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PlanetPlay and the UN create Play2Act initiative to poll gamers about climate change

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PlanetPlay and the UN create Play2Act initiative to poll gamers about climate change

PlanetPlay, a non-profit platform that contributes to environmental action through games, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have joined forces to launch a new initiative called Play2Act.

Through a poll embedded in popular games, Play2Act aims to capture public views about how video games can contribute to addressing the urgent and interconnected climate and nature crises affecting people and the planet, said Jude Ower, chief strategy officer at PlanetPlay (and formerly the CEO at Playmob, which was acquired by PlanetPlay in May), in an interview with GamesBeat.

The poll, set to launch with an initial rollout in the last quarter of 2024, followed by a second phase anticipated in mid-2025, is being conducted in the framework of the Games Realizing Effective and Affective Transformation (GREAT) project funded by the European Union Horizon and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

The GREAT initiative, running from 2023-2026, aims to explore the innovative potential of games in helping citizens express their preferences and attitudes on policy issues, including the climate crisis.

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“We’ve got so many studios now getting behind it. And essentially what we’re doing with the data is to take the aggregate, anonymized data to the UN and they’ll use that to see if they could influence climate policy as part of something called the climate promise,” Ower said. “We’ll have an industry wide report. Every six months, we’ll update the questions so that they can track progress and trends and have the most up to date data.”

Origins

Ower while at Playmob worked before with the UNDP to survey 30 million gamers to get their insights on how they feel about climate change, and that provided good feedback for policymakers. That took plae a few years ago.

And now the latest move, which has been a couple of years in the making, is to do new polls and collect that data on a regular basis to understand changing attitudes over time.

“The hopes is that could, at speed and scale, get gamers to speak up on how they feel, and then provide this data to policymakers,” Ower said.

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The only way to reach large numbers of people, Ower figured, was to do it through polls inside games. The UNDP thought about its next iteration about hwo to use games as a tool for policy change on climate. The funding came through GREAT. That helped “put the methodology under a microscope” and make the survey more scientifically robust.

Now the poll is live in a bunch of games.

“The partnership with the UN fits perfectly into this so we set something up called Play2Act. It is a two-year project with UNDP. Every six months, we roll out a new survey in game,” Ower said. “We use a game link that can be put into the editorial of in-game messaging.”

Subway Surfers has a poll for Play2Act inside the game.

Play2Act will use in-game polls to gather insights from players, particularly younger audiences, on how green gaming content and video games can be powerful tools to help fight climate change and preserve nature. This interactive approach allows players to share their views while staying immersed in their favorite games.

Respondents will have the option to fill out the survey in 10 languages: Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

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Microsoft Xbox, FunPlus, Rovio (AngryBirds2, Angry Birds Friends and Dream Blast), Niantic (Pokemon GO!), Sybo (Subway Surfer), Space Ape Games (BeatStar, Transformers: Earth Wars), Jagex (Runescape), Trailmix (Love & Pies), Hi-Rez (Smite), Creative Mobile (Nitro Nation) and Ten Square Games (Fishing Clash) are some of the initiative’s founding game studios and publishers.

PlanetPlay and UNDP extend an open invitation to more game producers and studios, regardless of their size, to join Play2Act.

Given their impact and reach, video games have the potential to play a significant role in helping to tackle the climate and nature crisis.

Rhea Loucas, CEO at PlanetPlay, said in a statement, “With the global gaming population expected to surpass 3.3 billion by the end of 2024, video games have solidified their status as one of the most influential cultural forces of our era. This initiative seeks to strategically engage the gaming community, leveraging the unparalleled reach and impact of video games as a powerful driver of positive change.”

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Jennifer Baumwoll, acting UNDP Climate Hub Director, said in a statement, “Thanks to a multi-partner collaboration, Play2Act will enable players to speak up on how video games can be part of the solution. We want to use this popular platform to give a voice to all actors on how a critical industry like gaming can contribute to global climate and environmental action. Guided by Climate Promise, UNDP’s flagship climate action initiative, we aim to mobilise collective action and implement groundbreaking solutions to address the climate and nature crises.”

Yennie Solheim, Director of Social Impact at games publisher Niantic, said in a statement, “By giving video game players the opportunity to voice their opinions on sustainability, we can start to encourage positive change addressing the global nature of climate change. We’re excited to partner with PlanetPlay and use our technology to foster community engagement and support sustainability efforts.”

The results will be analyzed by academics contributing to the GREAT project on gaming and climate policy. Participating academic institutions include Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education (DIPF), Zentrum für Soziale Innovation (ZSI), Bolton University, Oxford University, and Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR), providing expertise in research, social science, and data science.  This research project aims to provide a robust methodology and scientific foundation for games to act as a vehicle for influencing global policy.

Play2Act is breaking new ground in climate advocacy. Loucas added, “Together, we are pioneering a movement to make gaming a force for good. Let’s unite to reach one billion gamers and amplify our collective voice for a better future.”

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Right now, the engagement rates are above 50%. The goal is to reach more than 100 million people with the current poll.

“That’s amazing,” Ower said. “Players really want to speak up.”

The questions relate to things like how gamers feel about games taking action for climate change; if they want to take action for climate change and nature; and what more they would do. Altogether there are seven questions. Once the players finish the poll, they can return to the game.

Over time, Ower said the hope is to expand from mobile games to PC games and perhaps consoles, possibly through a QR code.

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NVIDIA, price of 1 chip? price of 1 server rack? #ai #nvidia #nvda

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Submerged is everything impressive and isolating about the Vision Pro

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Submerged is everything impressive and isolating about the Vision Pro

I don’t like submarines. The idea of being trapped, several hundred feet underwater, in a narrow, creaking death trap? No thanks. I already knew that going into a screening of Submerged, the first scripted short film shot in Apple Immersive Video for the Vision Pro. Now that I’ve seen it, I’m triply sure.

Written and directed by Oscar winner Edward Berger, Submerged takes place inside a WWII submarine that’s under attack. It follows the crew as they try to escape a sinking submarine. I, however, was seated comfortably in 2024 on a couch at Apple’s demo space in Manhattan. There weren’t any other theatergoers because I was going to strap the theater to my face. It was a little weird. At least, until the film got going. Then, I, too, was inside a WWII submarine.

Watching an immersive film inside the Vision Pro is an odd thing. On the one hand, it’s hard to forget you’re in a headset. But, unlike a regular film, I have a ghostly sort of agency inside the narrative. The action can be happening with the main characters, but I’m not obligated to watch them. You can instead focus on the extras in the background. I can — and did — occasionally choose to turn my head to stare at the rivets in the submarine’s metal walls or beads of condensation in a torpedo tube (also, rudely, a roach skittering across the floor). Sometimes, I’d turn around to see if this Submerged world had 360 degrees like the real one. Spoiler: it doesn’t. This fictional world spans 180 degrees, and once you reach the border, it fades to black.

The experience feels like a cross between playing a video game and viewing Sleep No More, an immersive version of Macbeth where the audience traipses through a creepy hotel as the play unfolds around them. Scenes move slower, as if you’re being invited to gawp at your surroundings. At the same time, you’re not fully free to explore. There’s still a story that Berger is trying to tell — you’re just along for the ride.

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All of that is a natural part of adapting traditional filmmaking to a more immersive 180-degree field of view. “That frame is very large and you need to fill that frame with things that happen, things that could be of interest to the audience,” Berger says. “Every extra counts in this, every piece of equipment, every piece of bursting pipe or element in the frame counts. You can’t really cheat.”

That wide field of view comes with its own obstacles. Mics and lighting have to be built into the scenery. Berger says he had to storyboard everything, create a short animated film based on that, and then watch it in the Vision Pro to get a sense for how the camera would move. Berger also wore the headset when filming started to figure out how shots would look.

The 180-degree view created technical challenges for the film.
Image: Apple

The result is impressive. As water rushed into this fictional submarine, I could taste the faint memory of salt water on my tongue. When characters walked down narrow submarine corridors, I felt claustrophobic. During a scene where sailors shoved a torpedo into its launch tube, I instinctively stretched my hands out. For a split second, I thought they were loading it straight into my chest.

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“My main agenda is to make you feel what the main character is feeling, to sort of have you go through what they’re doing,” Berger says. On that front, Submerged is incredibly successful. It’s when you remember you’re in a headset that the rest of the world comes rushing back in.

Watching the film, you become very aware there’s no one else experiencing this with you. There’s no one else gasping at harrowing moments. There’s no one to lock eyes with, as if to say “Whoa, did you see that, too?” If you were to SharePlay this, you’d just see the ghostly Persona of a friend who isn’t actually there. And then you’d miss out on the whole immersive aspect. When you think about it that way, Submerged is something you have to experience alone.

Watching the film, you become very aware there’s no one else experiencing this with you

Owning (or borrowing) a Vision Pro is also the only way to see Submerged. That’s inherently lonely. The only people I’ve really been able to chat about this experience with were Apple employees and Berger himself. Now that the film is available, I’ll have to wait for the two people I know in real life with a Vision Pro to carve out time in their schedule to see it. When I try to explain it to my spouse, they are unmoved. 

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Ostensibly, Apple wants these immersive films to serve as a selling point for the Vision Pro. Come, spend $3,500, and see for yourself what the magic is all about. There’s a logic to it. Submerged is truly a technologically impressive proof-of-concept for high-quality immersive content. It’s just also a hard experience to share. I can’t say with a straight face that this is the killer reason anyone should buy one of these things, especially since this was only a roughly 17-minute film. That’s long enough for things to feel snappy and fresh. I’m not sure how well the immersive aspect would hold up over a two-hour feature. 

“Not every movie is going to be made on these headsets. It’s not necessary. It would be a waste of resources and waste of time,” Berger acknowledges. Instead, he sees the Vision Pro as another tool in the belt. “Not every movie is supposed to be for every medium. But if I have the right story, I think, ‘I’m excited about telling this and about pushing the medium forward.’” 

That’s sort of the quagmire all mixed reality tech is stuck in. It can be magical. When you try it, you can see why some people are inspired and excited. And then, when you inevitably take the headsets off, it’s hard to explain to anyone why the world inside the headset is better than the one outside it. “Pushing boundaries” isn’t all that convincing of a reason. Watching Submerged is like this, too. For all the artistry and technological prowess that went into making this film, I’ve never needed the Vision Pro to imagine how terrifying a sinking submarine could be. It’s just not necessary for immersing yourself in a good story.

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Submerged is Vision Pro’s claustrophobic thrill ride that’s short on depth but long on immersion

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Apple Vision Pro Immersive Video

Claustrophobia and barely contained panic were my two overriding emotions as I experienced Apple’s first-ever immersive narrative short film on its Vision Pro mixed reality headset.

The aptly titled Submerged, which arrives on Vision Pro headsets around the world today, tells the harrowing 17-minute tale of a World War II submarine tasked with tracking ships in enemy waters.

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Network Rack 42U #networking #compterinformation

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US and UK announce online child safety partnership

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US and UK announce online child safety partnership
Getty Images A stock image of a young child holding a pale blue smartphoneGetty Images

The US and the UK have announced what they say is their first joint agreement aimed at keeping children safer online.

It will see the setting up of a joint online safety working group to share evidence and expertise, and study the impact social media has on children.

UK Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said the agreement would turn the two countries’ “historic partnership” towards “delivering a safer online world for our next generation.”

But campaign group Smartphone Free Childhood said it was insufficient and parents “don’t have time to wait and see whether this UK-US agreement makes any difference when their children’s futures are at stake.”

However, others argue more evidence does need to be gathered in relation to online harms to guide any future policies.

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“Policies and guidelines to support young people in navigating their digital world need to be based on robust evidence, but to date we haven’t had much success in establishing cause and effect when it comes to impacts on wellbeing,” said Prof Pete Etchells of Bath Spa University

Announcing the agreement, the UK government acknowledged there was “limited research and evidence on the causal impact that social media has on children and young people”.

It committed to consider ways access to more data held by big tech firms could be given to researchers.

‘Further and faster’

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The agreement was announced in a joint statement between the two countries.

At its heart is the joint working group which will work on areas including “promoting better transparency from platforms” and “better understanding the impacts and risks of the digital world on young people, including new technologies like generative AI.”

They also said they expected tech platforms to go “further and faster” to protect children.

“As more children across the U.S. and around the globe have access to online platforms for online learning and social media, there is also increased risk to this exposure,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.

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“That is why we are taking the necessary steps in the United States, and with our UK partners, to protect children’s privacy, safety, and mental health,” she added.

However, Smartphone Free Childhood said action was needed sooner, so it has launched a campaign calling on the UK government to ensure that children don’t have access to their mobile phones at school.

The campaign group argues that “further delay” from the government would make the UK looking “increasingly behind” other European countries who have strengthened restrictions.

Currently government guidance says that: “All schools should prohibit the use of mobile phones throughout the school day – not only during lessons but break and lunchtimes as well”.

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However, the government so far says it has no plans to ban smartphone use for the under-16’s.

The UK’s Online Safety Act does place duties on online platforms to protect children’s safety and put in place measures to mitigate risks.

But this is not yet fully in force. Guidance for firms on how to comply with the new legislation is still being produced by the communications regulator Ofcom.

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Home Lab Server Rack Review

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Let’s talk about server racks for a minute.

This is a review on StarTech.com 25U Open Frame Server Rack – 4 Post Adjustable Depth (23″ to 41″) Network Equipment Rack w/ Casters/ Levelers/ Cable Management (4POSTRACK25U)



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