Internet masterminds realised you can get people to do almost anything (like, say, share their banal restaurant visits with friends) if you make it a pseudo-game. Now Google’s piling on! Reading news will let you collect badges and level up. More »
The Boy Scouts, already no strangers to interesting, (if not controversial) modern-day badges like “video games,” have added what is an arguably more apt and useful skill to their badge-based repertoire: Robotics. More »
A hacker group known as the Ninjas has created what may be the best DefCon badge ever. The badge allows wireless ninja battle between badge holders. Unlike the official badge, attendees can’t buy this one: It’s free. More »
Wired got a sneak peek at one of the more fun aspects of this coming weekend’s Defcon, the hackable badge. Last year’s badge was hacked in just ten minutes, but it didn’t have an SD card slot at USB support. The new card has fewer features than last year’s but is more powerful. And it comes with a longer battery life, good news. But not everything is known, and that’s kind of the point to these fun trinkets. [Wired]
The recent Zune Update a month or so ago added the ability to track your listening habits and reward you for them. Think of achievements on the Xbox 360, except not pedantic ones like listen to every artist that released a single in 2003. These badges are actually quite nice, and display on your Zune Card if you do whatever it is enough times in the previous month. A thousand plays isn’t all that hard if you’re sitting at your desk all day like us. No cheating, cause we know you’d just leave your player on repeat and turn your speakers off. [Zune via Zune Insider]
