Britain’s first next-generation supercomputer, planned by Tories, in doubt after
Labour government move
The new Labour government has shelved £1.3bn of funding pledged by the
Conservatives for technology and artificial intelligence projects, putting the
future of the UK’s first next-generation supercomputer in doubt.
The projects, announced last year, include £800m for the creation of an exascale
supercomputer at the University of Edinburgh and a further £500m for the AI
Research Resource, which funds computing power for AI.
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Tag - Scotland
A Tamagotchi seance, macabre cartoon horror and an arty shmup: this new festival
spotlights a fertile Scottish games scene beyond Rockstar North
Walking through the doors of this boutique video game festival, you are
immediately greeted by a bullet hell shoot-em-up with a painterly twist. In ZOE
Begone!, you dodge and unleash attacks at blistering speed before the game
erupts into a euphoric shower of pointillist colour, dazzling the eyes and
punishing the thumbs. Next to it sits Left Upon Read; at first glance, a
dark-fantasy Quake clone, but one that gives you the bizarre task of checking
text messages on a smartphone as you slice your way through a dungeon. These are
subversive games, taking well-worn design tropes and breaking them in witty,
playful ways.
Rule-breaking is a major theme of Glasgow independent game festival, the latest
iteration of an event previously known as Southside games festival. It took
place last weekend at Civic House, nestled in the shadow of the M8, the concrete
eyesore that carves through Glasgow and connects the city with the wider central
belt. On display are more eccentric and smaller-budget games than those you see
on shelves, all made by developers who either live within Glasgow or a short
train ride away. Co-founder Joe Bain sees such works as part of the “wider
cultural landscape” of games, and sought to create a space treating them as
such. It’s a far cry from trade fairs such as Gamescom where, beyond the
boisterous public halls, the machinations of the games industry can feel as if
they’re moving in capital-driven lockstep.
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National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh
From Donkey Kong to Halo 3, the entirety of video game evolution is here – and
you can play almost every console and cabinet
Walking through the doors of this exhibition, you are immediately greeted by the
PDP-10 - the gigantic mainframe computer that was used to program SpaceWar,
considered by everyone except extreme computing history pedants to be the first
recognisable video game. Next to it, on the left, a bright yellow working Pong
arcade cabinet from 1972. Puck Man (later Pac-Man) and Space Invaders cabinets
stand side by side just beyond. These are very familiar sights to anyone with a
knowledge of gaming history, and they set the tone. If you’re a keen (or, let’s
be honest, old) player then it’s highly unlikely that you’ll learn anything new
at Game On, but you will nonetheless have fun.
Beginning in 2002 at the Barbican in London, the Game On exhibition of video
game history has been touring the world for all this time, only ever packed away
entirely during the Covid-19 pandemic. It first came to Edinburgh later that
year. Twenty-two years ago I dragged my dad along to this exhibition; this time
I will be dragging my kids and encouraging them to have a go on the now-ancient
games I loved when I was their age. Crucially, you can play almost everything at
this exhibition, from Donkey Kong to Guitar Hero, Farming Simulator to
Soulcalibur. One section pairs each console in gaming history with a defining
game, another groups games together by genre, and a third is devoted to
multiplayer, with four-player Halo 3 set up around a pillar. There are more than
100 games to sample and they form a well-curated nostalgia trip, focused
primarily but not entirely on the 80s, 90s and 00s.
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