Computer plays Pong all by itself
by John Bardinelli 
{ Jun 19th 2007 at 10:58AM }
User-created content is so last year. The new craze: videogames that play themselves. Ashish Derhgawen wrote an image recognition program and connected a webcam to his computer. The camera watches the ball by detecting borders on the screen and adjusting the paddle's position to compensate. Not exactly a portent of the impending machine uprising, but the program could easily be modified to detect human-shaped borders and the camera could swing a 2x4 with a nail in the end. Food for thought.
[Via Engadget]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jonathan Tran @ Jun 19th 2007 11:06AM
this mod is going to ruin the competitive online professional pong circuit. up until last year there have only been 3 bans due to cheating. I fear this year the nationals are going to have to be done in person to prevent constant "hax" calls.
Taylor Falk @ Jun 19th 2007 12:01PM
i noticed the right paddle always hits the ball with it's top portion.
Jack @ Jun 19th 2007 12:13PM
I wanted to see some speed increase to see if the bats could keep up.
ssuk @ Jun 19th 2007 1:23PM
Well, this is the hight of human civilisation, right here. A computer which can play Pong by itself. There can truely be no technological advancement past this point.
Erick @ Jun 19th 2007 1:28PM
Make me think, "Shall we play a game?" War Games had a PC play tic-tac-toe against itself to "learn" that you can't always win some games...since it was "self-aware" and trying to start a nuclear war. Good times.
eldee @ Jun 19th 2007 4:17PM
It's called AI, it's been around for about 30-40 years now.
Mr Khan @ Jun 19th 2007 4:50PM
This is news how?
I do the same thing all the time with Super Smash Bros Melee...
Grey Acumen @ Jun 20th 2007 11:45AM
the computer is playing with itself?
So is this like PC masturbation?
(yes, I admit it, I pretty much stole this joke from Penny Arcade)