Special edition on video games in Reflex magazine
From video-game addiction to new interfaces – a special edition to help us understand how video games are revolutionizing our rapport with various devices.
With their incursion into social networks and our smartphones, video games are no longer reserved for specialists – they’re now destined for a much wider audience. To understand the new impact of this ubiquitous media, Reflex went to meet the scientists who study this phenomenon. With the Swiss parliament drafting legislation designed to outlaw violent games, EPFL’s magazine questioned the experts: Does playing video games make people aggressive? How is addiction treated in this case?
This issue of Reflex reveals some surprising uses of game consoles – from hospital rehabilitation to research into cryptography. An investigation analyzes the recent revolution in video games, which have become both mobile and social, and a report uncovers the research being undertaken by the Disney laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. In addition, an exclusive interview with David Cage, the creator of the cult game “Heavy Rain”, explores the impact of the new generation of interfaces that have just come on to the market.
In the opening article, an interview with Claude Nicollier sheds some light on the consequences of the decision to retire the American space shuttles in 2011. Another investigation lifts the veil on the technologies used to capture CO2 emanating from power stations, and the challenges arising from their commissioning.
Last but not least: we present a new, ambitious research area: connectomics. The goal of this new science is to map the countless connections in our brain.
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