tetris

For the roughly three percent of the population that suffers from amblyopia, or "lazy eye," the best current treatment option -- covering the stronger eye to force the weaker one into better behavior -- works only some of the time in kids and has been totally ineffective in adults.

Now researchers out of McGill University in Montreal say that playing Tetris may ultimately treat the disorder in adults because the puzzle video game trains the eyes to work together as information is distributed across them in a complementary fashion.

"The key to improving vision for adults, who … Read more

The Smithsonian's "Art of Video Games" exhibit has now closed, but games will be on display at another high-profile art museum beginning early next year.

New York's Museum of Modern Art has announced that it's chosen 40 games to display at a new game-specific gallery.

Games selected for display at MoMA go back decades and include the likes of Pac-Man and Spacewar, but also contemporary releases such as Portal and Minecraft.

The games will be on display as part of the museum's Architecture and Design collection at the establishment's Johnson Galleries beginning in … Read more

All right, kid, I'll give you three Snickers, four rolls of Smarties, and five bags of M&Ms if you can beat my pumpkin-Tetris high score. Hacker/squash carver Nathan Pryor has created something a little more elaborate than a candle inside a jack o' lantern. He has a playable pumpkin Tetris.

Pryor carved an impeccable grid into a good-size pumpkin and loaded it with 128 LEDs for the display. He named this glorious triumph of technology over fruit "Pumpktris." Say that five times fast.… Read more

You could wake up to the buzzing of an alarm clock. You could wake up to your smartphone's ringtone. Or you could wake up to the dulcet tones of the Tetris theme music.

The Tetris alarm clock is officially licensed. At first glace, it's a little nondescript. Look closer and you'll see the function buttons are shaped like Tetris blocks.

The clock's real draw are the falling blocks that build each number as the time changes. The gadget is currently available for preorder for about $40 from Firebox.… Read more

Hackers overrode the tallest building in Cambridge, Mass., last week, turning the 21-story Green Building at MIT into a giant Tetris puzzle game controllable from a nearby joystick attached to a podium.

The successful attempt comes after a glitch-filled try to run Tetris on the same building in September of last year. Hackers used 153 wirelessly controlled color-changing LED lights for the giant game on a building that hosts MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science facilities.

The MIT-hosted Hack Gallery notes, "MIT hackers have long considered 'Tetris on the Green Building' to be the Holy Grail of hacks, as the side of the building is a wonderful grid for the game." … Read more

With each turn in Triple Town, you are given an object -- grass, a bush, a tree -- to place onto your 6x6 playing board for use as a building block. Place three of the same object next to each other, and they'll combine to form a single, more valuable object. Three patches of grass make a bush, three bushes make a tree, three trees make a house, and so on. Your goal is to build the most advanced town possible before all the slots on your board fill up.

The difficulty of Triple Town lies in planning ahead, … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Many world champion Tetris players claim to see falling bricks in their dreams (see: Tetris Effect), and now players of all skill levels can wake up to the puzzle game with their own Tetronimo wall graphics, thanks to a collaboration between Tetris and Walls360.

Walls360 is a start-up co-founded by Tavia Campbell, John Doffing, and Yiying Lu, the artist responsible for the famous Twitter Fail Whale. Their wall graphics first caught my eye when they hosted a kick-off event two years ago to launch the company, and since then they've partnered with brands like Star Trek and Paddington Bear to create high-quality adhesive wall images.… Read more

Make sure you watch where you point your bricks, because there are some new Tetris sheriffs in town.

The annual Tetris World Championships, held on the University of Southern California campus over the weekend, crowned several new kings of the classic puzzler. Hundreds of players competed on Sony's PlayStation 3 and the classic Nintendo NES console for an official Tetris trophy and more than $5,000 in cash and prizes.

The matches were decided by whoever faltered first by accumulating a game-ending tower of bricks; the tournament bracket had several interesting stipulations to make the epic brick battle more adventurous. … Read more

Everyone remembers Tetris. Students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have brought new life to the classic game game by attaching a pair of 6-foot colored LED arrays to Dance Dance Revolution mats.

The life-size game is displayed on the LED arrays instead of a television set. To rotate or change the position of the brick, you'll have to step on the preassigned pads on the DDR mats. Of course, instead of dancing, you'll just be hopping around trying to control your brick, making you look rather silly.

Watch the video to see the whole concept in action:

The students have also provided instructions here, so anyone with the right coding knowledge and equipment can build a setup like this too.

(Source: Crave Asia via Engadget) … Read more