Computers and internet
All of the world coming together
Why Playing Video Games Can Actually Be Good for Your Health
Það eru um 1.23 milljarðar fólks allstaðar í heiminum sem að eyða um klukkutíma á dag, að meðaltali, að spila tölvuleiki. Jane McGonigal finnst þetta vera frábær hlutur.
McGonigal er leikjahönnuður- og höfundur. McGonigal byrjaði ræðu sína með því að segja frá staðreyndum um leiki sem eru, viðurkennandi, óhugnandi: allstaðar í heiminum, eyðum við 1.75 milljörðum mínútna á dag að spila Candy Crush. Vissulega er eitthvað betra hægt að gera við tímann?
En i gegnum ræðu sína, útskýrði hún fyrir áheyrendum sínum hvernig their ættu að endurhugsa sínar hugmyndir um hvað tölvuleikjaspilun sé. Þegar fólk spilar leiki, segir hún, að þeir séu „óaðskiljanlegir frá skapandi verkefnum.“
Hennar punktur er útskýrður frá vísinalegu sjónarhorni: tölvuleikjaspilun, McGonigal segir, að sé tilfinningalega andstæðan við þunglyndi.
Þegar við spilum tölvuleiki, höfum við „skynjun á okkar möguleika á því að verða betri og að takast, og meiri likamleg og andleg orka fer til þess að kljást við erfiðari vandamál,“ McGonigal útskýrði,“ og það er í raun lífeðlisfræðileg ástand and tölvuleikjaspilun.“
Samkvæmt McGonigal, þegar fólk spilar tölvuleiki, hafa heilaskannanir sýnt að mest virki hluturinn af heilanum sé sá hluti sem sé verðlaunaferlis hugsunakerfið, sem að sé tengt inn í hvatninga og markmiða hlutann, og „hippocampus“, sem að er tengt lærdóm og minni. Þessir tveir meginpartar í heilanum örvast ekki þegar fólk er með þunglyndi.
Þegar McGonigal varð fyrir heilaskadda fyrir nokrrum árum, bjó hún til sinn eigin leik til þess að hjálpa sér að þjáfast. Leikurinn hét Jane the Concussion Slayer, McGonigal kom upp með sitt eigið leyndarmáls samsemd, leitandi að vinum til að hjálpa sér að læknast og gaf sjálfri sér „power-up“ í hvert sinn þegar hún náði nýju marki í þjálfun sinni. Hún breytti þessu í forrit sem að heitir „superbetter“ til þess að hjálpa öðrum sem að eru að fara í gegnum þunglyndi, kvíða, heilaskadda og ólæknandi veikindi. Og hún segir að örva þetta hugarástand hjálpar fólki að læknast betur, og hraðar.
Þetta er afhverju McGonigal vill frekar annað heiti fyrir fólk sem að elska tölvuleiki, til hliðar við hugtakið gamers : „ég will að fólk sem að spilar mikið tölvuleiki sé ekki bara skilgreint sem gamers, heldur einnig fullvaldað vongoðar einstaklinga,“ segir hún.
There are 1.23 billion people worldwide who spend an hour a day, on average, playing video games. Jane McGonigal thinks this is a great thing.
McGonigal began her talk by acknowledging that there are some statistics about gaming that are, admittedly, discouraging: worldwide, we spend 1.75 billion minutes a day playing Candy Crush. Surely there must be something better to do with that time?
But throughout her talk, the designer explained to the audience how to rethink their perceptions of what gaming is. When people play games, she posits, they are “wholeheartedly engaged in creative challenges.”
Her point is borne out by science: gaming, McGonigal says, is the neurological opposite of depression.
When we play video games, we have a “real sense of optimism in our abilities and our opportunities to get better and succeed, and more physical and mental energy to engage with difficult problems,” McGonigal explained, “and that is actually the and psychological state of game play.”
According to McGonigal, when people play video games, brain scans show the most active parts of the brain are the rewards pathway system, which is associated with motivation and goal orientation, and the hippocampus, which is associated with learning and memory. These are the two main parts of the brain that don’t activate when people are suffering from depression.
So when McGonigal suffered a traumatic brain injury a few years ago, she created her own game to help herself heal. Called Jane the Concussion Slayer, McGonigal came up with a secret identity for herself, sought out allies to help her get better and gave herself “power-ups” when she reached new benchmarks in the healing process. She’s turned this into a program called “SuperBetter” to help others work through depression, anxiety, brain injuries and chronic illnesses. And she says activating this “gameful mindset” helps people heal better, and faster.
This is why McGonigal prefers a different term for people who love video games, besides the term ‘gamers’: “I like to think of people who spend a lot of time playing games not just as gamers, but as super-empowered hopeful individuals,” she said.
source: http://time.com/4051113/why-playing-video-games-can-actually-be-good-for-your-health/
Why this article?
This article shows that playing video games can not only be bad for your health but also work against illness and depression better than other cure. Since it activates certain parts of your brain that is hard otherwise to activate
Sýndarveruleikinn tekur völdin hjá CCP
Tölvuleikjaframleiðandinn CCP gefur í dag út sinn fyrsta leik á sviði sýndarveruleika (e: Virtual reality, VR).
Gunjack kemur út fyrir Samsung Gear VR búnaðinn sem hannaður er fyrir Samsung farsíma og er skotleikur sem gerist í EVE heiminum. Leikurinn er sérstaklega hannaður fyrir sýndarveruleika, segir í fréttatilkynningu.
„Markmið okkar með Gunjack var að sýna fram á það besta sem Gear VR tæknin hefur upp á að bjóða. Við þróun leiksins reyndum við að nýta þessa nýju tækni til hins ýtrasta þannig að spilari leiksins fari í annan heim þegar hann setur á sig Gear VR búnaðinn, og við vonum að þeir sem spili Gunjack hafi jafn gaman af því að spila leikinn og við höfðum að því að gera hann,“ er haft eftir Jean-Charles Gaudechon, framleiðslustjóra Gunjack í fréttatilkynningu frá CCP.
Gunjack byrjaði sem prufuverkefni og fyrst leit dagsins ljós á EVE Fanfest hátíðinni í Reykjavík í mars síðastliðnum undir heitinu Project Nemesis. „Í kjölfar góðra viðbragða gesta og blaðamanna þar var ákveðið að halda áfram með þróun verkefnisins og var formlega tilkynnt um útgáfu hans sem tölvuleiks á Gamescom ráðstefnunni í sumar,“ segir enn fremur í tilkynningu.
Computer game producer CCP is publishing their first virtual reality game. Gunjack will be published on the Samsung Gear VR equipment that is desigend for Samsung and is a shooting game that takes place in the EVE world. It says in the press release that the game is especially made for the virtual reality. „our goal with Gunjack was to show all the best things that the Gear VR thecnology has to offer. By the evolving of the game we tried to push this new thecnology to it‘s fullest so the player of the game goes into another world when he puts the Gear VR equipment on, and we hope that those who will play the game will have just as much fun playing the game as we had fun making it.“ This is the words from Jean-Charles Gaudechon, producing manager of the Gunjack in a press release from CCP. Gunjack started as a testing project and was first shown at the EVE Fanfest festival in Reykjavík in the last march under the name Project Nemesis. „in the following of good reaction from the guests and new reporters was it then decided to keep going with evolving the game and it was formally announcement the publication of the project as a computer game on Gamescom convention during this summer.“
Source: http://www.mbl.is/frettir/taekni/2015/11/20/syndarveruleikinn_tekur_voldin_hja_ccp/
Why this aritcle?
This Icelandic company that only had EVE online before has released another game and that is exciting for the gamer community. Also that they will be using the the virtual reality to the fullest.
Interview with Þórhallur Hálfdánarson
Þórhallur is 34 years old and is working for a company named OZ, he has been working there for over a year now. His field of work is information technology (IT). He has been working in this field for 18 years and in that time he also has been in the telecommunications business. His main work at OZ is to make sure that the inner and outer system is working alright, that the company is using good service provider and that there is good supervision. He makes some programs and he also takes part in supply logistics. Almost everything they program is made in a Java script (Node.js). His specialty is trying to not really to specialize in anything but rather be good on many fields. His previous works has been computer programming, system and network management, installation and running telecommunication, project management and consultation. You could say that Þórhallur has been all around his field and knows a lot about the computer programming world, telecommunication and television.
Why this person?
Simply because he knows a lot about the field of work that the future is most about. Þórhallur has a lot of experience and has been working for many companies that involve computer programming and computers overall
Ted.com (3 talks)
She talks about how hackers are important to see the weaker elements for example how the security of some of the sites even the government or other high seated websites. Some hackers can‘t pass the chance of getting a better life and doing things for their own, but others can help websites to get higher security. Hackers can influence much more than just the internet just by getting to information that people were not supposed to get and spread them, even just by taking down sites or for example how hackers got internet in Egypt when the government shut it down. Hackers don‘t always need to be the „bad“ guy in these situations but can be the hero for many. She describes the hackers as the Internet‘s immune system.
this article is exiting and and is related to computers. It‘s interesting because of all this security surrounding the internet and how easy it can be for people somewhere in the world to overthink the people that are making these protections.
http://www.ted.com/talks/keren_elazari_hackers_the_internet_s_immune_system
He talks about how the short gap between physical world and computer world where everything is pixels. He made it possible to have your hands inside the computer world so you could touch and organize what ever you wanted, he said it would come in handy for example architects and would easy their jobs as they could just reach in and change what they wanted. This is of course not the computer world it self but you are grabbing pixels with your own hands and making them do whatever you want them to do. This is going further than the touchscreens because you are actually „touching“ the pixels themselves. He then says that the only thing standing between the computer world and the physical world would be the imagination.
This article drove interest because people maybe don‘t think there is no real explanation for how he could really touch the pixels, this shows how technology has become a lot further than most think. Maybe one day there will be a material that would show you what is on the screen in physical and be able to change and adapt as if what you do to it.
http://www.ted.com/talks/jinha_lee_a_tool_that_lets_you_touch_pixels
He talks about how the you could interact with videos that has never been done before and you can remix it you how you want and even have live update in the video, so you could come to the video then it would show you images from flickr of a certain subject and a week later you go to the same video and then the there would be new pictures. It changes the real feature of for example youtube where you have to put a notification that you can push on and that will lead you to a certain webpage than to just have the link and go straight to the webpage. This program also helps a lot by editing videos more efficiently
This article has some interesting points that is not really out there in the world now. To see that the progress was that in 2012 leads people to want to see the future of this kind of programs
http://www.ted.com/talks/ryan_merkley_online_video_annotated_remixed_and_popped