gamification
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Amazon made social mini-games to make warehouse work less bland
Amazon has turned to video games to make warehouse work a bit less tedious while boosting worker productivity in the process, according to The Washington Post. The e-commerce giant has "gamified" warehouse workers' tasks by reflecting their progress in a video game format displayed on small screens at their stations. If they need to pick up a particular item to put into a bin, for instance, the object could light up on the screen, depending on what the game is. The approach is merely an experiment at the moment, but it has already rolled out to five warehouses in the US and the UK.
Facebook's live gameshows could take a bite out of HQ Trivia
Instead of creating its own HQ Trivia competitor, Facebook has taken a broader approach and created an entire gaming platform. The company announced polls for Live and on demand videos as well as new gamification features for Live videos. Partners like Insider, BuzzFeed and Fresno can add polls, quizzes and challenges to both individual videos as well as entire game show series.
Zepp's tennis sensor now includes a highlight camera
Unless you've got a professional coach on hand, it can be tricky to determine how good your tennis skills really are -- simply not slamming the ball into the net doesn't count, unfortunately. But for those looking to up their game, sport sensor creator Zepp has a new gadget that could help you serve your best match yet. The Tennis 2 Swing and Match Analyzer, which looks not unlike a tennis ball, fits on the bottom on your racket and measures stroke type, spin, ball speed, ball spin and accuracy, then relays the info to its iOS or Android app via Bluetooth.
Sony's Evolution UI tries to make learning Android fun
Ever get "ghost hands," where you're always trying to take the smartphone away from a novice to show them how it's done? Well, Sony is working on something a little more polite. The company has announced Evolution UI, an intentionally hobbled Android launcher that forces you to perform perfunctory tasks before you can properly use the device. For instance, when you first launch the system, you'll only be able to access the dialer, SMS app, browser and camera. If you wanted to open the app drawer, however, you'd have to earn it as an achievement by starting and closing five apps in quick succession. The idea is to turn discovering your phone's features into a series of console-style achievements and unlocks.
Businesses look to games for leadership development strategy
Leadership development is one of those corporate buzzwords that gets thrown around enough to make my eyes glaze over and my mind wander. Large businesses have complex organizational hierarchies and are always looking for ways to make themselves and their employees perform more efficiently. I have heard many a raid leader detail just how their experience organizing boss takedowns has translated into positive management skills in their workplace. Considering this, it's really not a big surprise that businesses are finally starting to look toward the system of rewards and achievements that many games employ in order to promote engagement and interactivity in leadership training programs. A recent Forbes article outlines the way a specific organization, NTT Data, is using gaming strategies to implement management training courses. Their "global head of gamification," Naureen Meraj, had the idea to make a game that put the trainees into a series of simulated leadership scenarios, and track their progress. Similarly, Deloitte's Leadership Academy tracks its participants' progress using a mission or quest format, awarding badges (achievements), and maintains leaderboards so that "players" can compare their own achievements to others. According to their own metrics, the programs have been wildly successful so far, which seems to signify a promising outlook for the gamification of certain business strategies. What do you think? Would you be more interested in professional training if it adopted certain features of your favorite games, such as WoW? Or do you want to keep your work and hobbies firmly separated?
Microsoft deputizes gamers for Enforcement United beta, awards XP for policing trolls
Microsoft wants you to help protect Xbox Live. With the Enforcement United beta, Redmond is using its customers as a first line of defense against online miscreants. If you make it into the testing pool, you'll be giving your opinion on whether or not content on the service violates its code of conduct. At first it's just Gamertags, but given Xbox One's focus on user-made media, that'll likely expand. The united enforcers won't have the last word, of course. Once the query passes through them, it's filtered into an algorithm that determines the next step: either forcing a username change, or escalating the ticket to an actual Microsoft employee for review. What's in it for you? A (hopefully) friendlier Live, and XP that'll move you through the ranks of the Halo owner's gamified participation program, Xbox Community Level. If you get in, we'd appreciate if you went ahead and flagged all those handles with "69" and "420" in them -- trust us, they'll thank you later.
The Daily Grind: Does gamification stymie your roleplay?
Some colleagues and I were discussing roleplay in MMOs the other day, and the conversation briefly touched on our preferences for MMOs as games or MMOs as virtual worlds. One of my co-workers explained that mass gamification and an inability to affect the world or other players isn't a detriment to his roleplay because it's private and personal, whereas I find myself roleplaying much less than I used to because my actions can't affect anyone or anything in most current MMOs. What about you, Massively readers? Does gamification stymie your roleplay? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: Do you bring MMOs into real life?
One of the aspects that I like about MMOs is the sense of accomplishment when it comes to achieving specific goals. Maybe they're my goals or maybe they're goals set by the game, but checking things off a list and knowing that I've made progress is satisfying. That's why I often look at real world chores like an MMO quest log these days, filling my to do list up before knocking them out. I'm only slightly disappointed when victory music doesn't play when I turn in a quest to my wife. Mental note: Must buy wife a kazoo. Anyway, do you ever experience moments where your passion for MMOs bleed over into your real life? Do you grind reputation with your boss at work? Have you found yourself opening up a fridge and wondering what kind of epic consumables are inside? Did you strip to your skivvies and dance on top of your mailbox until the neighbors complained? Is all of this a cry for help? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
WoWinSchool project nabs Gamification Summit 2013 award
Everything they learned, they learned from World of Warcraft -- or in this case, everything they taught. Congratulations are in order for WoW players and educators Lucas Gillispie and Peggy Sheehy, whose WoWinSchool program has earned a GAward for Best Use of Engagement Techniques in Education at the Gamification Summit 2013 taking place now in San Francisco. The award recognizes the effective use engagement techniques such as loyalty, gamification, and behavioral science in programs, apps, projects, campaigns, and companies. "WoW in School: The Hero's Journey" is a full-year language arts course for middle school students. While the program was initially targeted for "at-risk" youths, Gillispie and Sheehy quickly saw that the approach was a hit with learners of all abilities and backgrounds. Don't we wish our own teachers had been so open-minded and current? See how Gillispie and Sheehy win the hearts and minds of their young students in our in-depth interviews with the dynamic educators, Learn to game to game to learn and WoW goes to English class.
Fitocracy arrives for Android users needing an exercise level-up
Athletes wanting to motivate themselves with Fitocracy's game-like ranking system have had to carry an iPhone to get the full experience, at least if they wanted to go beyond the website. They've got their solution now that the Android port has arrived. Like before, it lets smartphone owners log their runs and other workouts to earn points, new levels and achievements shared with friends on the social network. Sign-ups are free for the core Fitocracy service; springing for the $50 yearly subscription (or $5 per month) supplies the option to save unlimited routines, grab others' routines, start fitness duels and test new features early. If you've been looking for that extra nudge from your Nexus to get off the couch, hit the source link.
Well-known druid blogger Lissanna lowers the boom(kin) on autism research
It's only been a couple of weeks since we reported on the crowdsourcing effort to fund the autism research of well-known Restokin blogger and Blizzard MVP poster Lissanna, aka Dr. Elisabeth Whyte of the Laboratory of Developmental Neuroscience at Penn State. So far, supporters have boosted Dr. Whyte to just over a quarter of her funding goal for the project, which focuses on how children and adolescents with autism understand language and process information from faces (such as recognizing people or understanding emotional expressions). Her goal: designing a video game to help kids with autism improve these skills. How does an MMO-playing grad student transform from anonymous gamer to well-known WoW blogger, Blizzard forum MVP, and Ph.D.-level researcher bringing gamification to the treatment of autism? If you follow the example of this lady: with ease. WoW Insider: One-fourth of your funding already under your belt -- congratulations! Our readers already know that WoW can be beneficial to kids with autism, so it's exciting to hear about a gamification project designed to help kids with autism. Lissanna: Many kids and adults with autism seem to enjoy playing video games. We have some evidence that using fun activities can motivate learning. Our goal is to develop and test the efficacy of an educational game that impacts face processing abilities and social skills. With much of the research focused on important early intervention work, there is a huge gap in the services that individuals with autism can receive when they are older. We think that a sophisticated game can fill the need for social skills services targeting older individuals to help with tasks like preparing them for jobs or developing friendships with their peers.
