Homeless as 4G Hotspots

Wired has details about a new plan to use homeless people as 4G hotspots. The more people that access them, the more they get paid -- which incentivizes them to move to where they are most needed. It's Gamifexploitation at it's finest. Tip: The lag is terrible on shopping cart lady. But the guy with the tinfoil hat has five bars!

Yumemiru

New Remtertainment app lets you control your dreams. Hope you like Japanese dreams, cuz that's all they have right now. Article about it here in gizmag. Hurry up, Pepsi! I want to dream of soft drinks. Thanks to Joe Velikovsky for the tip!

Brush Monkey

A toothbrush that gives you points? Ridiculous. Trust Brian Krejcarek to do it right.

Visual Studio Acheivements

Let's say you have to use Microsoft Visual Studio (sorry). Why not make it "better" with badges and achievements! Won't you be proud when you've earned them all? Your code is already bloated and full of obscure and questionable practices, so why not at least get rewarded for that? Read all about it here. Thanks to Scott Landsman and Juan Serrallonga for the tip!

Games for Animal Tongues

I've often thought about making games for cats... but I never thought of this.

*UPDATE*

Frogs play too -- watch til the end... :)

Behavior Recycling

A nice article about "behavior recycling" by @goguma. Labortainment is my new favorite word.

A Triumph for Foldit!

Dedicated readers will remember my post about Foldit about a year ago. Today they have a real triumph to announce! AIDS researchers have been trying for ten years to understand the folding pattern of an enzyme from a retrovirus found in rhesus monkeys, in the belief that understanding that might give broader insight into how to stop other retroviruses. Top scientists couldn't do it. Supercomputers couldn't do it. But a couple dozen videogame players did it in ten days.