Kellogg Co. is introducing new technology in the U.K. that allows it to burn its famous signature onto individual cereal flakes by using lasers.
Kellogg’s Corn Flakes with brandingEnlarge
The technology, which was developed in Britain, is being used in a trial to stamp out imitation cereals — which Kellogg calls “fake flakes” — by branding Corn [...]

Some might argue that game design is an art form, something not meant to be taken apart and analyzed, but researchers at IT University
of Copenhagen believe that
making the game design process more scientific could actually enhance player
experience. Their goal is to create games that
adapt to players’ personalities, which they believe would make video and computer games more entertaining.

For their experiment, described in full in an article in New Scientist this week, the researchers broke down Nintendo’s successful Super Mario Bros. in an
attempt to quantify what aspects made the game fun or frustrating for different
players. Some players, the researchers found, preferred fun tasks, such
as kicking turtle shells and acquiring coins, while others seemed to take more
pleasure in challenging tasks like clearing difficult jumps.

The research team has been presenting their preliminary data
at various computer intelligence conferences this fall. Their early results
suggest that controlling for certain features, such as reducing the number of
challenging jumps for fun-seeking players, improves players’ reception of the
game. But, for now, the researchers are still primarily focused on collecting and
analyzing player data. You can take theSuper Mario test yourself at this Web site (it requires a brief survey, then four rounds of a modified Super Mario level).

[Image from Pedersen, Togelius, Yannakakis 2009]

Living in Lake Tahoe sometimes requires one to step back and take the rest of the world into account. After all living in such a homogeneous culture I find myself often considering normal what the majority would consider absurd or at very least a bit insane. I raise the point though that sanity is all [...]

While Mother Nature let her soft white powdery stuff rain down on Tahoe over the past weekend, Colorado has already been getting their fair share of the inaugural winter showers. Several storms over the past week and cold temps have given way to opening day! Get your boards waxed up and grab that stick of [...]

Funny, I was just talking to my buddy Derek the other night about how nice it would be to have a tri-fold monitor that hinged and would allow a user to have multiple screens with the sleek performance of a laptop. Well, as it turns out, they may not be that far off!

Dual-screen notebooks are [...]