Posted on November 05, 2008 at 02:41 AM in Games | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: guitar hero, guitar hero world tour, heidi klum, heidi klum guitar, video
Reblog
(0)
| | Digg This
| Save to del.icio.us
|
|
Posted on September 24, 2008 at 11:44 PM in Games | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: games, mirror rubicks cube, puzzles, rubick, rubiks cube, toys
Reblog
(0)
| | Digg This
| Save to del.icio.us
|
|
I don't know what's more disturbing... that someone made this video about an avenging unicorn spearing and eating people... or that there is a real game for sale so you can play it yourself.
Watch this amusing and disturbing video or hit skip to just buy the game... for your kids... so they can grow up... warped.
Oh, and click the reviews section after the video (or skip to get to the widget). Some Amazon buyers have a funny sense of humor!
Posted on August 26, 2008 at 01:01 AM in Games | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: avenging unicorn, avenging unicorn game, bizarre, games, killer unicorn
Reblog
(0)
| | Digg This
| Save to del.icio.us
|
|
From the Manufacturer
P.U! The guessing game of smells is an
exciting new board game where you have to smell your way through the
village of Odorville! The P.U. game includes 30 different scratch and
sniff cards divided into 3 categories: good smells, stinky smells and
mystery smells. Smells include grape, popcorn, peppermint, skunk and
even doggie poop! The beautifully illustrated, extra large 6 panel game
board is very exciting and a real treat for kids to see different
smells venues. P.U! is sure to create many laughs and provide a whole
lot of fun not only for kids but for the entire family.
Product Description
Posted on August 03, 2008 at 10:56 PM in Games | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: board game, game, guess smells, odorville, P.U. The Guessing Game of Smells, scratch and sniff, smells game, stinky
Reblog
(0)
| | Digg This
| Save to del.icio.us
|
|
Features include:
WARNING: This product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer, or birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Posted on July 22, 2008 at 03:26 PM in Games | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: cancer risk, cool, disney, features, order wall-e, remote contol robot, technology, wall-e, wall-e robot
Reblog
(0)
| | Digg This
| Save to del.icio.us
|
|
Banners, such as those saying "Go China," will not be allowed in Olympic venues. While such posters have been frequently seen during the Olympic torch global relay, the tendentious banners violate the fairness principle of an Olympic event, according to Olympic venue rules.
The rules, promulgated on Monday, 25 days ahead of the Games, by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG), advise spectators not to bring into the venues support banners and leaflets of commercial publicity, religion, politics, military, human rights and environmental and animal protection, among others.
Huang Keying, a BOCOG spectator division official, said the rules, including 22 restrictions and four prohibitions, were completely in line with the Olympic Charter. "Each spectator is subject to the rules aimed at maintaining security and order of the venue."
Li Yong, a BOCOG volunteer department staff, told Xinhua people with banners would be stopped at the entrance security check. Spectators should cheer for both Chinese and foreign athletes, Li said.
Earlier last month, 800,000 Chinese volunteers began practicing routines to cheer on athletes -- both Chinese and foreign -- at the Games.
They were trained to do a four-step cheer in unified sportswear, with easy-to-learn slogans. They are required to stand up when national anthems are played and to remove trash at the end of an event.
The f-words used by Beijing natives, a unique local style of verbal abuse, were definitely banned among spectators.
The rules also ban banners and flags larger than two meters by one metre, flags of non-participating members, photo-shooting with a flash, drunkenness, nudity and gambling, sit-ins, demonstrations, as well as soft drink containers, musical instruments, including whistles, long umbrellas, cigarette lighters, cameras and radios at venues.
Lip gloss, fountain pens and sunscreen in small quantity are allowed.
Animals, except guide dogs, were also not allowed in the venues.
The organizer reminded spectators to dress normally and not deliberately display commercial logos on clothes or be part of a group of people wearing identical patterned clothes.
Zhang Zhenliang, director of the Games' inquiry center, said spectator rules were always one of the most difficult parts of the Games preparation as they must ensure an orderly, happy and harmonious environment.
The rules book have been delivered to spectators along with tickets. Overseas spectators could see the rules on-line or dial "12308."
Zhang said the inquiry center operated daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. in several languages. "Many overseas spectators inquired about whether they could bring babies into the opening or closing ceremony venue." It was not advised.
Li Bingshuang, a Beijing office worker, had tickets for the beach volleyball and rhythmic gymnastics events. She carefully read the rules book attached to the tickets.
"I know little about specific rules of each Games, but I'm sure I should clap after athletes completed their routines, but not in the middle of it," she said.
Zhang said the restrictions and prohibitions were roughly the same as those of the Athens and Sydney Games. The "spectator version" of the rules book features a simple and vivid language.
Huang said the Beijing Olympic venue rules were different than those of previous Games as the national situation and local habits were different, adding Athens had banned large quantity of coins being taken into venues. Beijing, however, did not have such a restriction.
"Beijing locals like to use a parasol to block out the sunshine. But we have to remind people not to open umbrellas in the seating areas so as not to block others' view," she said, adding collapsible umbrellas were acceptable for being taken into venues.
"We have specially trained staff to communicate with spectators and point out their misconduct."
Li said whistles and cigarette lighters were most likely to be ignored by spectators and common at venues. "They seem natural for a game, but whistles could disturb athletes and lighters are classified as dangerous goods."
On Monday, BOCOG also launched a "Good Habit for a Good Games" campaign by distributing "Smiling Wristbands" in five Olympic colors to the public to promote "civilized watching, smile commitment."
Meanwhile, an large-scale etiquette campaign was launched outside the Olympic venues. More than 4.3 million local families were given "etiquette manuals" and 870,000 taxi drivers, government workers, restaurant waiters and bus conductors attended such courses.
Posted on July 14, 2008 at 10:54 PM in Games | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: allowed items, animals, cheering, flags, lip gloss, logos, olympics, pens
Reblog
(0)
| | Digg This
| Save to del.icio.us
|
|
TROY, N.Y. - Edd Hifeng barely merits a second glance in "Second Life." A steel-gray robot with lanky limbs and linebacker shoulders, he looks like a typical avatar in the popular virtual world.
But Edd is different.
His actions are animated not by a person at a keyboard but by a computer. Edd is a creation of artificial intelligence, or AI, by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who endowed him with a limited ability to converse and reason. It turns out "Second Life" is more than a place where pixelated avatars chat, interact and fly about. It's also a frontier in AI research because it's a controllable environment where testing intelligent creations is easier.
"It's a very inexpensive way to test out our technologies right now," said Selmer Bringsjord, director of the Rensselaer Artificial Intelligence and Reasoning Laboratory.
Bringsjord sees Edd as a forerunner to more sophisticated creations that could interact with people inside three-dimensional projections of settings like subway stops or city streets. He said the holographic illusions could be used to train emergency workers or solve mysteries.
But first, a virtual reality check.
Edd is not running rampant through the cyber streets of "Second Life." He goes only where Bringsjord and his graduate students place him for tests. He can answer questions like "Where are you from?" but understands only English that has previously been translated into mathematical logic.
"Second Life" is attractive to researchers in part because virtual reality is less messy than plain-old reality. Researchers don't have to worry about wind, rain or coffee spills.
And virtual worlds can push along AI research without forcing scientists to solve the most difficult problems — like, say, creating a virtual human — right away, said Michael Mateas, a computer science professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Researching in virtual realities has become increasingly popular the past couple years, said Mateas, leader of the school's Expressive Intelligence Studio for AI and gaming.
"It's a fantastic sweet spot — not too simple, not too complicated, high cultural value," he said.
Bringsjord is careful to point out that the computations for Edd's mental feats have been done on workstations and are not sapping "Second Life" servers. The calculations will soon be performed on a supercomputer at Rensselaer with support from research co-sponsor IBM Corp.
Operators of "Second Life" don't seem concerned about synthetic agents lurking in their world. John Lester, Boston operations manager for Linden Lab, said the San Francisco-based company sees a "fascinating" opportunity for AI to evolve.
"I think the real future for this is when people take these AI-controlled avatars and let them free in 'Second Life,'" Lester said, " ... let them randomly walk the grid."
That is years off by most experts' estimations. Edd's most sophisticated cognitive feat so far — played out in "Second Life" and posted on the Web — involves him witnessing a gun being switched from one briefcase to another. Edd was able to infer that another "Second Life" character who left the room during the switch would incorrectly think the gun was still in the first suitcase.
This ability to make inferences about the thoughts of others is significant for an AI agent, though it puts Edd on par with a 4-year-old — and the calculus required "under the hood" to achieve this feat is mind-numbingly complex.
A computer program smart enough to fool someone into thinking they're interacting with another person — the traditional Holy Grail for AI researchers — has been elusive. One huge problem is getting computers to understand concepts imparted in language, said Jeremy Bailenson, director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University.
AI agents do best in tightly controlled environments: Think of automated phone programs that recognize your responses when you say "operator" or "repair."
Bringsjord sees "Second Life" as a way station. He eventually wants to create other environments where more sophisticated creations could display courage or deceive people, which would be the first step in developing technology to detect deception.
The avatars could be projected at RPI's $145 million Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, opening in October, which will include spaces for holographic projections. Officials call them "holodecks" in homage to the virtual reality room on the "Star Trek" television series.
That sort of visual fidelity is many years down the line, just like complex AI. John Kolb, RPI's chief information officer, said the best three-dimensional effects still require viewers to wear special light-polarizing glasses.
"If you want to do texture mapping on a wall for instance, that's easy. We can do that today," Kolb said. "If you want to start to build cognitive abilities into avatars, well, that's going to take a bit more work."
Posted on May 18, 2008 at 05:41 PM in Games | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Reblog
(0)
| | Digg This
| Save to del.icio.us
|
|