institute. Perhaps by seeing exactly how termites break … Continue reading →

CollegeHumor unveils Dropout, a subscription service for comedy videos, comics and more

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CollegeHumor is getting into the subscription business with a new service called Dropout . Dropout is part of CH Media, the IAC -owned subsidiary that also includes Dorkly, Drawfree and CollegeHumor proper. It’ s not just a subscription video service. Yes, there will be ad-free video series, many of them starring familiar faces from previous CollegeHumor shows, but Dropout will also offer comics and chat stories. The shows include “ Dimension 20: Fantasy High, ” which CollegeHumor describes as what you’ d get “ if John Hughes ran a tabletop RPG, ” plus a second season of “ Lonely and Horny” starring Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld. Many of the comics and chat stories will tie into the series in some way, and there will also be a members-only Discord channel allowing subscribers to interact with CollegeHumor creators and stars. Chief Business Officer Shane Rahmani said that rather than SVOD … Continue reading →

Loot boxes face scrutiny from an international coalition of gambling authorities

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The world of online gaming is changing so quickly that players, developers, publishers and regulators are all scrambling to keep up with each other. Case in point: loot boxes, randomized in-game rewards that may or may not have monetary value or be purchasable with real money, are after years of deployment only now being scrutinized globally for being what amounts to thinly veiled gambling. A suggestive new study from British researchers and a just-announced coalition of governments are the latest indicators that the loot box phenomenon and its derivatives likely won’t continue to be the wild west they’ve been for the last few years. Many factors have led games to resemble services or channels more than pieces of entertainment with a start and end. And that in turn has changed how these games are monetized. As an alternative to a $60 up-front cost or a $10/month subscription, a game may … Continue reading →

Magical Footage From New ‘Harry Potter’ Video Game May Have Leaked Online

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Harry Potter ” video gaming have run the gamut from pretty horrible to downright unplayable ― the particular LEGO versions are a welcome exclusion ― so 10 points in order to whoever is responsible for this rumored brand new entry in the series.   Reddit user posted video footage   to YouTube on Mon,   characterizing it as a cut from a currently unannounced video game.   The game appears to borrow heavily from your Potterverse,   and it looks like some thing wonderful this way comes for fans from the fantasy series.   while going to a focus group .   can still view a mirror version of the video right here. But a Beasts, fantastic or perhaps, also make a few appearances, along with goblins, trolls, owls and a huge winged creature getting some screen period.   The Reddit user even released what appears to be an official … Continue reading →