Gaming

It's not an ancient computer reverse-engineered in plastic blocks, but this Lego-inspired spoof of Call of Duty: Black Ops is good fun. Video after the jump.

Now you can bicycle to the Internet (almost), on a networked stationary cycle that adds layers of gaming, interactivity, and social media to the spinning workout.

An animated reverse-history of communications media that goes from apps to web to video to clay to slate and chalk. In six seconds.

Mashing up machinima with real-life performers, refreshing the low-geek vernacular mode.

Ian Bogost's retrofuturist art game A Slow Year explores the traditions and aesthetic possibilities of the medium.

Thrash metal and testosterone-raked commands give way to twee chimes and happy laughs in the latest trailer for Atari's whimsical casual game, The Undergarden.

Kinect hacks are emerging at a rapid pace; it�s hard to recall a mass-market gadget so quickly adapted to new uses. As Bruce Sterling points out, �Microsoft accidentally invented a primo piece of art-installation hardware.� It's this kind of DIY innovation that keeps tech feral.

The ease with which the Microsoft Kinect can be torn down�and the familiarity of the software driving it�has quickly proven a feature and not a bug for hackers. Hacking commercial gadgets is nothing new of course; but the pace at which hacks now appear, as well as the appeal they generate, is something to watch.

The iconic twentieth-century computer game continues to exert an addictive appeal. And if researchers at Oxford University are right, it may be a uniquely therapeutic way to blunt the effects of traumatic experience as well.

Artist Jude Buffum has created a series of portraits of beloved Nintendo characters (like Gesso, above) in the form of butcher�s diagrams�bringing together his love of gaming and meat.