What's the hardest video game you've ever played? If it wasn't QWOP then let me tell you right know that you don't know how truly difficult a game can be. The deceptively simple running game is so challenging to master that even an AI trained using machine learning still only mustered a top 10 score instead of shattering the record. If you've never played QWOP before, you owe it to yourself to give it a try and see if you can even get your sprinter off the starting line. Developed by Bennett Foddy back in 2008, QWOP was inspired by an '80s arcade game called Track & Field that requires players to mindlessly mashing buttons to win a race.

In recent years, videogame developers and computer scientists have been trying to devise techniques that can make gaming experiences increasingly immersive, engaging and realistic. These include methods to automatically create videogame characters inspired by real people. Most existing methods to create and customize videogame characters require players to adjust the features of their character's face manually, in order to recreate their own face or the faces of other people. More recently, some developers have tried to develop methods that can automatically customize a character's face by analyzing images of real people's faces. However, these methods are not always effective and do not always reproduce the faces they analyze in realistic ways.

Having a new television to play video games on or stream Netflix, Disney and the new Paramount service on is great. But buying a new TV, that can be a hassle. Because your eyes for a larger TV may be bigger than your budget allows. However, most say opt for larger if you can afford it – I've never heard anyone say, "Gee, I wish my TV was smaller." But there are other issues to consider when you are buying a TV, our tech columnist colleague Marc Saltzman says.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus lets players hunt the tiny monsters in a new, open-world setting. Pokémon Legends: Arceus lets players hunt the tiny monsters in a new, open-world setting. From cartoons to trading cards to toys, Pokémon has been a succesful media franchise for 25 years, with tons of fans from all over the world. But fans of the Pokémon video games have been begging for a major shake-up to the series -- and now, with the announcement of the new Pokémon Legends: Arceus, they may get one. Earlier this month, Pokémon player ChocolateKieran -- who asked us to refer to him by his username for privacy and safety reasons -- was watching the company's 25th anniversary live stream with his followers on Twitch.

Marisa Johnson's six-year-old daughter was just learning to read independently when her Alameda, California, school shut down last year. Without solid literacy skills and lots of time stuck at home, the tot is spending much more time playing video games and watching shows than reading books. "She's definitely reading less," Johnson says. "The only way we can be alone among ourselves is with screens." As many parents know, screen time has ballooned during the pandemic.

For years, open-world video games, where players can explore all around the map rather than following a set path, have been hugely popular. The Pokémon franchise is finally catching up.

Rather than forcing a game development team to use certain assets from the Marvel Cinematic Universe or from the original looks of the comics, for example, those have now become open discussions for what fits best for each game. This gave Insomniac Games, the developer behind "Marvel's Spider-Man" and "Miles Morales," the freedom to design their own Spider-Man suits, and Crystal Dynamics, who made "Marvel's Avengers," the choice to place Ms. Marvel (also known as Kamala Khan) front-and-center in the story. But Marvel is more strict about principles relating to their worlds and characters. Among the most important for Spider-Man is that he does not kill.

There haven't been many technological breakthroughs in recent history that are as significant and as impactful as artificial intelligence. Gone are the days wherein robots and machine learning were only ideas to be found in science fiction novels. Not only has artificial intelligence made some really great strides as a discipline, but more and more members of the masses have adopted artificial intelligence into their everyday life. In the past, everyone would think of movies like the Terminator or iRobot when it came to talks of artificial intelligence. But now, sophisticated AI software can be found in the everyday devices that we use. Now, you might be curious how AI is applied in the modern world these days.

Amazon and Microsoft are adding a new Amazon Alexa app to the Xbox with a number of capabilities, including the ability to remotely browse your home's camera system via Microsoft's game console. The new Alexa app for Xbox isn't quite live, though; it's listed as "Coming Soon" on the Microsoft Store. Controlling your Xbox via an Alexa-powered speaker isn't new--Microsoft launched the capability to Windows Insider beta testers in 2018 via what it called a "skill"--but it's the first time we've seen such tight Alexa integration on the Xbox itself. Microsoft says the app will run on both the Xbox One (presumably including the Xbox One X) as well as the latest Xbox Series X and S consoles. You'll need an Amazon Echo or other Alexa-powered device too, of course.

Reinforcement learning has seen a lot of progress in recent years. From DeepMind success with teaching machines how to play Atari games, then AlphaGo beating world champions in Go to recent OpenAI's progress on Dota 2, a multiplayer game where players divided into two teams compete with each other. The common thread is an artificial agent operating in a virtual world, where the prize is clear (e.g. On the other hand people are experimenting with AI agents operating in real-world. Each clip of Boston Dynamics gets a lot of press, showing robots performing amazing stunts, as you can see yourself here or here.