Games are all about emotions, how people feel. Game designers usually focus on the story of the game and the game mechanics. However, designing game for specific player types and gamer emotion is equally important in game design. Student in my New Technology class of 2013, Arelíus Sveinn Arelíusarson, did research about designing games for emulations. In his paper he documents the basic background of game design. He compares three models for player types and suggest an new model based on Yee’s model. This is the abstract:

One of the biggest news for the Consumer Electric Show (CES) in Las Vegas earlier this year (2013) was the avalanche of smart watches. This is five years after LG introduced it’s smart watch at the same show in 2009 and 63 years after Dick Tracy. What’s different now is the interoperability of the watch with your smartphone and even the cloud. As I have argued, the important development in last few years is how our digital profile is becoming cloud based. That means, our information is available in all device all the time. Syncing is ubiquitous.

The latest hit is undoubtedly the Pebble from Pebble Technology. This Kickstarted developed watch is already famous for asking for $100.000 and getting over $10 million in funding. It is also crowd-developed with potential buyers deciding what they find important in a watch. For example, which colours to support.

Now Apple is rumoured to be developing iWatch a companion to the iPhone and the iOS ecosystem. Some reports say that this is some years away since the glass technology is not ready, but others say that it may become available soon.

This interesting may seem strange, in particular because it is coming from a generation that simply don’t wear watch. The digital generation which grew up with computers and cellphones, never got used to wristwatches. There was no need. The environment is surrounded with time. Why have a single function device that is also redundant. Now the watch less generation is discovering watches.

The idea of a smart watch is not new. Microsoft developed it’s SPOT technology at the beginning of the century. SPOT stands for Smart Personal Object Technology and was not specifically targeted at watches but every day household items, such as coffee machines, alarm clocks and satnav devices. The service was based on FM radio signals and was more like a broadcast. The service started in 2004 and was discontinued in 2011. SPOT is an interesting technology. It was too late in the race for GPS devices it was too early for watches.

The new generation of watches is different. There are three ways in which this is different now. First, smartphones have become very popular and widespread. Having a watch that syncs with your smartphone is possible. Of course watches can have 3G or 4G connectivity. Second, we now have contant connectivity. They are always-on and syncs with your smartphone. And thirdly, these are powerful computers. These computers can be built today. So according to the adjacent possible, smart watches are ready for the market.

Another thing that is also different is that smart watches are customised for your own content and can display notification such as emails or messages. Having a constant view of what is going on is sure to fuel the  checking habit, a syndrome where people are in constant need to check for something new.

We have yet to see if the watch will take off significantly and disrupt traditional watches. We have to realize that these watches are just one of many things we will see come in the next few years. It represents a whole category of things – Internet of things. New objects as well as old everyday object are becoming aware of their environment and connected using wi-fi or 3G/4G. We are seeing the beginning of the wearable revolution. Indeed, this will become the decade of the wearables.

Robots have a mystical place in our imagination. Even in literature as old as time have people talked about magical humanlike machines that perform some tasks. In modern times the image of the robot has been shaped by fiction ranging form H. G. Well’s War of the Worlds to Arthur C. Clark’s 2001: Space Odyssey. First practical use of machines came with the industrial revolution. It was energy that made them possible and they transformed western societies. First the energy was steam and later electricity. Now we are entering into a new revolution where the next generation of machines or robots are coming to market. In the next few years we will see a revolution in robot technology. The age of the robot is here.

Robots of the 20th century are far from the imagination of a humanlike intelligent machine. In fact, a more accurate term for a robot in the workpalce would be “industrial machine”, where machine is used to preform task to automate the work process. And they are far from humanlike. Anything outside of this automated process, the machine can’t handle, since it is programmed to perform only one task or series of tasks very well. And since they are expensive, they are only cost effective at large scales.

We are now seeing shift in robot technology. This shift is driven by a few factors. Advances in software engineering is allowing more sophisticated software to be developed. Furthermore, advances in hardware and storage allow even small robots to have real operating systems and layers of advanced software running. Capacity is not a problem anymore, neither is size.

New input and output technologies or human computer interaction (HCI) are revolutionising robotics. Robots can now see and hear. Robots, or machines of the 20th century were blind and deaf. Now voice commands are becoming more normal as people are talking to their devices. Processing of language is getting to the point that these commands are processed with high accuracy. Seeing with video cameras allows robots to adjust to variation, like picking up objects in variable locations, and detect abnormalities. Vison allows for automatic jobs that previously required human vision, for example in food processing and harvesting.

Then there are advances in artificial intelligence. Robots can learn. Robots that can be specifically trained to perform specific tasks by demonstation. With software improvements  robots can also pickup behaviour and automatically adjust to patterns.

Anything that is operated by software can be updated easily. Robots can become software platforms, where developers add new skill sets to existing robots and sell these as apps in the robot app store. For example, if you want to add new language skill to your robot, just install a language app. If you want to add medical skills just add the doctor app. This allows robot makers to create a new generation of robots - personal robots, similar to personal computers.

We are already seeing something like a personal robot. One example is Baxter from US company Rethink Robotics:

Robots like Baxter, which can be trained to do specific tasks, is simple to operate and does not have to be segregated from people, will transform manufacturing. Labor costs will drop as fewer people are needed. According to Kevin Kelly in his Wired article, Better than human, he predicts that 70% of occupations today will be eliminated due to machines by the end of this century. Jobs today that humans do but can be replaced by machine, will eventually be replaced.

First and most obvious would be manufacturing jobs where the same actions are repeated on an assembly line. As an example, Foxconn, the company that puts together Apple products like the iPhone and got into news due to poor worker conditions, plans to replace it’s workforce with robots.

Foxconn’s move is out of necessity. Affordable robots will change manufacturing from massive scale to a more local scale. Jobs that were outsourced to countries with cheap labor, such as in Asia, will return to local countries since the transport cost starts to become an issue.  This can have profound impact on the world economy. We will see manufacturing return back to the US and Europe. Even Apple is starting to assemble computers in the US. That might be a good thing, but it remains to be seen if the jobs follow.

Technical unemployment due to machines will be a challenge. With better software and new input technologies robots will impact sectors like military, healthcare, education, cleaning services, domestic help, agriculture, fishing and much more. General purpose robots are just in the early phase. Cost will drop and they will become more and more sophisticated. Jobs that we thought machines could never do, will be automated or profoundly changed. Be prepared to move over, a robot is taking your job.

The first computer games emerged soon after the first electronic computers were built. One of the first games was Spacewar! It was a two-player game where each player tries to destroy the other. Competition has always been part of computer games and when the first local area networks emerged, computer games like for example Doom took advantage of the new network to allow multiplying. With the Internet, competing in game playing is taken to a new level. Over the last few years, game playing organized as sports events have become popular.

New Technology student Georg Ólafsson wrote for the 2012 course a paper titled The future of electronic sports. From the introduction:

The objective of this course is to look at innovations and technology trends, learn from history, and use theories of innovations to see lessons and try to see patterns so we can evaluate new technology currently emerging and interpret the impact.

In the course we look at how to keep up to date on technology trends. In particular we will look at communications, wireless devices, mobile phones and the TV, home appliances, the Internet and other consumer devices. Many common devices are changing and taking on new roles. The course will discuss what future trends will emerge, which standards and companies will be successful, and the effects that the technology will have on society.

As a term project, students will perform research and write a research paper on technology, its possibilities and effect on society.

This is the trailer for the course: