chess
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Opera's browser is now available with chess baked in
Opera has unveiled custom versions of its desktop and Android browser that fans of one of the world's most enduring games might appreciate. It has teamed up with Chess.com to integrate chess directly into the browser.
A chess-playing robot broke its seven-year-old opponent's finger
In something out of Black Mirror meets Queen's Gambit, a chess robot accidentally broke a child's finger during an exhibition in Moscow.
Netflix will have to face 'Queens Gambit' defamation suit, judge rules
Netflix's attempt to get a defamation suit dismissed has been denied. It'll have to face chess legend Nona Gaprindashvili in court.
Researchers built an AI that plays chess like a person, not a super computer
They trained Maia on millions of online games played by humans.
Google's AlphaGo AI can teach itself to master games like chess
Google's DeepMind team has already advanced its AlphaGo AI to dominate Go without human input, but now the system is clever enough to master other board games without intervention. Researchers have developed a more generalized system for AlphaGo Zero that can train itself to achieve "superhuman" skill in chess, Shogi (a Japanese classic) and other game types knowing only the rules, all within less than a day. It doesn't need example games or other references.
'Dota 2' and 'League of Legends' players might be smarter than you
People who play multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBA) like Dota 2 and League of Legends perform better on problem solving and logic tests than those who play shooters Destiny and Battlefield 3, researchers found. "The specific MOBA genre is remarkable in the sense that it already engages a vast number of players across the globe, but more generally, complex, socially-interactive and intellectually demanding video games are now ubiquitous and generate a constant stream of performance data that can be normalized against millions of other players," a team from the University of York in the UK concludes.
Lenovo made an augmented reality headset for 'Star Wars' games
Here's something you probably weren't expecting out of a Disney fan event: a Star Wars augmented reality headset. Lenovo and Lucasfilm have teased headgear that uses your smartphone to bring the space epic into the real world. There's precious little to know about the hardware (not even a release date), but we already know a bit about the games you'll play. Lenovo and Disney are teasing holochess, for a start, but there's also a real-time ground battle game and Jedi Challenges, which will (naturally) have you wielding a lightsaber. In short: you're about to live out a lot of Star Wars fantasies.
ICYMI: The internet-connected chessboard of your dreams
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: A Kickstarter campaign for a chessboard that uses a robotic arm underneath to magically move magnetic game pieces has surpassed its funding goal -- and let's be real, that's probably mostly Harry Potter fans. Meanwhile, an Autodesk robotic arm is 3D printing with a stainless steel welder and some great software, that video is here. If you need some Thanksgiving motivation, the dog chopping veggies video is here and the drone is here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Facebook Messenger has a hidden chess game
It's no secret that you can use Facebook Messenger for a whole lot more than just chatting with pals, but there's still a surprise or two in store. Social networkers have discovered that Messenger has a hidden chess game (quietly available for a least a month before now) that you invoke by typing "@fbchess play" when you're in a conversation. Just don't expect an intuitive interface -- you have to use text commands for everything, so you'd better brush up on your standard chess notation. If you can live with that, though, it's a free and easy way to improve your strategic thinking when you're not busy sending stickers.
Recreate Marcel Duchamp's lost chess set with your 3D printer
Conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp was known for his "readymades," which declared everyday objects to be works of art -- most notably "Fountain," a public urinal on a pedestal. Duchamp was also something of a chess obsessive and created both an ornate tabletop set and a travel version, the latter of which he wanted to mass-produce. The first of the pair, however, was thought to have been lost to a private collector, so no-one would ever again be able to play with it at least, until now.
Pure Chess surrounds, checkmates PS4 this April
If gaming platforms are squares on a chess board, VooFoo Studios' Pure Chess almost has the PS4 surrounded. Its debut on the PS3 and Vita in May 2012 was followed by ports to the 3DS, Wii U, iPhone and Android, leaving a curious gap on Xbox platforms. That doesn't matter, though - the PS4 is about to be conquered in April, resulting in a checkmate of all of Sony's gaming platforms. Strategy enthusiasts can set up a game for $7.99, or go for the Complete Edition for $14.99 to get extra locations and set themes. If you're like our own Jess Conditt, or if you haven't won a game of chess in your life, Pure Chess includes tutorials for strategies of various skill levels. In contrast, if you're a chess master that's tired of obliterating beginners, Pure Chess offers leaderboards and tracks your ELO (a score based on a player's aptitude at outwitting opponents). Yes, it's essentially just a pretty version of chess, but can the chess board buried somewhere in your basement host matches with people hundreds of miles away? ... It can? That's, um ... huh. [Image: Ripstone Games]
Flappy Bird may return with a warning, dev has three games in the works
Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen said he is considering bringing his hit mobile game back to the market. While he's not actively working on a new version, it would come with a warning that asks players to take a break from the game. Nguyen said as much in a recent interview with Rolling Stone, one the first the indie developer conducted since he pulled Flappy Bird from Google Play and the iOS App Store last month, justifying the decision by deeming it too addictive. Nguyen said that messages he received from players accusing him of "distracting the children of the world" and that the game was "addicting like crack" reminded him too much of his own struggles in high school with Counter-Strike. Nguyen isn't done making games, however. He described three he's working on simultaneously, each with retro-style visuals and simple controls: a cowboy-themed shooter, a vertical flier named Kitty Jetpack as well as an "action chess game" called Checkonaut. The developer plans to launch one of the three games this month. [Image: Dong Nguyen]
Chess and the Automaton Endgame
Welcome to Time Machines, where we offer up a selection of mechanical oddities, milestone gadgets and unique inventions to test out your tech-history skills. Machines may need to start a union. After all, various deep thinkers have been busy for more than a century dreaming up ways to impart human-like thought processes and capabilities into them, just so they can do more of our work. Familiar names in the annals of computing's history such as Charles Babbage and Alan Turing may stand out, but wedged between those figures on the historical timeline is the perhaps lesser-known Spanish inventor and engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo. Of his many inventions, one of the most unique is "El Ajedrecista" (The Chess Player), which he presented to the Parisian public in 1914. It was a chess-playing automaton, programmed to stand against a human opponent and respond accordingly to any move they made. It knew if someone was trying to cheat, and took pride in moving its own playing pieces around the board. Most of all, it reveled in announcing a victory against its human taskmasters when it inevitably won the game.
Fun with Chess should appeal to kids and other chess beginners
Fun with Chess is an iOS app that is a nice match for kids wanting to learn how to play one of the world's greatest games. It is not a typical chess experience, because it adds in factors of luck which limits your piece's moves with a roll of the dice. The game keeps score, so you can play another person and decide a winner at any time. You can play the computer, another person face-to-face or remotely. There is a built-in chess tutorial, and a linked video with more information. To make Fun with Chess more appealing to beginners, games are limited to six pieces and six applicable rules. I suppose one could complain that this is a chess variant, rather than a standard game, but I think it is less intimidating to someone just starting out, and a good way to learn the rules. %Gallery-190591% I played the game against the computer a few times, and while it is not playing at grand master level, it gave me a pretty good run. I did not try remote play. Fun with Chess is free for a limited time, so grab it if you are interested before that changes. There are separate iPhone and iPad versions. I tested the iPad app. Another option for beginning chess players is Chess Prime HD which is also free. It shows legal moves and has other support for novices. It is a more traditional chess game, and allows play against the computer and a human opponent.
IBM celebrates the 15th anniversary of Deep Blue beating Garry Kasparov (video)
It's been 15 years since IBM's Deep Blue recorded its famous May 11th 1997 victory over world champion chess player Garry Kasparov -- a landmark in artificial intelligence. Designed by Big Blue as a way of understanding high-power parallel processing, the "brute force" system could examine 200 million chess positions every second, beating the grandmaster 3.5-2.5 after losing 4-2 the previous year. It went on to help develop drug treatments, analyze risk and aid data miners before being replaced with Blue Gene and, more recently, Watson -- which recorded a famous series of victories on Jeopardy! in 2011. If you'd like to know more, we've got a video with one of the computer's fathers: Dr. Murray Campbell and a comparison on how the three supercomputers stack up after the break. As for Garry Kasparov? The loss didn't ruin his career, he went on to win every single Chess trophy conceived, retired, wrote some books and went into politics. As you do.
Breakfast Topic: What game mechanic will WoW borrow next?
One of the most fascinating things about World of Warcraft is its wide variety of minigames and nods to classic games incorporated into the traditional narrative. The original game had an entire quest line dedicated to The Legend of Zelda. The Burning Crusade gave us chess and a flight simulator. Wrath of the Lich King added mounted combat in a big way, from drake fighting in the Oculus (boo), to storming the gates of Ulduar in steam tanks (yay), and finally medieval-style jousting (double boo). Cataclysm, of course, brought the absolutely sublime Plants vs. Zombies homage, and Mists of Pandaria will bring us the don't-call-them-Pokemon Pet Battles and FarmVille. So, dear readers, come 2014 (or so) and the next WoW expansion, what new minigame will we all be discussing? I'm leaning toward a miniature fictional world, where we hop from place to place persuading the inhabitants to unite against a greater force. That could be cool -- or maybe not, as it likely wouldn't end well. What would you like to see?
Check and mate: A look at Otherland's EightSquared simulation
Fans of Tad Williams' deliciously cyberpunk book series Otherland are almost certainly waiting with bated breath for gamigo and RealU's upcoming MMO adaptation of the universe. In hopes of making the wait just a tad easier, gamigo has released a new developer diary video focusing on the EightSquared universe of Otherland. EightSquared, as you may have surmised from the name, is a simulation in which an entire medieval countryside has sprung forth from a gargantuan chess board on which the Red and White armies are locked in an eternal war/game. But something has gone wrong with the simulation: The armies are no longer following the rules of warfare (i.e., rules of chess), and it's up to players to find out where the problem lies before things get too far out of hand and cause the destruction of the simulation itself. The full dev diary also provides a look at the game's Lifecycle AI, which breathes life into the world by providing NPCs who follow their own day-to-day schedules. So what are you waiting for? Log in to the Net and go take a look for yourself. [Source: gamigo press release]
Age of Wulin videos show life skills, combat
More Age of Wulin beta news is on tap courtesy of MMO Culture, and more video footage is available as well. The free-to-play fantasy sandbox just opened its initial closed beta phase to the Chinese market, and as a result we're getting a first look at some of the game's unique features and skills. While most MMOs focus completely on combat, Age of Wulin features some very intriguing non-combat aspects, many of which are found in the life skills tree. In addition to traditional gathering and crafting disciplines, there are also sewing, musician, artist, chess, fortune teller, and beggar skills, just to name a few. Combat isn't forgotten, course, and you can view a basic combat tutorial video and some life skill clips after the break.
Age of Wulin videos reveal interesting skills, non-combat gameplay
Age of Wulin hasn't gotten a lot of press in western markets as of yet, but the free-to-play martial arts title is one that bears watching. Aside from its appealing visuals, ancient Chinese setting, and Wuxia-style story elements, the game boasts quite a few departures from the standard MMORPG formula. The most obvious is a progression system that lacks traditional levels, but according to a preview at MMO Culture, that's not Age of Wulin's most interesting feature. The title reportedly makes use of a life skills system which includes gathering, fortune-telling, crafting, fishing, and begging (as well as 12 other skills that have yet to be revealed). Yes, we said begging, and the mechanic apparently involves a degree of anonymity when dealing with fellow players. Age of Wulin also features epic quests tied in to something called the miracle system, as well what looks to be a fairly deep guild and territory control minigame. Click past the cut to view a few gameplay videos including footage of combat, training, miracle, begging, and guild systems, and keep an eye out for players involved in unusual MMO activities including drawing and Chinese chess.
Chess engine creator disqualified for cheating, forgot to say thank you
That familiar death-knell typically confined to Bobby Fischer's favorite pastime is taking a very real step outside the chessboard to corner one of its own. In a sweeping decision from the International Computer Games Association (ICGA), chess engine Rybka -- four-time World Computer Chess Championship winner -- and its creator, Vasik Rajlich, have been banned for life from chess' nerd World Cup for the uncredited use of competitor code. Reacting to controversy that the now-deposed winner owed its upper hand to rival engine Fruit's open-source roots, the ICGA assembled a 34-person panel and reverse engineered its way to a guilty sentence. Adding more insult to title-stripping injury, the gaming association has also demanded Rajlich (pictured above) return all trophies and prize money. It's a disheartening turn of events in the otherwise exciting man vs. machine board game battle that could have been easily avoided with a public 'please' and 'thank you.' Checkmate!
