Articles tagged as Games and Competition

Google’s New AI Can Beat Human Champions at the Game of Go

Google appears to have won the long race to develop a Go-winning artificial intelligence, considered a major step towards more human-like AIs

January 27, 2016

The Museum of Pinball in Banning, California, boasts a treasure trove of vintage and modern pinball machines and arcade games.

Cool Finds

Take a Turn at the Flippers This Weekend at the World’s Largest Pinball Museum

So you didn’t win the lottery: why not try your hand at a game of pinball?

January 15, 2016

A four-year-old beagle from British Columbia, Miss P was awarded the 2015 Best in The Show at Westminster Kennel Club dog show.

Cool Finds

How to Prep Your Pooch to Win Best in Show

Pro-Tip: hope the judge is in a good mood

December 16, 2015

Straights and flushes are terrible hands in "Kansas City Lowball," which a poker player unexpectedly found himself playing at the World Series of Poker

Christian Pham overcomes an embarrassing mistake to take home some big money

June 19, 2015

Fear the claw. More often than no, claw machines are likely rigged for you to lose.

Cool Finds

Here’s How Claw Machines Are Rigged to Make Sure You Lose

That’s why simply grabbing a prize is so deceptively difficult

June 11, 2015

Bust some ghosts in this board game based on the 1984 classic.

This Week in Crowdfunding

A Ghostbusters Board Game, Lights That Respond to Music and Other Wild Ideas That Just Got Funded

Also, a sensor that uses thermal technology to track the amount of gas left in a tank

March 13, 2015

This "smart" mattress cover can track sleep patterns along with respiration and heart rates.

This Week in Crowdfunding

A “Smart” Mattress Cover and Other Wild Ideas That Just Got Funded

Don’t have a green thumb? A sensor for your potted plants alerts you when they need watering

February 27, 2015

Cards Against Humanity now owns a private island in Maine.

Cool Finds

Cards Against Humanity Has a Private Island

“Hawaii 2” started as a joke, turned into an island owned by the card game and licensed to its players

February 6, 2015

Some of the game’s early tokens doubled as prizes in Cracker Jack boxes.

Monopoly Was Designed to Teach the 99% About Income Inequality

The story you’ve heard about the creation of the famous board game is far from true

January 2015

The mind behind Simon was the innovator Ralph H. Baer.

The Not-So-Simple Simon Proved the Young Were Swifter Than the Old

In 1978, the new blinking, bleeping toy ushered in the era of computer games

September 2006

Cool Finds

19th Century Concern Trolling: Chess Is “a Mere Amusement of a Very Inferior Character”

The writers of Scientific American had some not nice things to say about chess

November 10, 2014

Irish students refine their winning entry, a method for promoting crop growth

A flying fruit fly-inspired robot and a bacterial solution for world hunger are among the three winners

September 23, 2014

The maze is constructed out of glossy maple plywood.

Washington, D.C.

The Winding History of the Maze

Love the idea of getting lost in crooked pathways? Check out the National Building Museum’s summer installation

July 31, 2014

New Research

No Matter How Much You Practice, If You Don’t Have Natural Talent You Still Might Never Be the Best, Some Experts Think

Yet other researchers think that different factors, such as the quality and timing of practice, matter most

July 15, 2014

How Scientists Are Using Games to Unlock the Body’s Mysteries

They’re not just for kids anymore

July 2014

Challenge Yourself With Ken Jennings’ Latest “Playful” Puzzle

Can you figure out this exclusive new brain teaser from the “Jeopardy!” champion?

July 2014

Cool Finds

This Geometry Game Is Nerdy, Addictive Fun

Bisecting an angle has never been more fun

June 27, 2014

Behind the Unceasing Allure of the Rubik’s Cube

The 80’s fad should’ve fallen into obscurity—somehow it didn’t

July 2014

One champion later said he and his co-winner were competing against the dictionary, not each other

May 30, 2014

For its 40th Birthday, the cube goes digital

May 19, 2014