If we try to do what we are best at here at HN, let’s focus the discussion on the technical aspects of it.
It immediately reminded me of Stuxnet, which also from a technical perspective was quite interesting.
I already wonder if this was anything that was planted in the devices perviously, or if the ones responsible had similar devices, and managed reverse engineer them and craft a payload to them, that could be sent over existing cellular protocols/networks and then, similar to Stuxnet, make the device exagerte some existing functionality to a point where it caused a malfunction? Thoughts on this?
One somewhat ironic fact of this story is that the rogue former employee perhaps deserves some credit for bringing this thing out into the world.
They had been working on this for quite a long time themselves, rightfully so. But now the whole world is working on it and exploring other methods and combinations of materials I would assume (to improve upon the original design and avoid any patents).
How long would they have kept this thing to themselves without the rogue employee bringing this thing to light?
Perhaps that was part of the rogue former employee's motivation in "going rogue": that this thing needs to see the light of day so it can start to benefit humanity.
Fun question! I would suggest the following (in no particular order), subject to the proviso that you do need to be sat next to them to help manage frustration, especially in the beginning (although my personal take is that they shouldn’t be left to play by themselves at all at that age) - particularly as they learn the controller, general video game conventions, and the specifics of each game:
- Breath of the Wild
- Animal Crossing
- Stardew Valley
- Minecraft
- Super Mario Odyssey
- Super Mario 3D World
- Rayman Legends
- Ratchet & Clank
- It Takes Two
- Slay the Spire
- Journey
- Spiderman and Miles Morales
My son’s favourite superhero - far and away - is Spiderman, in large part thanks to the PlayStation games. Pretty great role model. Kids find swinging through the city utterly exhilarating.
It Takes Two was such a fantastic, memorable experience for both of us - he still talks about it months later. It does require quite a lot of a kid, though - better for when they’ve got a year’s experience.
And trying to catch all the insects and fish in Animal Crossing kicked off a passion in him for the real things, to say nothing of what it taught him about animals generally, time and seasonality.
A Nintendo Switch is probably a good place to start, although as he gets older I’m encouraging him to move more over to the PlayStation (partly because it’s so much cheaper over time!).
Switch Joycons are great for small hands, too, although most kids seem to be able to manipulate a full-size controller by age 4-5.
It immediately reminded me of Stuxnet, which also from a technical perspective was quite interesting.
I already wonder if this was anything that was planted in the devices perviously, or if the ones responsible had similar devices, and managed reverse engineer them and craft a payload to them, that could be sent over existing cellular protocols/networks and then, similar to Stuxnet, make the device exagerte some existing functionality to a point where it caused a malfunction? Thoughts on this?