Latest news with #AlexHutchinson
Winnipeg Free Press
05-07-2025
- Science
- Winnipeg Free Press
Navigating the unknown
Among the many technical terms from fields such as neuroscience, artificial intelligence, applied mathematics and genetics found in this fascinating new book by bestselling Canadian science writer/distance runner/physicist Alex Hutchinson, the reader discovers 'prediction error.' It's a term that comes from studies of how the brain makes sense of the impressions presented to it by the senses. The brain doesn't simply receive sensory data; rather, it continually makes predictions based on partial sense data and feeds these back to the senses. When we get lost, the predictions we make tend to be errors. We also carry a variant of the gene DRD4 that gives us a happy endorphin boost when our rate of prediction error declines. That genetic variant, Hutchinson writes, emerged 40-50,000 years ago, 'right around the time when our ancestors began their long, multi-pronged march to the farthest corners of the globe. It was a march, the findings hinted, spurred in part by dopamine.' Associated Press files Despite the book's title, Alex Hutchinson's latest is about much more than investigating far-flung and remote corners of our planet. Appropriately enough, The Explorer's Gene will be picked up by many readers as a result of a prediction error. Judging by the title and the historic mountaineering photo on the cover, readers may assume the book is a story of outdoor adventure. So it may come as a surprise that it's packed with discussions of experiments involving social-science questionnaires, rats in cages or brain imaging. Exploration, in Hutchinson's context, can mean striding off into the unknown, conducting scientific research or even varying your restaurant selections. Should you always order from the pizza parlour you like, knowing from experience that you'll enjoy it? Or should you 'explore' the restaurant scene in case a new, better place has opened up? According to Hutchinson, the science says 'try that new joint now and then.' Hutchinson, who has a master's degree in journalism from Cornell University and a PhD in physics from the University of Cambridge, drew on his experience with Canada's national distance running team to write the bestseller Endure, on the science of endurance. Hutchinson cites Swedish speedskater Nils van der Poel as an example of the benefits of experimentation. The skater had done reasonably well with the standard approach to training, but after the 2018 Olympics tried an unheard-of training regimen that led to Olympic gold in Beijing in 2022 and world records. Supplied photo Hutchinson is a science writer, long-distance runner and physicist. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. Each chapter begins with a capsule illustration of an aspect of exploration, exemplified in incidents such as Alexander Mackenzie's journey to the Arctic Ocean in the 18th century or the Polynesian voyages that settled the Pacific Ocean. One story, about a six-year-old boy who got lost in the mountains of Oregon and found his way home on his own, introduces a discussion of free childhood play as a form of exploration and the worrisome consequences of a decline in such exploration in a wired, media-fed culture. Another topic may be of special interest to readers with a lot of mileage on their traveling shoes. It's called the 'explore-exploit' dilemma. Generally speaking, we explore when we're young and have time to make mistakes and try again. When we're older we 'exploit' our existing knowledge, living off skills acquired earlier. But that doesn't mean we should give up exploring altogether. In fact, Hutchinson argues that continuing to explore helps keep people physically and mentally healthy as they age. So even if you feel too old to learn about algorithms and game theory, and even if your explorations are mostly carried out through a screen, adding The Explorer's Gene to your bookcase may help you navigate the seas of advancing age as you sail toward the final discovery. Bob Armstrong is a Winnipeg novelist who writes about his explorations on Substack @wanderingwriterbobarmstrong. The Explorer's Gene
CBC
08-06-2025
- Science
- CBC
Stepping into the unknown is good for us — and being an explorer doesn't require skydiving
For many, the word "explore" brings to mind daring feats: climbing towering peaks, plunging into ocean depths or soaring through the air on a skydive. But Alex Hutchinson challenges people to redefine exploration — suggesting it's not just for adrenaline junkies. "There's a middle definition where it's not just about physical exploration — it's not just about extremes or anything like that," Hutchinson told The Current 's Matt Galloway. Instead, he says exploration is any moment where we step into the unknown, take a risk, or seek growth. "There has to be some stakes — you're venturing into the unknown, you're taking a path where you don't know how it's going to turn out — there's probably going to be struggle along the way." Hutchinson is the author of The Explorer's Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, which explores our innate drive to seek out the unknown. We're all meant to explore Exploration may take different forms for each of us, but it's something we're all built for — hardwired into our biology, says Hutchinson. Our brain's pleasure system, the former physicist said, is wired not just to reward success, but to light up when something surprises us in a positive way. That surge of dopamine pushes us to keep seeking new and unexpected experiences. Hutchinson points to a simple example: how children are naturally driven to change things up while playing at the playground. At first, they're excited to go down the slide, but after a few turns, curiosity kicks in — they start climbing up instead, inventing new and creative ways to play. "They know that the uncertainty is gone, so that's why they're like, 'OK, now we're going to go up the slide.'" Brent Hogarth, a licensed clinical psychologist with expertise in sport and high-performance psychology in B.C., agrees. He says the urge to explore is as fundamental as any basic human need. "A need just like vitamin C, is the need for exploration and adventure," he said. It's powered by what neuroscientists call the seeking system — a primal drive in the brain that keeps us curious, ambitious and open to possibility. "When the seeking system gets activated — whether you're on an adventure, you're learning, you're experimenting at work — we get a massive hit of dopamine that is not about reward, but more so, about motivation of wanting to explore more, adventure more, experiment more," said Hogarth. Finding balance Still, knowing when to stretch yourself — and when to step back — is just as important as the act of exploring itself, says Hutchinson. There's also value in staying within our comfort zone — in knowing when to explore, and when to "exploit" the knowledge and experience we already have, he says. Recognizing when to switch between the two is key to avoiding burnout and maximizing growth. "As you get better at what you're doing, you have to increase the challenge … [which] leads to growth because you have to keep getting on the edge, keep going for it," said Hogarth. That edge doesn't have to be dramatic. In fact, Hogarth recommends what he calls "front loading" — small, low-stakes acts of courage that prepare us for bigger moments. Start with something as simple as complimenting a stranger or chatting with the person who makes your coffee, says Hogarth. These minor moments build the confidence and mental habits needed to tackle more intimidating goals, like speaking up in a meeting or taking on a new role. "When the moment of uncertainty or adventure presents itself, we've done the work so that we can go for it," he said. Veronica Park, a registered clinical counsellor of B.C., believes in embracing the limits of our abilities without shame. "We [all] can't be Einstein," she said, but added that doesn't make anyone less valuable, as everyone has their own unique talents and strengths. "It's better to stay within that boundary, rather than keep pushing it and feel like I'm exhausting myself." That's the moment, Park says, when you can acknowledge, "Maybe this is the boundary of my potential and gifts, and I learn to take it with humility saying, 'I am satisfied with what I am.'" Ultimately, Hutchinson says, exploration isn't about perfection — because by nature, it's uncertain. He says what matters most is not guaranteed success, but choosing the path with the greatest potential. "What you want to do is make choices such that when you're looking back, even if it went wrong, you will not regret it," he said. "So, you take a chance, you look at what has the biggest possible upside, what has the best realistic outcome, and you say, 'Let's try that, and even if it doesn't work, at least I won't regret trying.'"
WIRED
28-05-2025
- Business
- WIRED
The Switch 2 May Signal the End of Physical Games
May 28, 2025 6:30 AM Nintendo's 'game-key cards' may end up being physical gaming media's last gasp—even though they don't have a game on them at all. The Nintendo game-key card and the Nintendo Switch 2 console. Courtesy of Nintendo One of the biggest changes of Nintendo's generational leap to the Switch 2 is the new console's game carts. Not the aesthetic shift—they're now red, to differentiate them from the original Switch's slate gray ones—but rather that, in many cases, they won't contain a game at all. While all first-party Nintendo games are currently expected to be released on-cart, other publishers may choose to release their Switch 2 titles on 'game-key cards.' These have no actual game data on them, instead serving as a physical license to access and play a digital version of a game. Per Nintendo, after players insert the game-key card into their console, they'll be prompted to download the associated game. An internet connection will be required to download the game and for any online features, but otherwise, game-key card titles will be playable offline as normal, so long as that physical cartridge is inserted, its presence serving as a software authentication tool. It's a direction that has proven controversial with both fans and some developers (former Assassin's Creed and Far Cry lead Alex Hutchinson said, 'I think it's sort of lame,' while Nightdive Studios CEO Stephen Kick said the move is 'a little disheartening') and could be confusing for consumers, despite Nintendo's plans to clearly mark the packaging of game-key card titles. However, the move does have several positives—and it may just be a harbinger of the future for the entire games industry. Better Than Literally Nothing Probably the biggest plus point to game-key cards is that they're an improvement on the current equivalent, which is … nothing at all. Switch cartridges are a proprietary storage format, which means they can be more expensive, per GB of storage, to release games on than mass-market media. As a result, several game publishers sell titles in a 'code in a box' format—entirely empty Switch cases with a single-use, digital download code to redeem on the Nintendo eShop. While these sorts of releases ostensibly fill a market gap, giving real-world retailers a product to put on shelves and, even for online sellers, providing some form of physical object to send to customers—useful to give out as gifts, for instance—they've always been an odd category. Collectors typically want an actual game on their shelves, while those unbothered by a permanent library would likely be browsing a digital-only storefront in the first place. Either way, once that code has been redeemed, the customer is left with an empty plastic case with no purpose and no secondary market value. Code-in-a-box releases are ultimately a waste of materials to produce and dispose of, the remnants likely destined for landfill. Game-key cards go some small way to solving these problems. For collectors, they'll have something in the case lining their shelves, making their collections tangible, while more casual players can take a chance on titles they're unsure of. That's because the carts won't be tied to user accounts—anyone with the cart downloads their own copy of the game. Because the cartridge itself is the key, you'll be able to lend out, sell, or trade-in game-key cards as easily as carts for previous console generations, and only whoever physically possesses it will be able to play. There is still a convenience factor to consider, as you'll need to have that cart inserted into your Switch 2 to play the game, unlike entirely digital purchases, but it stands to be a far more versatile and arguably consumer-friendly approach than those one-time codes. We'll have chance to see which format players prefer with the first wave of Switch 2 titles, as titles like EA's Split Fiction sticks with the code-in-a-box approach. The biggest concern surrounding game-key cards, particularly for collectors, is likely to be longevity. A 40-year-old NES game cart can still be played on a working console—will the same be possible for a Switch 2 game in 2065? A game-key card would, presumably, still authenticate an already installed game to run (in this hypothetical, your Switch 2 console is still intact and working decades from now, too), but if the servers aren't running anymore to enable downloading the linked software in the first place, that cart would be useless—just more e-waste. However, Switch 2 games could still be available to download for a long time. There's precedent here—although the Wii virtual store has long since been deactivated for new purchases, players can still download their existing purchases. Similarly, 3DS games and even update data can also be redownloaded, more than a year after its online store was turned off. Those might represent different scenarios, given digital purchases on those earlier platforms were tied to the specific piece of hardware. (For example, Nintendo says you need "the same Wii console you used to originally download the game" to redownload.) Nintendo has since adopted an account-based structure for Switch 1, linking purchases to the user who bought them, and transferable to a new console. That leaves game-key cards in a sort of limbo, unaffiliated with either hardware or user. That could throw up unforeseen hurdles in the much longer term—there'd be no way to predict when a game-key card in the wild would be plugged in and need a game to download—but based on Nintendo's track record for supporting digital games on retired hardware, there doesn't appear to be anything to be immediately concerned about, especially when backward compatibility on Switch 2 is looking like a priority. It is fair to wonder why, if publishers are releasing a game on a cart at all, they wouldn't just put the game on there anyway. There are likely some practical reasons to explain this, though. Like the original Switch, the proprietary format again means cards that include flash memory to store game data on are more expensive to produce, so it's a way to keep production costs down. Don't expect a consumer benefit from that, but it will make business sense, somewhere. Pushing the Limit Then there's the matter of storage limits. Switch 2 carts can hold a maximum of 64 GB of data—double the total internal capacity on the original Switch console itself, but still pretty meager compared to game sizes now. Some studios have performed some dark compression magic—CD Projekt Red has crammed Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition , which weighs in at over 70 GB on PC, down to just 56.8 GB on Switch 2 to be one of the few third-party titles shipping with the full game data on the card—but other games may be larger than an actual Switch 2 cart could hold. Games exceeding the capacity of physical media isn't unique to Nintendo. The recent PS5 release of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has only 20 GB on-disc, which sounds paltry when you consider a PS5 disc can hold up to 100 GB of data, but not when the installed size of the game is over 120 GB. Bethesda's Doom: The Dark Ages, too, ships with only 85 MB of data on the game disc (although there, the full install potentially could fit on a disc). However, like Nintendo's game-key cards, both of these prompt players to download the actual game in full. It's worth remembering that even when a game's data is on a disc or cart at launch it's rarely the full and final version of a game nowadays. Even for single-player titles, day-one patches, updates, bug fixes, and bonus DLC can drastically change a game after release (which raises philosophical questions for preservationists too—which iteration do you save?) and require more storage space. As data demands continue to balloon, we may have reached the limit of physical storage for video games, so game-key cards (or discs) may be the best we get. In that light, Nintendo providing any material release at all is actually a small win for fans of physical media, especially given how boxed-game sales have absolutely cratered. Industry analyst Mat Piscatella highlighted in January 2025 that spending on physical games in the US has halved since 2021 and is down 85 percent on a 2008 high. In the UK, a recent study by trade body UKIE found that physical sales accounted for just 4 percent of total spend in 2024 and represented a 34 percent fall year on year. Increasingly, consumers are choosing to go digital even when a physical option exists. Even collector's editions, those bastions of physical media, are now abandoning physical copies of their game. Sony's upcoming Ghost of Yōtei costs $250 for the premium package and still provides just a download code for the game itself. Physical releases are becoming an afterthought. These shifts in consumer and corporate behavior absolutely raise questions about game preservation and long-term access to the games we play, but those questions apply across the whole industry. As it stands, Nintendo's game-key cards may end up being physical gaming media's last gasp—even though they don't have a game on them at all.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Far Cry 4 and Assassin's Creed 3 director 'hates' the Nintendo Switch 2 Game Key Card system, 'We're losing some of what made the business special'
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Far Cry 4 and Revenge of the Savage Planet director Alex Hutchinson thinks Nintendo's Game Key Cards are "sort of lame" The director thinks Nintendo will "get away with it" because of "the power of nostalgia in our business" He believes "we're losing some of what made the business special" Alex Hutchinson, the director of Far Cry 4 and Assassin's Creed 3, has said that the Nintendo Switch 2's controversial Game Key Cards are "sort of lame". Speaking in an interview with VideoGamer following the release of his new game, Revenge of the Savage Planet, Hutchinson said he sees the appeal of digital downloads as someone who has released both physical and digital games, but that he isn't a fan of Nintendo's new system. "It's funny that Nintendo is going to get away with it," Hutchinson said. "It just shows you the power of nostalgia in our business that the way they will beat up Microsoft versus Nintendo is just not the same, especially in Europe. It's like, 'oh, Nintendo's doing it, alright we're not gonna say much.' "I hate it," he continued. "I think it's sort of lame. I don't know, I just feel like it's getting away… we're losing some of what made the business special. Trading Game Boy cartridges at school, or, you know, DS for the modern audience. There's something nice about that." Game key Cards are physical Switch 2 games that will contain a download "key" on the cartridge, but don't include the full game data. While new Switch 2 titles like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza will offer standard physical game cards like the original Switch, some third-party titles like Star Wars Outlaws, Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster, and more will be Game Key Card only releases. There are also rumors that Elden Ring Tarnished Edition will be a Game Key Card, as well as The Duskbloods, but we'll have to wait and see. In case you missed it, the Nintendo Switch 2 launches on June 5, 2025, for $449.99 / £395.99 or $499.99 / £429.99 for the Mario Kart World bundle. UK pre-orders and US pre-orders are now live. Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders live: latest UK stock updates as My Nintendo Store's pre-order date arrives, while US pre-orders remain delayed Here are the Nintendo Switch 2 launch games that you'll be able to pick up and play on June 5 Rockstar confirms the latest Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer was all 'gameplay and cutscenes' captured 'entirely in-game' on the PS5
Globe and Mail
16-05-2025
- Globe and Mail
We should turn off GPS – it's a no-brainer
Alex Hutchinson's latest book is The Explorer's Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, from which this essay has been partly adapted. 'Mummy uses Waze,' a helpful voice piped from the back seat. We were on our way to my daughters' playoff hockey game, and I'd just missed a left turn. Now I was scanning the intersections ahead, looking for a road that would take me north without getting snarled in residential cul-de-sacs or blocked by train tracks. 'Don't worry, we've got lots of time,' I lied, clenching the steering wheel and forcing a smile into my voice. 'You wouldn't have missed that turn if you used Waze,' my younger daughter persisted. 'Why don't you use it?' I swung left up a promising-looking street. 'Wow, I've never been up this way before,' I said. 'Isn't this neat? We're having an adventure!' No one in the back seat sounded convinced. It sounded pretty thin to me too, but the real reasons I'd sworn off my phone's turn-by-turn directions were harder to articulate. On a superficial level, I was worried that the navigational centres of my brain were at risk of withering away. But the ubiquity of GPS also felt emblematic of a deeper shift in how we interact with the world and with each other these days: more passive, more automatic, more forgettable. I wanted to chart my own path – and make my own mistakes. The Global Positioning System, a network of two dozen satellites that can instantly pinpoint your location, originated as a U.S. military project in the 1970s. In 1983, after a Korean airliner accidentally wandered into restricted Soviet airspace and was shot down, Ronald Reagan announced that it would be made available for limited civilian use. In 2000, Bill Clinton lifted the remaining restrictions and kick-started the era of consumer GPS. I first tried GPS a few years later, borrowing my uncle's hand-held Garmin unit for a backcountry trip in the Rockies. Then came in-car navigation screens suction-cupped to windshields, replacing map books and sheets of directions printed out from MapQuest. In 2008, Apple added GPS to the iPhone. Getting GPS on my phone initially seemed like just another incremental step in the long march toward total convenience. But it soon became clear that having an omniscient navigational tool in your pocket at all times represented a dramatic change – not just in how we find our way around, but in how we construct a mental representation of the world around us. Scientists have long used navigational challenges to probe our inner states. 'The history of psychology,' behavioural neuroscientist Paul Dudchenko writes, 'is, in part, a history of how rats find their way in mazes.' One of the most famous rats-in-mazes study was a 1948 paper by Edward Tolman that introduced the concept of 'cognitive maps.' At the time, behaviourists argued that rats navigated through mazes by simply memorizing a series of lefts and rights. Tolman showed that if you made shortcuts available, rats would choose the right direction, demonstrating that they had some sort of internal representation of where they were relative to their destination. In the 1970s, scientists discovered that this idea of a cognitive map wasn't just a metaphor. We have 'place cells' in a region of the brain called the hippocampus, each of which lights up only when we're in a specific location. We also have specific neurons that keep track of which direction we're facing and how near we are to the boundaries of a given space. Wire up a rat's brain, and you can watch neurons fire in succession as the rat wanders through a maze, tracing the contours of a literal map encoded in its brain. These studies established the hippocampus as the seat of spatial memory in the brain. Famously, a study in 2000 found that London taxi drivers had abnormally large hippocampi thanks to the requirement that they memorize the city's labyrinthine network of streets. But plotting your route with a cognitive map encoded in your hippocampus isn't the only way to get around. In fact, it's not even the fastest or easiest. You can also use what scientists call stimulus-response navigation, which simply involves following a set of directions and landmarks: Turn right at the gas station, go three blocks, then left after the bridge. Stimulus-response relies on a different brain region called the caudate nucleus, and it takes less mental effort. The advantage of cognitive mapping is that it's versatile. If you know how to get from A to B, and from B to C, you can figure out the fastest route from A to C. That's not possible if you've just memorized the routes. Turn-by-turn GPS directions are an ultrapure form of stimulus-response navigation, requiring no awareness whatsoever of your surroundings – and they also eliminate the shortcut problem, because they already know how to get from A to C, or anywhere else you want to go. In the early 2000s, neuroscientist Véronique Bohbot and her colleagues at McGill University began studying the effects of different styles of navigation on the brain. They created virtual mazes that could be navigated equally well with cognitive mapping or stimulus-response. Sure enough, brains scans showed that people who chose to rely on cognitive mapping tended to have bigger hippocampi, while those who relied on stimulus-response had bigger caudate nuclei. To establish causation, Dr. Bohbot then paid volunteers to come into her lab and play video games like Call of Duty for a total of 90 hours over several months. Those who defaulted to stimulus-response navigation had measurable shrinkage in their hippocampi, while those stuck with cognitive mapping increased their hippocampus size. This is alarming because having a small hippocampus has been linked to elevated risk of a wide range of neurological conditions including Alzheimer's disease, depression, schizophrenia, and PTSD. It's hard to establish that the small hippocampus is what's causing the problems, but the evidence is suggestive. Schizophrenia patients, for example, tend to already have an unusually small hippocampus when they have their first episode of psychosis. This is the chain of logic that first grabbed my attention, focused narrowly on the perils of being a slave to my GPS: stimulus-response navigation leads to smaller hippocampus leads to cognitive or neurological problems. But when I interviewed Dr. Bohbot for a magazine article, she sounded a much broader warning: 'Society,' she told me, 'is geared in many ways toward shrinking the hippocampus.' I started to think more critically about my own GPS use during a five-day backpacking trip with my wife and kids in Newfoundland's Long Range Mountains a few years ago. Bad weather and challenging terrain put us far enough behind schedule that I started to worry about our food supplies. To keep us moving and reduce the risk of wrong turns, I started checking the GPS waypoints I'd downloaded onto my phone as a backup. It was much easier and more accurate than wrestling with the paper map every few minutes, and soon I was hiking with my phone in my hand at all times – and, I realized, staring at its screen watching the route unfurl as we walked, rather than looking at my surroundings. There's a rich body of scientific research on the differences between actively acquiring information and passively receiving it. Think of driving a car to a new destination compared to sitting in the passenger seat. You see the same sights, but the driver is far more likely to remember how to retrace their steps. Ask kids to draw maps of their neighbourhoods, and those who are driven to school will tend to draw two dots – home and school – connected by a line, while those who walk or bike will provide a more richly detailed picture. What finally motivated me to switch off turn-by-turn directions wasn't so much the fear of Alzheimer's, although, like Dr. Bohbot, I find the data concerning. Instead, it was an attempt to change the nature of my here-and-how experiences – to climb back into the driver's seat. A consistent pattern in Dr. Bohbot's data is that we gravitate toward stimulus-response navigation as we get older. In one of her virtual-world studies, 84 per cent of children used cognitive mapping, compared to 46 per cent of young adults and just 39 per cent of older adults. This isn't surprising: The more we know about the world, the easier it becomes to rely on quick cognitive shortcuts instead of laboriously exploring and mapping the world around us. The same is increasingly true in other domains. Algorithms tell us what to click, and guide our decisions about what to read and watch and listen to. Package tours and travel blogs guide our travel along well-worn and inconvenience-free routes. Review sites ensure that we eat only at those restaurants and purchase only those kitchen gadgets that have been preapproved by the wisdom of the crowd. All of these innovations are good, and I still rely on them myself. But I can no longer unsee what's lost along the way. It has never been easier to be a passenger in life, but the experience is almost always paler and less vivid than the visceral jolt of trepidation you feel when, say, you walk through the doors of a restaurant you know absolutely nothing about. Turning off my GPS now and then is a reminder to myself that it's worth exploring in all these domains – even if that sometimes involves wrong turns. 'When you're exploring, you're going to make errors,' Dr. Bohbot told me. 'And when you're making errors, that means you'll pay attention to your environment in order to find your way, so you're going to stimulate your hippocampus.' Did my kids understand any of this? I'm not sure. I did try to explain it to them, and they listened patiently and seemed intrigued. They don't want my brain to atrophy either. But it was a playoff game, so eventually I fired up Waze just to be safe.
