New Voice of Ukraine: Ukrainian games get dedicated section on Steam platform. “The PlayUa curator page (as Steam calls recommended game playlists) contains games from a variety of genres and studios: from indie developers to large companies with a worldwide reputation, as well as products released by mostly Ukrainian teams.”
MIT Technology Review: Chinese gamers are using a Steam wallpaper app to get porn past the censors. “Online porn is banned in China, so people there have to get creative to access it. Steam is one of the only popular global platforms still available in the country, and its community features, international high-speed servers, and increasingly hands-off approach when it comes to sexual content have made it an inevitable choice. Chinese users now make up at least 40% of Wallpaper Engine’s global user base, MIT Technology Review estimates.”
From January, but too good to ignore. Discovery Magazine: Introducing Science Near Me, Your Place to Find Accessible, Engaging Science Experiences. “Together, we’re going to explore all the ways people around the U.S. can find and get involved with science. On this blog, and the new Science Near Me companion website (currently in beta), you’ll find opportunities to engage with science content, activities, events and programs in your community, whether that’s visiting a new exhibit at your local museum, planning a night out with friends at an Astronomy on Tap event, or participating in a national science policy forum.”
Spotted on Reddit and hosted on GitHub: ISEF Database. In this case ISEF is the International Science and Engineering Fair. “This is a simple web scraper which gets all of the projects and abstract information from Science for Society’s website… I want someone to get inspired to do a ‘meta’ science fair project.” Looks like it’s available either as a Kaggle notebook or a delimited text file of information.
PRNewswire: Gale and California State Library Partner to Provide K-12 Students and Educators Access to STEAM Digital Resources (PRESS RELEASE). “The California State Library and Riverside County Office of Education have partnered with Gale, part of Cengage Group, to provide California’s more than six-million K-12 students and over 300,000 educators with access to science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM) digital resources from Gale. These new resources are part of California’s K-12 Online Content Project and are available at all schools (10k+) and public libraries (1.1k+) throughout California to support and strengthen STEAM learning.”
Florida Polytechnic University: New online tool helps bolster STEM careers from Florida Poly. “MyFloridaFuture, which was announced today by the State University System of Florida and the Board of Governors, is an interactive tool designed to help students and their families make informed decisions about higher education options within the system…. Among the wealth of data found in the college and career planning tool is information to allow students to compare earnings over time, educational options beyond a bachelor’s degree, average loan amounts, and more. Information is available at both the institution and system level.”
The Verge: An interactive Doja Cat music video can introduce you to programming. “Girls Who Code, the nonprofit organization that aims to get more women and girls interested in the field of computer science, has debuted what it calls the ‘first ever’ codable music video. The organization partnered with Doja Cat, transforming her new music video for Woman into an interactive experience.”
Malwarebytes Labs: “Free Steam game” scams on TikTok are Among Us. “What we sometimes see on TikTok is gaming-themed accounts making many of the same promises you see on other platforms. Free games, free items, free stuff. Everything is definitely free with no strings attached. Would RandomAccountGuy3856 lie to you? The answer is, of course, ‘Yes, RandomAccountGuy3856 absolutely would lie to you’.”
The Verge: SteamVR beta lets you arrange desktop windows inside your virtual world. “As of its latest beta release, Valve’s SteamVR software can add floating desktop windows inside VR games, letting you keep an eye on other apps without leaving VR. It’s a helpful addition, allowing players to keep an eye on anything from Discord, to a Twitch chat, or Netflix during a lower-intensity game.”
UConn Today: DMD Professor’s ‘Blackhaven’ Game Lets Players Unravel Mysteries of the Past. “The lingering mysteries of America’s Colonial past are the subject of a historically-themed video game, ‘Blackhaven,’ a historically-themed video game being released in late July on the online gaming platform Steam by a new professor in the Digital Media & Design (DMD) department. James Coltrain joined DMD as an assistant professor of Game Art and 3D Modeling last fall and with his studio, Historiated Games, uses documents, images, and artifacts to develop historically accurate narrative titles.”
Man of Many: Steam Smashes Record with 19.7 Million Concurrent Players. “According to Steam’s own statistics tracker, peak player count hit 19,728,027 users Saturday morning, or late Saturday if we’re talking Australian EDT. The previous Steam record was set back in February this year with around 18.8 million concurrent players, making the new record close to 1 million greater.”
Neowin: Google might be bringing Valve’s Steam to Chrome OS. “According to a report from David Ruddock of Android Police, Google is working to bring official Steam support to Chrome OS, something that would make Valve’s PC game market the first of its kind on Google’s platform. Ruddock spoke to Kan Liu, Director of Product Management for Chrome OS, where Liu confirmed the upcoming feature.”
Facebook has announced a Steam competitor. “After losing mobile gaming to iOS and Android, Facebook is making a big push into playing on PC with today’s developer launch of its Gameroom Windows desktop gaming platform. After months of name changes, beta tests and dev solicitation, Facebook opened up the beta build for all developers and officially named it Gameroom. The app is openly available for users to download on Windows 7 and up.”
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