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remember the discussion I tried to trigger in the team a few weeks ago ...

I love the linked article provided by Johannes! It expresses very elegantly why I still fail to understand even extremely smart and busy people in my view apparently waiting their time in playing computer games - but I recognise that there is something in games that we apparently need / gives us something we cherish .... "In fact, half a million players so far have registered to help destroy the 64 billion tiny blocks that compose that one gigantic cube, all working in tandem toward a singular goal: discovering the secret that Curiosity's creator says awaits one lucky player inside. That's right: After millions of man-hours of work, only one player will ever see the center of the cube. Curiosity is the first release from 22Cans, an independent game studio founded earlier this year by Peter Molyneux, a longtime game designer known for ambitious projects like Populous, Black & White and Fable. Players can carve important messages (or shameless self-promotion) onto the face of the cube as they whittle it to nothing. Image: Wired Molyneux is equally famous for his tendency to overpromise and under-deliver on his games. In 2008, he said that his upcoming game would be "such a significant scientific achievement that it will be on the cover of Wired." That game turned out to be Milo & Kate, a Kinect tech demo that went nowhere and was canceled. Following this, Molyneux left Microsoft to go indie and form 22Cans. Not held back by the past, the Molyneux hype train is going full speed ahead with Curiosity, which the studio grandiosely promises will be merely the first of 22 similar "experiments." Somehow, it is wildly popular. The biggest challenge facing players of Curiosity isn't how to blast through the 2,000 layers of the cube, but rather successfully connecting to 22Cans' servers. So many players are attempting to log in that the server cannot handle it. Some players go for utter efficiency, tapping rapidly to rack up combo multipliers and get more

why are video games so much different than collecting stamps or spotting birds or planes ? One could say they are all just hobbies

what seems to be an impressively detailed space game

> The games we write are always games with a scientific purpose (not training not educational) I'd say investigating how to get the crowd may be an important part of "science of crowdsourcing". So, an obvious example would be comparing how many participants the original ACT space mission game attracted versus a variant implemented in Kerbal and why. Easily made and easily publishable I think. But that's just an obvious example I can give on the spot. I think there is more potential than that, so would not dismiss the idea so definitively. But then, correct me if I'm wrong, social sciences are still not represented in the ACT... Perhaps an idea to revive during the upcoming retreat? ;-)

it's on sale on steam til tomorrow by the way if anyone's interested

for Press & Dyson's paper check:  http://edge.org/conversation/on-iterated-prisoner-dilemma http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1206569109

online game developed by Thales as part of improving their recruitment!! who want's to give it a try (in your spare time in the nights of course ....) reminds me of the idea that we have been bouncing around since some time on the use of games for engaging students in our scientific research ...

Something for Kevin? Space-related on-line games...

I don't put too many geeky stuffs here, but that may be a game to have a look at :) not that "The Space Game" wasn't "fun".

NASA did it! In 5 years from now, ESA will release its first educational computer game.

Good, but where are the Xenomorphs attacking the astronauts?

You're right! And they even dare to call it serious!

Public role game engine. It could be useful for creating a strategy game inspired on ESA.

Hmm it seems that we should really push this project forward...

You can use idle computers as extra computing power in a big run, or you can use idle personnel as extra computing power by making them play computer games:

"A new Angry Birds-style game is set to help launch a new understanding of quantum science. Some find the concepts of quantum science confusing or unintuitive. Einstein even called quantum effects "spooky." To help people better understand some of the core concepts of quantum science, the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) at the University of Waterloo is launching a game - the Quantum Cats" Looking forward to see the ACT winning the Quantum Cats competition :)

already on slashdot with a lot of comments. Amazing work, I have no words ! I will just start playing

best comment, act style : If we assume teleporters, it wouldn't even take a second. Therefore my completely unrealistic solution is much better than your completely unrealistic

Is this how your day looks like? Think out of the box and you will win this poetic and very artistic game

Did you know that? (Obviously you should, as it's GSP)

I was actually at the mid-term review in Sweden last year. Also played the game for a few minutes. The final presentation is next week in case anyone in the ACT is interested.

Discover fundamentals of computer programming by playing a board game!

We must buy this game...... Vid: http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=on4wM4KBgUc&feature=relatedid

new game by NASA ... !

Commit Assist Tool allows predicting bugs in large code bases typically found in AAA-games.

"A paper posted online in January takes theoretical computer scientists halfway toward proving one of the biggest conjectures in their field. The new study, when combined with three other recent papers, offers the first tangible progress toward proving the Unique Games Conjecture since it was proposed in 2002 by Subhash Khot, a computer scientist now at New York University. Over the past decade and a half, the conjecture - which asks whether you can efficiently color networks in a certain way - has inspired discoveries in topics as diverse as the geometry of foams and the stability of election systems. And if the conjecture can be proved, its implications will reach far beyond network-coloring: It will establish what is the best algorithm for every problem in which you're trying to satisfy as many as possible of a set of constraints - the rules in a sudoku puzzle, or the seating preferences of a collection of wedding guests, for instance."