Does your robot seem to be acting a bit neurotic? Maybe it’s just their personality. Recently, a team of researchers has designed computer-coded genomes for artificial creatures in which a specific personality is encoded. The ability to give artificial life forms their own individual personalities could not only improve the natural interactions between humans and artificial creatures, but also initiate the study of “The Origin of Artificial Species,” the researchers suggest.
The first artificial creature to receive the genomic personality is Rity, a dog-like software character that lives in a virtual 3D world in a PC. Rity’s genome is composed of 14 chromosomes, which together are composed of a total of 1,764 genes, each with its own value. Rather than manually assign the gene values, which would be difficult and time-consuming, the researchers proposed an evolutionary process that generates a genome with a specific personality desired by a user. The process is described in a recent study by authors Jong-Hwan Kim of KAIST in Daejeon, Korea; Chi-Ho Lee of the Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul, Korea; and Kang-Hee Lee of Samsung Electronics Company, Ltd., in Suwon-si, Korea.
“This is the first time that an artificial creature like a robot or software agent has been given a genome with a personality,” Kim told PhysOrg.com. “I proposed a new concept of an artificial chromosome as the essence to define the personality of an artificial creature and to pass on its traits to the next generation, like a genetic inheritance. It is critical to provide an impression that the robot is a living creature. With this respect, having emotions enhances natural human-robot interaction for human-robot symbiosis in the coming years.”
Today Zeevex announced its intent to launch the first-ever “open virtual currency platform,” essentially a virtual currency that’s convertible into other virtual currencies from Zeevex’s partner games. The virtual currency would be loaded into an online “Digital Locker” created when a user purchased a Zeevex prepaid card and went to the Zeevex website to redeem it. The prepaid cards will be handled by InComm, a partner in the new venture.
“The open aspect of the Zeevex Virtual Currency will allow even non-game operator partners to offer content for which gamers can use their Zeev Tokens. This creates multiple revenue streams for online game operators from their existing gamers that will always flow through our brick-and-mortar retail partners. Zeevex is a really exciting development in the prepaid card space,” Dave Etling, VP of Product Development at InComm, said in a statement.
The Zeevex currency, called Zeev Tokens, can be spent in increments as low as $.5 and can be spent on subscription fees and one-time purchases in addition to in-game microtransactions. The Zeev Token’s value is fixed to the value of the US dollar (1 Zeev Token to $.01) to prevent inflation, which combines with Zeevex’s retail-only model to also try to prevent fraud and gold selling.
Zeevex notes that trusted partners would be able to access the lockers as well, in order to deposit virtual items and currency as part of giveaways and loyalty reward programs. In addition, gamers can trade Zeev Tokens to each other through the Zeevex Gamer-2-Gamer service.
The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere.
We have 700+ videos on YouTube covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, and finance which have been recorded by Salman Khan. He has also developed a free, adaptive math program available here.
The upcoming Mirror’s Edge is one of the most original-looking titles to come out of the new-style quality-driven Electronic Arts since the company’s creative realignment is announced. It was developed by its DICE studio in Sweden, which is best (and, at this juncture, almost exclusively) known for its Battlefield series of shooters.
What drove the creative philosophy of this game? The visuals and gameplay are a departure from the grittiness and combat-focused world of those games.
In this in-depth interview, producer Nick Channon spells out the inspiration for these decisions, outlining some of the methodology — as well as the thinking behind the approach the game ultimately ended up with.
So, the most obvious, interesting choice about this game is that it’s first person. There are a few free running- or parkour-inspired games out right now, but as far as I’m aware, this is the only one that’s first person; how did you guys end up with that?
NC: Well I think at DICE we’ve done a lot of first person work, and so that kind of inspired us to create [this] — we wanted to create something quite urban, and we wanted to create a game that was all about movement.
I think the other thing was, as well, that we really wanted to create a connection with you and the character, and the fact that you’re playing the game through the eyes of Faith; as soon as you get to third person, you would be watching Faith, whereas we want you to be connected to her.
The analogy we give is “being in an action movie, instead of playing it”, and I think that’s more rewarding. And I think, also, we wanted to create something very fresh, and it’s been a challenge, but we’re really pleased with where we are.
Today, the cream of the games press honored the top of the crop by doling out the 10th annual Game Critics Awards: Best of E3 2008 honors. This year, the Best of Show prize went to Fallout 3, Bethesda Softworks’ upcoming update of the classic postapocalyptic role-playing game series. Due out this fall, Fallout 3 also won Best RPG at the event, beating such opponents Lionhead’s Fable 2 and BioWare’s Dragon Age: Origins.
