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Can computer games change the world?

13 May 2013 Last updated at 23:18 GMT By Alex Hudson BBC News Computer games are usually seen as a hobby not expected to influence thinking in the real world Serious games, which have addressed issues as varied as the Middle East conflict through to sexual coercion among teenagers, have gained the attention of governments around the world. But can they really directly affect the issues they cover?

Computer games are regularly criticised as a waste of time and for offering graphic depictions of violence.

Regardless of the truth of the opinion, a form of game offering a different side has increased in popularity - the serious game.

"The story of games, in popular terms, is a story about adolescent boys in dark bedrooms," says journalist Tom Chatfield, who has developed computer games.

Continue reading the main story

Alex Butterworth asks experts how "serious" computer games are influencing society for State of Play, which is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 11:00 BST on 14 May.

"It was only really when the interfaces of games at the start of the 90s, became visually significant and serious that people started to realise that what they were doing might be a reflection of the world, in the same way as a book or a film or an article is."

Serious games focus on real-world situations and events in a way that it is hoped educates the players and provokes debate in a community.

Three billion hours a week are spent on playing games, mainly as a pastime rather than having any large global effects, and developers hope some of that time can be harnessed for the greater good.

One game, a World Without Oil, explored the theory that oil was running out and offered players the chance to come up with ways to deal with the impending crisis.

"In America, there was an undercurrent where we just said 'this is a bubble, this is going to pop'," says Ken Eklund, designer of the game.

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Having that technology does instantly engage the young people in the classroom”

End Quote Dr Katherine Brown Coventry University "Oil did hit $200 a barrel a few months later so things were really happening.

"These stories get put together and become this coherent multi-threaded, multi-authored story about what an oil crisis might really be like, emotionally, not just about who has oil and who doesn't and how much productivity is being lost. What does it feel like?

"The actual spirit of the game, from the players' point of view, is they said 'we are creating something which the government should pay attention to'. As a matter of fact, the government did.

"The federal government was very interested, especially the people responsible for disaster response.

"The players are proud of what they have created as a narrative."

Government 'games expert'

Games have been created about a wide variety of issues. The Middle East conflict has been addressed by Games for Change, in the hope to inform people of both sides of the discussion.

In Peacemaker, the player can choose to act for either side in the Middle East conflict

"The big idea was it was about perspective," says Asi Burak, co-president of Games for Change.

"You could choose either to be either the Israeli prime minister or the Palestinian leader. Just by that choice and playing a whole different game from each perspective, we could show you the war through a very different lens.

"In terms of impact, what I discovered was the game was more than anything else, a great opener of discussion. I learned that people don't discuss it in daily life in Israel in the West Bank or in Gaza."

With games having increasing influence, governments are becoming more interested in being involved. In the US for example, there is a games expert attached to the White House.

Continue reading the main story

I find it very difficult to offer a huge example of 'this game changed to world'”

End Quote Tom Chatfield Journalist and games developer But the real question is what can change after a large number of people play through a serious game.

Using the example of the Middle East conflict, the troubles are still ongoing. But can a game really be expected to inspire tangible changes in such a big issue?

"It's always very difficult to come up with a direct chain of cause and effect," says Mr Chatfield.

"In terms of games feeding into society, I find it very difficult to offer a huge example of 'this game changed the world'. That's a very dangerous promise to make. It's a promise that you will almost inevitably fail to deliver."

The problem with these promises could be that direct analysis of the results from a game is rarely fully carried out.

"One of the things that has never really been done well is evaluation of outcomes," says Mary Matthews, former strategy director at Blitz Games Studios.

Games have been created offering teachers a computer game to use during sex education lessons

"We now have web games that have millions of hits on their site and people take the fact that people have engaged with that play as being successful.

"Nobody at that time was looking at measurable outcomes. They played it but then what?"

One place it is hoped measurable outcomes will be achieved is in the classroom.

A virtual gameshow offering teenage players a decision about what constitutes sexual coercion is currently being trialled in some sex education classes in Coventry and Warwickshire, produced by the Serious Games Institute and Coventry University.

"One of the things that's very striking when you spend time in a classroom of teenagers is just how easy it is for them to get bored or distracted," says Dr Katherine Brown, leader of the Sash Research Group at Coventry University.

"The more innovative you can be with what techniques you use, the more likely you are to be successful in delivering the education you are trying to get across.

"Having that technology does instantly engage the young people in the classroom. It's completely novel to them that their teacher would use this kind of technology to deliver a lesson on sex education."

Which could bring us back to the beginning of computer games, if they really were about adolescent boys in dark bedrooms, this time with a much more serious point.

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Cockroaches evolving to evade traps

24 May 2013 Last updated at 00:18 GMT By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC News Dr Coby Schal: The cockroaches spit out the glucose "like a baby rejects spinach"

A strain of cockroaches in Europe has evolved to outsmart the sugar traps used to eradicate them.

American scientists found that the mutant cockroaches had a "reorganised" sense of taste, making them perceive the glucose used to coat poisoned bait not as sweet but rather as bitter.

A North Carolina State University team tested the theory by giving cockroaches a choice of jam or peanut butter.

They then analysed the insects' taste receptors, similar to our taste buds.

Researchers from the same team first noticed 20 years ago that some pest controllers were failing to eradicate cockroaches from properties, because the insects were simply refusing to eat the bait.

Continue reading the main story There are about 4,600 species of cockroach and fewer than 30 of these are considered pests. (There are about 5,400 species of mammals)The world's smallest cockroach is only 0.3mm long and lives in ant nestsThe heaviest cockroach is the huge Australian Rhinoceros Cockroach at 8cm in length

Source: Natural History Museum

Dr Coby Schal explained in the journal Science that this new study had revealed the "neural mechanism" behind this refusal.

Jam v peanut butter

In the first part of the experiment, the researchers offered the hungry cockroaches a choice of two foods - peanut butter or glucose-rich jam [known as jelly in the US].

"The jelly contains lots of glucose and the peanut butter has a much smaller amount," explained Dr Schal.

"You can see the mutant cockroaches taste the jelly and jump back - they're repulsed and they swarm over the peanut butter."

In the second part of the experiment, the team was able to find out exactly why the cockroaches were so repulsed.

The scientists immobilised the cockroaches and used tiny electrodes to record the activity of taste receptors - cells that respond to flavour that are "housed" in microscopic hairs on the insects' mouthparts

"The cells that normally respond to bitter compounds were responding to glucose in these [mutant] cockroaches," said Dr Schal.

"So they're perceiving glucose to be a bitter compound.

"The sweet-responding cell does also fire, but the bitter compound actually inhibits it - so the end result is that bitterness overrides sweetness."

Highly magnified footage of these experiments clearly shows a glucose-averse cockroach reacting to a dose of the sugar.

"It behaves like a baby that rejects spinach," explained Dr Schal.

"It shakes its head and refuses to imbibe that liquid, at the end, you can see the [glucose] on the side of the head of the cockroach that has refused it."

Continue reading the main story George Beccaloni Curator of cockroaches, Natural History Museum

The process of natural selection would strongly favour any chance genetic change that caused a cockroach to avoid the bait and therefore death. Since individuals with the trait would have a greater chance of surviving and reproducing, their descendants with the trait would in time replace those that lacked the trait in the cockroach population.

This is the same process that has led to the evolution of antibiotic resistance in disease-causing bacteria, and warfarin resistance in rats.

The discovery of natural selection was one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time and this year sees worldwide celebrations commemorating the 100th anniversary of the death of Alfred Russel Wallace, the naturalist who co-discovered natural selection with Charles Darwin in 1858.

Dr Elli Leadbeater from the Institute of Zoology in London said the work was exciting.

"Usually, when natural selection changes taste abilities, it simply makes animals more or less sensitive to certain taste types.

"For example, bees that specialise on collecting nectar are less sensitive to sugar than other bees, which means that they only collect concentrated nectar. Evolution has made sugar taste less sweet to them, but they still like it.

"In the cockroach case, sugar actually tastes bitter - an effective way for natural selection to quickly produce cockroaches that won't accept the sugar baits that hide poison."

Dr Schal said this was another chapter in the evolutionary arms race between humans and cockroaches.

"We keep throwing insecticides at them and they keep evolving mechanisms to avoid them," he said.

"I have always had incredible respect for cockroaches," he added. "They depend on us, but they also take advantage of us."

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US questions Google on Glass privacy

17 May 2013 Last updated at 11:47 GMT Google was fined and faced heavy criticism for scooping up data from open wi-fi networks US politicians are seeking reassurances from Google that its smart spectacles will respect personal privacy.

A letter has been sent to Google signed by eight members of a Congressional caucus seeking answers about Google Glass.

The letter poses eight questions for Google about the data the gadget will collect about users and non-users.

The group said it was "uncertain" about the privacy protections Google plans to build in to the device.

"We are curious whether this new technology could infringe on the privacy of the average American," says the letter from the Congressional privacy caucus which, in the past, has quizzed many tech companies on what they do with the data they gather.

As a bipartisan interest group, the caucus has both Democrats and Republicans as members.

Google Glass is proving a controversial technology because of its potential to gather images, video and other data about almost anything a user sees. Some have claimed that privacy will be "impossible" if Google Glass and similar products become widely used.

The letter, addressed to Google boss Larry Page, pointed out that the company did not have an unblemished history when it came to handling personal information. It mentioned the widespread criticism Google faced and the fines it had to pay after it inadvertently scooped up data from unprotected wi-fi networks while gathering information for its Street View service.

The politicians want to know how Google will ensure it does not repeat that mistake.

In addition, the Congressmen want to know what Google's policy is for handling the privacy of non-users and how it will respect the wishes of those who do not want to be identified or have any information about them taken from social media sites.

The group also wants Google to explain how it will refine and update its privacy policies to reflect the novel capabilities of Google Glass. The search firm has been given until 14 June to respond to the letter from the caucus.

Some of the points in the letter were addressed during an interview in San Francisco with Google Glass director Steve Lee.

Mr Lee said the Glass team took the privacy of users and non-users seriously, reported the All Things D news blog.

"From the beginning, the social implications… of Glass, of people wearing Glass, has been at the top of our mind," the site reported.

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YouTube launches subscription fees

9 May 2013 Last updated at 20:16 GMT YouTube says it has about one billion unique users to its service each month YouTube has launched a trial scheme for paid channels on its website.

Under the pilot programme, a small number of content makers will offer the channels for subscriptions starting at $0.99 (£0.64) a month.

Each channel will offer a free 14-day trial and many will have discounted annual rates.

Although the initial 53-channel line-up is fairly niche, one expert suggested the move might ultimately squeeze some smaller rivals out of the market.

YouTube, which is owned by Google, said the launch was part of an effort to enable "content creators to earn revenue for their creativity".

For example, the children's television favourite, Sesame Street will offer full episodes on its pay channel when it launches.

Subscribers can pay using either their credit cards or through Google's own Wallet service.

The paid channels involved in the pilot are diverse.

They include National Geographic Kids, Acorn - which provides episodes from several British TV series -and Fix My Hog Premium, which is aimed at Harley Davidson motorcycle enthusiasts.

"This is just the beginning", YouTube said on its blog.

"We'll be rolling paid channels out more broadly in the coming weeks as a self-service feature for qualifying partners.

"And as new channels appear, we'll be making sure you can discover them."

Two of UK’s most popular YouTube stars talk about paid subscriptions on YouTube

Traditional TV turn-off?

The advent of paid channels on YouTube means Google joins Netflix, Hulu and Amazon in offering subscription-based alternatives to traditional pay-TV.

"The wider picture here is that the internet and TV worlds are colliding," Ian Maude, an online media expert at consultants Enders Analysis told the BBC.

"The YouTube move will make it much harder for smaller standalone online subscription-based platforms because Google has the infrastructure to make it easy for content to be hosted, delivered and billed for.

"But it was always inevitable that Google was going to do this."

One billion viewers

Google bought YouTube in 2006 for $1.65bn. The service is believed to generate a small amount of revenue from advertising, but the vast majority of its content has been free-to-watch.

To make itself more attractive to potential advertisers, YouTube has gradually added professional content, such as full-length films and TV shows, to its vast library of amateur videos.

YouTube says a billion people around the world use the service every month.

"If YouTube were a country, we'd be the third largest in the world after China and India," the company said in March.

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Vodafone sales hit by European slump

21 May 2013 Last updated at 07:27 GMT Tough economic conditions in Italy and Spain have hit Vodafone Mobile giant Vodafone's full-year sales have slipped for the first time in eight years after tough economic conditions in Europe hit revenues.

Annual revenues fell 4.4% to £44.4bn, after the firm cut prices in Europe in an attempt to retain customers.

In Italy service revenue fell 12.8%, while in Spain it dropped 11.5%.

Vodafone said it had written down the value of its businesses in Italy and Spain by a further £1.8bn, taking the total writedown for the year to £7.7bn.

The writedowns meant that earnings after taxation plunged to £673m in the group's financial year to the end of March, compared with £7bn in 2011-2012.

"We have faced headwinds from a combination of continued tough economic conditions, particularly in Southern Europe, and an adverse European regulatory environment," chief executive Vittorio Colao said.

However, Mr Colao said he remained "very excited" about Vodafone's longer term prospects.

Verizon Wireless, the US mobile operator 45%-owned by Vodafone, was the one bright spot in the results. Vodafone received a 30.5% year-on-year rise in the profits from its stake to £6.4bn.

There has been speculation over whether Vodafone will sell off its stake in Verizon Wireless, worth an estimated £88bn, an amount almost equal to Vodafone's total market capitalisation.

However, on a conference call following the results Mr Colao said that he had "nothing new to announce" about its stake in Verizon Wireless, and added that it was a "fantastic asset".

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