Epic Games, the company best known for Gears of War, has a very different plan for this generation of video games — one that expands far beyond what games are typically assumed to be. [...]

In this future, or present if you ask Sweeney, lessons learned from one field, say an architect designing a virtual building, can be applied to games or film, and likewise. Sweeney believes the potential application of the engine across all fields increases exponentially as information is shared. — theverge.com

Google announced today it’s making a platform available to museums that enables them to build mobile applications that take advantage of Google technology, including Street View and YouTube, to bring their exhibits to anyone with a smartphone. Through partnerships between museums worldwide and the Google Cultural Institute, there are now 11 museums and cultural institutions that have participated in this pilot project to date; their apps are live now on Google Play. — techcrunch.com

People often compare Minecraft to LEGO; both support open-ended creation (once you’ve mastered the crafting table, you can build nearly anything) and, of course, they share an essential blockiness. But I think this comparison is misleading, because a LEGO set always includes instructions, and Minecraft comes with none.

Minecraft is a game about creation, yes. But it is just as much a game about secret knowledge. — Medium

I’m a quiet fan of these urban explorers, people who devote time to poking around abandoned buildings or “haikyo”.... And because I’ve spent so much time inhabiting digital rooms myself, I often think about how time decays digital structures. I imagine all of the strings of text that have come before or after mine that similarly disappeared into the void. But what happens when those spaces stick around, as in a virtual world—when they can’t physically decay? — theatlantic.com

For the last 18 months, Assistant Professor David Beach and senior architecture student Sam McBride have been working on a program that allows designers and clients alike to physically experience a building...before a single brick is laid.

This designing process Beach and McBride have developed is highly interactive. It focuses on making technology like this available for architects around the world. What's more, systems like this are becoming more available for consumers. — ksmu.org

Google today launched an interactive map featuring Street Views of over 65 mass-transit hubs. The map features some locations you may have already explored, like Emirates' A380 or London's Gatwick Airport, alongside some new sites across Europe, South America, and Asia. — theverge.com

Phil Boucher is a self-described “architecture nerd.” And while part of that means marveling and photographing the beautiful buildings around Boston, it also means recreating the entire city as accurately as possible in the video game Sim City 4. — wbur.org

The opening of the sprawling Zaha Hadid-designed Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, which will soon exhibit slices of L.A.-based billionaire Eli Broad’s extensive art collection, has been postponed from this spring to the fall for reasons only vaguely stated. But never fear; for those of you chomping at the bit to see it, or who are in a particularly remote part of the world in relation to East Lansing, Michigan, MSU has just opened the Virtual Broad Art Museum. — artinfo.com

The glasses will use the same Android software that powers Android smartphones and tablets... equipped with GPS and motion sensors. They will also contain a camera and audio inputs and outputs.

Through the built-in camera on the glasses, Google will be able to stream images to its rack computers and return augmented reality information to the person wearing them. For instance, a person looking at a landmark could see detailed historical information and comments about it left by friends. — nytimes.com