Gaming & Entertainment — Posts

35 posts on "Gaming & Entertainment" by Shlomo Strauss — bilingual writing on technology, science, and business.

• How BitTorrent paved the way for modern streaming and Web3 — While often associated with piracy, BitTorrent's decentralized network laid the crucial groundwork for modern streaming services, Web3, and Bitcoin.
• How Taylor Swift music videos help combat plant blindness — Dr. Glaucia Silva uses Taylor Swift music videos to anchor botanical concepts, successfully overcoming the cognitive bias known as plant blindness.
• An AI-native game engine is taking aim at Epic and Unity's duopoly — Immense, a new game engine built by a former Epic director, uses parallel AI agents to handle physics, lighting, and audio — and could disrupt the…
• How NASA's 1989 VIEW Project Laid the Foundation for Modern VR — Although NASA's 1989 VIEW project failed its space goals, its optical and tracking innovations laid the groundwork for Nintendo, Oculus, and modern VR.
• Google's AI game demo wiped billions off gaming stocks — but is the — Google's Project Genie demo triggered a sharp sell-off in major gaming stocks, but the real AI threat to the industry likely comes from code-generation…
• Why Nvidia skipped new GPU launches and what DLSS 4.5 signals instead — VRAM shortages driven by AI server demand blocked new GPU launches, so Nvidia responded with a Transformer-based DLSS 4.5 upgrade that generates graphics…
• Why a 2002 PS2 game suddenly sells for $400 — and nobody plays it — A leak of PlayStation 5 boot keys revealed that exploiting a critical vulnerability requires a rare physical copy of Star Wars Racer Revenge, sending its…
• The technology powering the Sphere's massive LED exterior — A look at how 1,500 Nvidia A6000 GPUs, 1.2 million LED tiles, and custom sync software bring the Sphere's exterior screen to life.
• GTA 6's staggering budget and what it reveals about the games — With an estimated $2 billion development budget and forecasts of $7 billion in profit within two months of launch, GTA 6 is a case study in betting…
• How a $10,000 card-shuffling machine became the tool of a global — Federal charges against 31 suspects across 11 countries detail how the DeckMate 2 shuffler was compromised via its USB and network ports to signal winning
• Why moderate gaming is not a waste of time — A busy tech consultant makes the case that gaming's demand for total focus delivers cognitive benefits and mental detachment that few other activities can
• The video switcher that assembles a live TV broadcast in real time — A look at the video switcher in a broadcast control room — the device that merges cameras, remote feeds, and graphics into the final picture viewers see…
• ASUS's gold-plated GPU pushes luxury PC hardware to a new extreme — ASUS's ROG Astral Dhahab line, sold exclusively in the Middle East, is set to get a 5 kg solid 24K gold variant worth over half a million dollars, paired…
• Donate to California wildfire relief and you could appear as a South — Comedy Central has partnered with a California wildfire relief fund, giving donors a chance to win a spot as an animated character in the next season of…
• Owning vs. licensing: how the digital age redefined what you actually — From a Nintendo Switch button to HDMI cables, the licensing model Bill Gates pioneered has quietly eroded what consumers actually own when they pay for a…
• The 1958 physics experiment that launched a $220 billion industry — A 1958 analog tennis game built on a repurposed oscilloscope is recognized as the first real-time video game, and the unlikely ancestor of today's gaming,
• Jensen Huang sees billions of robots filling the labor gap within 20 — In a Bloomberg interview, Nvidia's CEO outlined a future shaped by robot labor, physics-based AI training environments, and fully AI-managed data centers.
• Behind the scenes at Channel 10: a technology advisor's perspective — Seven months advising Channel 10 from its planning stages offered a close look at how talent, management, and technology converge to launch a broadcaster.
• Google's Genie 2 generates playable game worlds from a single image — Google's Genie 2 turns a single image into a navigable game environment, and may soon help studios cut the years and millions required to ship a AAA title.
• Academic bars in China blend beer with university lectures — A growing trend in China brings real academics into bars to lecture curious drinkers — a concept Israel's Weizmann Institute pioneered locally back in…
• Disney built a stunt robot to bring Spider-Man's aerial moves to life — Disney's stunt robot is filmed in real time as it flies through the air, achieving human-like motion that current animation software struggles to…
• Elon Musk claims a Diablo 4 world record — and the gaming world is — Musk posted a run that would place him first globally in Diablo 4's level 150, but the gaming community is debating whether the achievement is legitimate.
• A candle timer as a mechanical if statement — A candle-and-ring switch shows how code constructs like loops and conditionals map directly onto physical mechanisms, making abstract programming logic…
• The LAPD's patrol robot looks like it came straight from a video game — The LAPD's new autonomous patrol robot bears a striking resemblance to drones from Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, raising familiar questions about government…
• Neuralink's brain implant for the blind gets FDA approval for human — Neuralink's Blindsight device pairs cameras with a brain implant targeting the visual cortex, potentially giving sight even to those blind from birth.
• The IPTV piracy scheme that unraveled because of a YouTube flex — A man who ran an illegal IPTV restreaming operation earning $34 million was caught after flaunting his wealth on YouTube, and sentenced to five and a half
• Video games are heading to the Olympics — and the stigma deserves a — Beyond the familiar criticisms, video games offer real cognitive and social benefits — provided consumption stays balanced rather than compulsive.
• Mono, stereo, binaural and Atmos: a quick guide to audio formats — A concise breakdown of the main audio formats, from mono to object-based sound, and how each one attempts to recreate spatial hearing.
• Why green screens are green: the optics and sensor science behind — Camera sensors dedicate half their pixels to green, and the color contrasts well with human skin tones — two reasons that made green the default for video
• The quiet engineering inside a professional XLR cable — An XLR cable uses three internal wires and phase inversion to cancel electromagnetic interference — a clever design that keeps professional audio clean.
• Cloud gaming vs. local hardware: does Nvidia GeForce Now make sense — Nvidia GeForce Now promises 4K/120fps gaming at a fraction of local hardware costs, but Israeli users face real limitations due to distance from European…
• RGB vs. aRGB: the real difference behind PC lighting — A clear breakdown of how standard RGB and addressable aRGB lighting work, and why mixing components from different manufacturers can make PC builds…
• Your PC is furniture — it's time to treat it like one — A custom-built PC can reflect your personality and complement your workspace just as much as any other design element in the room.
• Roblox is bringing ads to its virtual world, with an age restriction — Roblox plans to place in-world billboard ads restricted to users 13 and older, opening a new revenue stream for brands targeting the next generation of…
• CPU vs GPU: why core count matters more than speed — A clear breakdown of how CPUs and GPUs differ in architecture, and why massively parallel but simple cores give GPUs the edge in gaming, crypto, and AI.