digital

Esports: an overview of a new(ish) frontier in digital entertainment

© Riot Games
photo: © Riot Games

Pardon me: an e-…what?

According to the definition in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, an esport is “a video game played as a competition for people to watch as entertainment”. Albeit with some approximation, this definition captures the essence of the phenomenon and helps us introduce this first very important point: any videogame (whether it’s a virtual simulation of a traditional sporting activity or not) can be an esport.

2023 Women's Day statement

Computer woman
photo: chenspec, on Pixabay

This year's theme for the International Women’s Day is “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality.” Intellectual Property (IP) offices and organizations around the globe are coming together to support diversity within our offices and organizations and across the IP system.

Introducing Dataism: the Art Movement We Do Need to Understand

"Today", paintings by On Kawara
photo: Ben Davis

A reflection on the transformative power of data in art.

Dataism is an artistic practice that acknowledges how data has become humanity’s principal means of understanding nature, characterizing social processes, developing new technologies, and, increasingly, probing what makes us human. This way of making art is fueled by the conviction that art cannot escape, ignore, or bypass data if it wishes to remain relevant to the post-visual processes that shape our society. 

Copies of the Parthenon Marbles—carved by a robot—to go on show in London

Parthenon Marbles
photo: © Justin Norris
The Oxford-based Institute for Digital Archaeology has created a copy of Parthenon Marbles pieces housed at the British Museum (BM) in London, which will go on show later this month. In June, a robot designed by the Institute—which can create faithful reproductions of large-scale historical object—began carving a detailed copy of one of the BM’s Parthenon Marbles at a workshop in Carrara, Italy, according to The New York Times.