Videogames are getting smarter with virtual enemies improvising during battles, storylines shifting based on moral choices and in-game characters sending players text messages for help. Titles unveiled at the just-concluded Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles feature artificial intelligence (AI), making in-game worlds more realistic and less predictable. “There was a lot we had to […]
Three versions of the same interface, optimised to suit different users’ needs. The middle panel is the default. The panel on the left was optimised for a person with cerebral palsy who makes large, spastic movements. The panel on the right is optimised for someone with muscular dystrophy who has difficulty moving the mouse quickly […]
Time Inc is going to use the Netflix rental model and apply it to magazines. Starting in September, magazine subscribers will be able to pick and choose which magazines they get each month. Time Inc’s Maghound online service will allow members to receive up to 3 magazines a month for $3.95 per month, five titles […]
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute has sequenced the equivalent of 300 human genomes in just over six months. The Institute has just reached the staggering total of 1,000,000,000,000 letters of genetic code that will be read by researchers worldwide, helping them to understand the role of genes in health and disease. Scientists will be able […]
An international team of researchers has created the first complete high-resolution map of how millions of neural fibres in the human cerebral cortex — the outer layer of the brain responsible for higher level thinking — connect and communicate. Their groundbreaking work identified a single network core, or hub, that may be key to the […]
In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or “electric telescopes,” as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even […]
