Each week, we share the top five articles that caught our attention. Here are your must-reads, published here and abroad, for the week of January 16th 2017.
Programming luck into video games
The amount of luck that programmers choose to put into a video game is carefully calculated somewhere between “too much” and “not enough”. Give players too much luck and the thrill of the challenge is gone. Give them too little and they’ll just stop playing. As a result, video game designers must constantly evaluate and re-evaluate the abstract needs and desires of players. So how do you dose luck in a video game?
→ Read it on Nautilus Pocket
Play to create
Finding a truly creative idea takes a lot of time and energy. Ian Bogost, a writer, video game designer and professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, shares his philosophy about creativity. According to Bogost, we need to play more and step outside the limits of our own imaginations. When we play like children, everything becomes a playground and, consequently, ideas and solutions begin to appear.
→ Read it on Fast Company Pocket
The rise and fall of Project Ara
On September 10, 2013, Apple launched the iPhone 5S and Dutch designer Dave Hakkens launched Phonebloks (the origins of Project Ara), an open-source smartphone made from interchangeable blocks—“a phone worth keeping.” The unveiling of this new technology caused a sensation and attracted huge investments in the first 48 hours. With so much interest and resources to bring this revolutionary idea to market, how could it fail?
→ Read it on Venture Beat Pocket
Can eSports save TV?
eSports, or competitive video gaming, brings together professional video gamers in packed arenas… just like traditional sporting events! It’s popularity has surged recently, especially with the ubiquitous Millennial. If eSports fans can’t make it to marquis tournaments like the League of Legends, they can still get their fill with televised events. Will electronic sports bring this young generation back to the small screen?
→ Read it on CMF trends Pocket
WhatsApp is getting fashionable
Although a small number of brands have jumped into the fray, WhatsApp is still in the experimental stage when it comes to marketing and customer service initiatives. Among the early adopters of the web messaging trend are a number of fashion industry giants, including Diesel, Burberry, Clarks, Agent Provocateur and Kenneth Cole. According to Hilary Milnes, fashion and technology journalist, this is a winning strategy.
→ Read it on Glossy Pocket
In your earbuds: Mon Carnet
In this episode of Mon Carnet, Bruno Guglielminetti, a consultant, analyst and speaker, and Jean-François Poulin, an expert in interactive UX design, have a chat with our President, Jan-Nicolas Vanderveken about his latest acquisition: a pair of the new Snapchat Spectacles (In French).
This week’s favourite thing
Has Hollywood finally bridged the male-female gap? To illustrate the state of equality on the silver screen, Amber Thomas, a data science researcher and co-founder of Unbox Science, analyzes 2016’s biggest movie hits with the help of interactive graphics.
Image from Forumaski.com
