Serious play at the MIT Game Lab

Students fill the glass-walled room and spill out into the common area. They gather around tables and desks cluttered with board games and game pieces. Along the far wall, large screens show students exploring the latest virtual reality experience alongside classmates reliving their favorite retro videogames.

Welcome to an open house of the MIT Game Lab, where play and experimentation are joined by serious inquiry about the gaming industry and its role in society.

In addition to its rollicking open houses, which take place at least once a semester, the Game Lab hosts public events, organizes research projects, and teaches courses through MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing (CMS/W).

The Game Lab’s work is designed to help students think critically about the games they’ve often been playing for years without considering the values they might project, and to prepare them to engage in thoughtful design practices themselves.

“Students come to the Game Lab because it sounds like fun, which is great, but they realize through our research that there’s also something really serious at work in games,” Game Lab Director and Professor T.L. Taylor says. “I think students often have this moment where they realize this thing they’ve been enjoying actually has a lot of stakes in it; these are things that really matter.”

The Game Lab analyzes the gaming industry and its impact, explores new technologies and formats, and creates games that tackle important issues. Many new games are tied to larger research projects.

“There’s a desire from our students to express themselves through games, whether that’s through making educational games or games with specific messages or lessons,” says Game Lab research scientist and lecturer Mikael Jakobsson. “Games are a big part of most people’s lives, so there’s a thirst among our students for not only learning how to make games, but also studying games as social and cultural artefacts.”

Through that research, students come to appreciate the impact of games on the world.

“Game are hugely important in society and culture,” Taylor says. “We’re really trying to always think critically and productively about what we do with this powerful form of media and entertainment, and to think about games as a place in which imagination and stories about the world can be worked over and thought about.”

Learning to play

The MIT Game Lab was founded in cooperation with the Singapore Ministry of Education in 2007. Early on, it would host workshops on game design with students from Singapore in the summer, then conduct teaching and research with MIT students during the school year.

The Singapore collaboration ended in 2012, but the lab continued its work, often partnering with outside companies, private donors, and other groups around campus to explore the influence of games on different aspects of society.

In one project with the Samuel Tak Lee MIT Real Estate Entrepreneurship Lab, students designed a game to explore the basics of real estate development, including managing capital and debt and deciding what sorts of buildings to build and where.

The lab also does work with communities to help them think about civic engagement. It has held workshops around the world with local students and other community members to challenge them to think about issues in their societies through the lens of game design. One such collaboration led to the game Promesa, which Jakobsson created with Puerto Rican graphic artist Rosa Colón Guerra and the design collective Popcicleta to promote what the creators call a “countercolonialist” viewpoint in the context of a game about the island’s debt crisis.

Aside from making games, researchers also consider the influence of historically popular games.

“We’re not making games as much as studying them,” says junior Michelle Liang, who works at the Game Lab as an undergraduate researcher. “It’s so easy to detach entertainment as its own separate world, when in fact media is influenced by a lot of different factors and biases. A lot of the Game Lab’s work is geared toward enhancing that understanding.”

The Game Lab’s organizers say that work distinguishes them from other gaming-focused groups in academia, which often equip students with specific skills to get jobs in the videogame industry.

“We’re not a pipeline program to go work in the gaming industry,” Taylor explains. “Some students do go into the industry, but because we’re doing critical design practice, we’re approaching games with a much broader, critically inflective perspective by thinking about things like equity and representation.”

Liang hadn’t considered the role of games in social and political issues until she discovered the Game Lab. She immediately saw the Lab as a way to combine a number of things she was passionate about.

“It’s funny to talk about my job to people,” Liang says. “Even though we are the Institute of Technology, there’s so much more MIT has to offer.”

Changing the rules

Jakobsson says the perception of games as nothing more than entertainment has led to a lack of introspection.

“The gaming industry has been a bit of a boys club where a lot of social responsibility has been shirked because they say they’re just trying to have fun and don’t have to think about how it affects society,” Jakobsson says. “Now we’re dealing with a lot of the consequences from that mindset.”

For students, involvement in the Game Lab can mean conducting research, enrolling in one of its classes, or just stopping by an open house. Regardless of how they’re exposed to the lab’s work, Taylor hopes they leave with a deeper appreciation of the power of games in our society.

“Games are a hugely important media and entertainment space, but they’re also one of our most culturally relevant and politically active spaces,” Taylor says. “Media spaces are in part where we learn about the world, for good or ill, where we construct imaginaries of the world, where we think about other possibilities. Part of the mission of CMS/W in general is taking media spaces seriously, and games are an increasingly important part of that.”

Five Nights At Freddy’s Continues Box Office Success, Becomes Highest-Grossing Blumhouse Film Ever

Since premiering in late October, Five Nights at Freddy’s has become a big box-office success. It’s already the highest-grossing horror film of 2023, and it has now become horror production company Blumhouse’s highest-grossing film of all time.

The film adaptation of the popular 2014 horror game hit theaters on October 27, grossing a strong $80 million in its opening weekend, the best for any horror film this year. That’s even more impressive given that it premiered on the streaming service Peacock the same day it was released in theaters (becoming the most-watched title on Peacock during its first five days). 

Five Nights At Freddy’s has continued to gain traction over the past few weeks and has now grossed over $295 million ($136 million domestically, $160 million overseas) during the month it’s been in theaters. That ranks it at the top of Blumhouse’s highest-performing films, a record previously held by M.Night Shyamalan’s Split, while also climbing over top performers such as Halloween (2018), Get Out, and Glass. 

[embedded content]

First announced in 2015 (roughly a year after the first game’s release), Five Nights At Freddy’s stars Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games series) with actors such as Elizabeth Lail and Matthew Lillard in supporting roles. The film is directed by Emma Tammi and produced by Blumhouse. The film joins the ranks of other highly successful video game adaptations to release in 2023, such as the other box office juggernaut The Super Mario Bros. Movie and HBO’s critically-acclaimed The Last of Us. 

For more on Blumhouse, read about how the production company is creating a video game development and publishing studio. 

Did you watch Five Nights At Freddy’s? If so, what did you think of it? Let us know in the comments.

Cyber Monday fraud prevention tips 2023; CyberTalk.org

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Excited about stocking up on everyday home essentials, epic electronics or must-have fitness gear? This November 27th, Cyber Monday will be the season’s second-major shopping event, second-only to Black Friday, with mega-sales and deep discounts that are accessible from the comfort of your couch.

Founded by the National Retail Federation in 2005, Cyber Monday was originally intended to promote online-only deals, in an effort to reduce in-store Black Friday foot-traffic. However, due to an uptick in e-commerce, both commercial holidays are now intertwined. Whether you shop on Black Friday, Cyber Monday or both, it pays to be a cyber savvy consumer.

In 2022, nearly 20% of U.S. online retail transactions that occurred between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday were fraudulent. Americans lost more than $337 million dollars, according to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Cyber awareness and vigilance pays – Obviously, nothing beats spending the holiday season on-hold with your bank’s fraud department (just kidding).

6 Cyber Monday fraud prevention tips

This season, proactively prevent fraud.

1. Stay savvy when it comes to scams. Take a moment to review the latest holiday scam tactics. For instance, some scammers may set up fake online stores and send you emails advertising slashed prices on popular goods. Top Cyber Monday scams include those related to fake websites, gift cards, multi-factor authentication phishing, and fake charities.

2. Shop from a secure connection. Ensure that your computer or phone is protected by antivirus software. Otherwise, the risk of accidentally downloading malware increases. Avoid making purchases from cafes or other public spaces, as cyber schemers could intercept public Wi-Fi communications or ‘shoulder surf.’

3. Only shop on secure sites. Regardless of whether you’re browsing sites belonging to well-known retailers or smaller vendors, verify that the web page you’re visiting is legitimate. Here’s how: When visiting any website, look for the little lock icon in the top left corner of your browser bar. Also, be sure that you see HTTPS in the browser bar.

While there is no single solution that can help everyone easily distinguish fraudulent websites from legitimate ones, and cyber criminals can imitate both the lock icon and HTTPS, other means of site verification include checking for domain misspellings, and accessing sites by searching for them on Google, rather than by clicking on links embedded within emails.

4. Strive for strong passwords. If you create accounts with retailers to streamline and simplify the shopping process, be sure to protect the account with a strong password. Cyber criminals may employ tactics like password spraying to steal credit card numbers, but a strong password can help protect you from this type of cyber threat.

5. Consider credit over debt. If concerned about online retail security, consider making purchases with a credit card rather than a debt card. The advantage of using a credit card is that real money never leaves your bank account. In addition, credit card fraud may be easier to resolve than debt card fraud, for which you could be on the hook for a larger portion of the stolen funds.

6. Post-holiday shopping fraud review. After you’ve completed your shopping for the season, take a few minutes to review your bank and credit card transactions. Glance at your transactions daily or every few days. Ensure that amounts are correct. Look for fraudulent transactions. Should you identify any unknown purchases or obvious fraud incidents, contact your card service provider as soon as possible.

Further information

If you’re concerned about the legitimacy of a site, an advertisement, otherwise suspect malicious intent, you might want to pass on that bargain and instead tell yourself that you’ll look forward to future buying opportunities. It beats contending with bureaucracy and bank fraud.

Lastly, prior to starting your Cyber Monday shopping, take a few minutes to ensure that your web browser, antivirus and operating systems are up-to-date.

Learn more about advanced security solutions here. Discover timely trends, expert analysis, premium business whitepapers, and so much more when you subscribe to the CyberTalk.org newsletter.

Celebrating five years of MIT.nano

There is vast opportunity for nanoscale innovation to transform the world in positive ways — expressed MIT.nano Director Vladimir Bulović as he posed two questions to attendees at the start of the inaugural Nano Summit: “Where are we heading? And what is the next big thing we can develop?”

“The answer to that puts into perspective our main purpose — and that is to change the world,” Bulović, the Fariborz Maseeh Professor of Emerging Technologies, told an audience of more than 325 in-person and 150 virtual participants gathered for an exploration of nano-related research at MIT and a celebration of MIT.nano’s fifth anniversary.

Over a decade ago, MIT embarked on a massive project for the ultra-small — building an advanced facility to support research at the nanoscale. Construction of MIT.nano in the heart of MIT’s campus, a process compared to assembling a ship in a bottle, began in 2015, and the facility launched in October 2018.

Fast forward five years: MIT.nano now contains nearly 170 tools and instruments serving more than 1,200 trained researchers. These individuals come from over 300 principal investigator labs, representing more than 50 MIT departments, labs, and centers. The facility also serves external users from industry, other academic institutions, and over 130 startup and multinational companies.

A cross section of these faculty and researchers joined industry partners and MIT community members to kick off the first Nano Summit, which is expected to become an annual flagship event for MIT.nano and its industry consortium. Held on Oct. 24, the inaugural conference was co-hosted by the MIT Industrial Liaison Program.

Six topical sessions highlighted recent developments in quantum science and engineering, materials, advanced electronics, energy, biology, and immersive data technology. The Nano Summit also featured startup ventures and an art exhibition.

Watch the videos here.

Seeing and manipulating at the nanoscale — and beyond

“We need to develop new ways of building the next generation of materials,” said Frances Ross, the TDK Professor in Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE). “We need to use electron microscopy to help us understand not only what the structure is after it’s built, but how it came to be. I think the next few years in this piece of the nano realm are going to be really amazing.”

Speakers in the session “The Next Materials Revolution,” chaired by MIT.nano co-director for Characterization.nano and associate professor in DMSE James LeBeau, highlighted areas in which cutting-edge microscopy provides insights into the behavior of functional materials at the nanoscale, from anti-ferroelectrics to thin-film photovoltaics and 2D materials. They shared images and videos collected using the instruments in MIT.nano’s characterization suites, which were specifically designed and constructed to minimize mechanical-vibrational and electro-magnetic interference.

Later, in the “Biology and Human Health” session chaired by Boris Magasanik Professor of Biology Thomas Schwartz, biologists echoed the materials scientists, stressing the importance of the ultra-quiet, low-vibration environment in Characterization.nano to obtain high-resolution images of biological structures.

“Why is MIT.nano important for us?” asked Schwartz. “An important element of biology is to understand the structure of biology macromolecules. We want to get to an atomic resolution of these structures. CryoEM (cryo-electron microscopy) is an excellent method for this. In order to enable the resolution revolution, we had to get these instruments to MIT. For that, MIT.nano was fantastic.”

Seychelle Vos, the Robert A. Swanson (1969) Career Development Professor of Life Sciences, shared CryoEM images from her lab’s work, followed by biology Associate Professor Joey Davis who spoke about image processing. When asked about the next stage for CryoEM, Davis said he’s most excited about in-situ tomography, noting that there are new instruments being designed that will improve the current labor-intensive process.

To chart the future of energy, chemistry associate professor Yogi Surendranath is also using MIT.nano to see what is happening at the nanoscale in his research to use renewable electricity to change carbon dioxide into fuel.

“MIT.nano has played an immense role, not only in facilitating our ability to make nanostructures, but also to understand nanostructures through advanced imaging capabilities,” said Surendranath. “I see a lot of the future of MIT.nano around the question of how nanostructures evolve and change under the conditions that are relevant to their function. The tools at MIT.nano can help us sort that out.”

Tech transfer and quantum computing

The “Advanced Electronics” session chaired by Jesús del Alamo, the Donner Professor of Science in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), brought together industry partners and MIT faculty for a panel discussion on the future of semiconductors and microelectronics. “Excellence in innovation is not enough, we also need to be excellent in transferring these to the marketplace,” said del Alamo. On this point, panelists spoke about strengthening the industry-university connection, as well as the importance of collaborative research environments and of access to advanced facilities, such as MIT.nano, for these environments to thrive.

The session came on the heels of a startup exhibit in which eleven START.nano companies presented their technologies in health, energy, climate, and virtual reality, among other topics. START.nano, MIT.nano’s hard-tech accelerator, provides participants use of MIT.nano’s facilities at a discounted rate and access to MIT’s startup ecosystem. The program aims to ease hard-tech startups’ transition from the lab to the marketplace, surviving common “valleys of death” as they move from idea to prototype to scaling up.

When asked about the state of quantum computing in the “Quantum Science and Engineering” session, physics professor Aram Harrow related his response to these startup challenges. “There are quite a few valleys to cross — there are the technical valleys, and then also the commercial valleys.” He spoke about scaling superconducting qubits and qubits made of suspended trapped ions, and the need for more scalable architectures, which we have the ingredients for, he said, but putting everything together is quite challenging.

Throughout the session, William Oliver, professor of physics and the Henry Ellis Warren (1894) Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, asked the panelists how MIT.nano can address challenges in assembly and scalability in quantum science.

“To harness the power of students to innovate, you really need to allow them to get their hands dirty, try new things, try all their crazy ideas, before this goes into a foundry-level process,” responded Kevin O’Brien, associate professor in EECS. “That’s what my group has been working on at MIT.nano, building these superconducting quantum processors using the state-of-the art fabrication techniques in MIT.nano.”

Connecting the digital to the physical

In his reflections on the semiconductor industry, Douglas Carlson, senior vice president for technology at MACOM, stressed connecting the digital world to real-world application. Later, in the “Immersive Data Technology” session, MIT.nano associate director Brian Anthony explained how, at the MIT.nano Immersion Lab, researchers are doing just that.

“We think about and facilitate work that has the human immersed between hardware, data, and experience,” said Anthony, principal research scientist in mechanical engineering. He spoke about using the capabilities of the Immersion Lab to apply immersive technologies to different areas — health, sports, performance, manufacturing, and education, among others. Speakers in this session gave specific examples in hardware, pediatric health, and opera.

Anthony connected this third pillar of MIT.nano to the fab and characterization facilities, highlighting how the Immersion Lab supports work conducted in other parts of the building. The Immersion Lab’s strength, he said, is taking novel work being developed inside MIT.nano and bringing it up to the human scale to think about applications and uses.

Artworks that are scientifically inspired

The Nano Summit closed with a reception at MIT.nano where guests could explore the facility and gaze through the cleanroom windows, where users were actively conducting research. Attendees were encouraged to visit an exhibition on MIT.nano’s first- and second-floor galleries featuring work by students from the MIT Program in Art, Culture, and Technology (ACT) who were invited to utilize MIT.nano’s tool sets and environments as inspiration for art.

In his closing remarks, Bulović reflected on the community of people who keep MIT.nano running and who are using the tools to advance their research. “Today we are celebrating the facility and all the work that has been done over the last five years to bring it to where it is today. It is there to function not just as a space, but as an essential part of MIT’s mission in research, innovation, and education. I hope that all of us here today take away a deep appreciation and admiration for those who are leading the journey into the nano age.”

8 CSS & JavaScript Snippets for Creating Complex Gradients

Gradients are a true staple of web design. Their beauty lies in their versatility. Use them to make a big, bold statement. Or use them as an accent piece to create a mood.

The possibilities have never been greater. Modern CSS and JavaScript allow us to do more than mimic print design. We can use them to add movement and interactivity to the mix. But it goes deeper.

Gradients are no longer limited to container backgrounds. They can also style text content. It’s an opportunity to enhance headlines and calls to action.

So, what kinds of things can you do with gradients? We scanned the archives of CodePen to find eight great examples.

Grainy & Gradients Text Using color-mix by LukyVJ

This snippet uses the recent CSS color-mix property. The property simplifies the process of darkening, lightening, and desaturating colors. The result is a beautiful text gradient that allows the page background to come through. We don’t often associate gradients with graininess. But it works to perfection here.

See the Pen Grainy & Gradients text by LukyVJ

Single Element Gradient Background Patterns by Ana Tudor

Conic gradients add a unique twist to the element. The color transitions rotate around a center point. You can see it on display in this example. Each card sports a unique and intricate pattern.

See the Pen 1 element card background patterns (see description) by Ana Tudor

Animated Radial Gradient Pattern by Loktar

Gradients still make great backgrounds. And this animated presentation demonstrates how far they’ve come. It looks amazing. The relatively few lines of code that powers it are equally impressive.

See the Pen Moving Radial Gradient Pattern by Loktar

Single DIV Radial Gradient Swirl by Adam Argyle

How can a single div element contain so many colors? The magic is in multiple radial gradients. Four gradients start at the edges and meet in the middle. The result is a colorful delight.

See the Pen 4 Corner Radial Gradient Swirl by Adam Argyle

AI Prompt UI with Subtle Gradient by Vincent Durand

Check out the subtle gradient on this artificial intelligence (AI) interface. It cleverly mixes with glassmorphism to produce a unique aesthetic. The effect brings life to the page.

See the Pen Imagica – AI prompt UI by Vincent Durand

Radial Gradient Cursor Trailer by Uzo Awili

Here’s an example of gradients shining a light on a background image. Move your cursor and watch as it casts a bright pink hue. A tiny bit of CSS and JavaScript makes it work.

See the Pen Radial Gradient Cursor Trailer – Using Gradient Positioning by Uzo Awili

Magical CSS Blossoming Flowers at Night Md Usman Ansari

Gradients play a sizeable role in this “magical” snippet. They add dimension and allow the virtual plant life to fade into black. The CSS repeating-linear-gradient function simplifies the effect’s usage.

See the Pen CSS Blossoming Flowers at Magical Night by Md Usman Ansari

Complex Gradient Examples by Drew McConville

Combining multiple gradients into a CSS background can produce compelling results. Scroll through this snippet to see four such examples. You’ll find a mix of colors and gradient types. It may even convince you to do some experimentation.

See the Pen Complex Gradient Examples by Drew McConville

A Fresh Look at a Design Staple

There was a time when designers shied away from gradients. The era of flat design encouraged the use of solid colors. But we rightfully came back to them.

The examples above show that gradients are still a valuable tool. They add flavor to all sorts of design elements. And it seems like designers are constantly finding creative uses.

That speaks to their flexibility. You can tweak gradients in endless ways. Make them as simple or complex as you like.

Want to see even more CSS and JavaScript gradient ideas? Be sure to check out our CodePen collection!

Related Topics