Is the universe real? Or are all the stars and planets (including Earth and everything and everyone on it) just simulations in some colossal video game? What sounds like a silly question is actually ...

On a warm afternoon last fall, Steven Caron, a technical artist at the video-game company Quixel, stood at the edge of a redwood grove in the Oakland Hills. “Cross your eyes, kind of blur your eyes, ...

Dr. James McCaffrey of Microsoft Research shows how to implement simulated annealing for the Traveling Salesman Problem (find the best ordering of a set of discrete items). The goal of a combinatorial ...

Pitcher Mark Prior of the Chicago Cubs threw a “simulated game” on Tuesday, his second since he injured his elbow last month. His teammate Kerry Wood is also working to recover from a recent injury; ...