Crash Course
Input Devices: Crash Course Games
Today we're going to talk about controllers. Controllers are incredibly important in the gaming experience because they are how we communicate actions within a game and often play a significant role in why we like or dislike certain...
TED Talks
Tom Chatfield: 7 ways games reward the brain
We're bringing gameplay into more aspects of our lives, spending countless hours -- and real money -- exploring virtual worlds for imaginary treasures. Why? As Tom Chatfield shows, games are perfectly tuned to dole out rewards that...
TED Talks
Torsten Reil: Animate characters by evolving them
Torsten Reil talks about how the study of biology can help make natural-looking animated people -- by building a human from the inside out, with bones, muscles and a nervous system. He spoke at TED in 2003; see his work now in GTA4.
TED Talks
Herman Narula: The transformative power of video games
A full third of the world's population -- 2.6 billion people -- play video games, plugging into massive networks of interaction that have opened up opportunities well beyond entertainment. In a talk about the future of the medium,...
TED Talks
Johnny Lee: Free or cheap Wii Remote hacks
Building sophisticated educational tools out of cheap parts, Johnny Lee demos his cool Wii Remote hacks, which turn the $40 video game controller into a digital whiteboard, a touchscreen and a head-mounted 3-D viewer.
TED Talks
Peter Molyneux: Meet Milo, the virtual boy
Peter Molyneux demos Milo, a hotly anticipated video game for Microsoft's Kinect controller. Perceptive and impressionable like a real 11-year-old, the virtual boy watches, listens and learns -- recognizing and responding to you.
TED Talks
David Perry: Are games better than life?
Game designer David Perry says tomorrow's videogames will be more than mere fun to the next generation of gamers. They'll be lush, complex, emotional experiences -- more involving and meaningful to some than real life. With an excerpt...
TED Talks
TED: The board game getting kids excited about school | Joel Baraka
Going to school in a refugee camp can be complicated: students encounter crowded classrooms, rigid curricula and limited access to teachers. Joel Baraka, who grew up in the Kyangwali refugee camp in Uganda, is determined to change that...
TED Talks
Philip Zimbardo: The demise of guys?
(NOTE: Statements in this talk have been challenged by scientists working in this field. Please read "Criticisms & Updates" below for more details.) Psychologist Philip Zimbardo asks, "Why are boys struggling?" He shares some stats...
TED Talks
TED: How online abuse of women has spiraled out of control | Ashley Judd
* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences. Enough with online hate speech, sexual harassment and threats of violence against women and marginalized groups....
SciShow
Video Games Hack Your Brain (In a Fun Way)
Most of us can probably think of a time when we were enjoying a video game and then suddenly...it's 2 am. And that may not be entirely your fault! Video games are designed with elements that suck you in and put you in a state of flow,...
TED Talks
Cosmin Mihaiu: Physical therapy is boring -- play a game instead
You've just been injured, and you're on the way home from an hour of physical therapy. The last thing you want to do on your own is confusing exercises that take too long to show results. TED Fellow Cosmin Mihaiu demos a fun, cheap...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How to get better at video games, according to babies | Brian Christian
In 2013, a group of researchers wanted to create an AI system that could beat every Atari game. They developed a system called Deep Q Networks (DQN) and less than two years later, it was superhuman. But there was one notable exception....
Crash Course
Casual Gaming: Crash Course Games
Today, we're moving on from game consoles to talk about a bigger shift that was happening in the gaming industry. In the mid 2000s, we saw a proliferation of Internet accessible devices and with them gaming would expand to a new...
TED Talks
TED: 3 lessons on decision-making from a poker champion | Liv Boeree
Is it better to be lucky or good? Should we trust our gut feelings or rely on probabilities and careful analysis when making important decisions? In this quick talk, professional poker player Liv Boeree shares three strategies she's...
Crash Course
MMORPGs - Crash Course Games
So we ended the last episode with casual gaming and a more connected gaming community, but these connected communities started much before smartphones and Facebook. Today, we're going to talk about MMORPGs - or Massively Multiplayer...
Crash Course
The Dawn of Video Games: Crash Course Games
Over the next few episodes we're going to talk about the history of video games. Today, we're going to start with the first re-programmable computers in the 1940's. Now, these computers were serious tools. They were for codebreaking and...
TED Talks
Ze Frank: My web playroom
On the web, a new "Friend" may be just a click away, but true connection is harder to find and express. Ze Frank presents a medley of zany Internet toys that require deep participation -- and reward it with something more nourishing....
SciShow
Laser Fusion Gaming Revolution and 5 Awesome Irish Scientists
Hank tells us about laser fusion, the sequencing of the gorilla genome, some evidence of life elsewhere in the universe, a revolution in gaming, and his top five Irish scientists.
TED Talks
Stuart Brown: Play is more than just fun
A pioneer in research on play, Dr. Stuart Brown says humor, games, roughhousing, flirtation and fantasy are more than just fun. Plenty of play in childhood makes for happy, smart adults -- and keeping it up can make us smarter at any age.
TED Talks
TED: The awesome potential of many metaverses | Agnes Larsson
In the multitude of metaverses that exist there are infinite possibilities for inclusivity and creativity. Inviting us to craft our own digital universes, Minecraft's game director Agnes Larsson shares how the experience of building and...
Crash Course
The Video Game Crash of 1983: Crash Course Games
So the 1980s was the golden age of arcade games. Games like Donkey Kong, Pac- Man, Space Invaders, and Centipede had become a cultural phenomenon. These games had expanded the gamer demographic and even encouraged the rise of competitive...
TED Talks
Shimpei Takahashi: Play this word game to come up with original ideas
Shimpei Takahashi always dreamed of designing toys. But when he started work as a toy developer, he found that the pressure to produce squashed his creativity. In this short, funny talk, Takahashi describes how he got his ideas flowing...