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mikejuk writes "Bruce Wilcox won the First Prize of $4000 and the Bronze Annual Medal in the 21st Loebner Prize Competition held in the UK at the University of Exeter on October 19, 2011 with his new chatbot, Rosette. If you would like to chat to Rosette you can at TellTaleGames. If you have been following the run up to this year's competition you may be surprised at how poorly CleverBot performed given its track record. This chatbot, which searches through earlier conversations for its answers, had received a score of 59.3% in a test that took place in India in September in which humans were rated 63.3%, only 4 percentage points higher and was also featured in a video that went viral. However its developer entered a cutdown version of CleverBot into the Loebner prize selection round and it didn't get the chance to show off its prowess in the final. So we will have to wait for another year to see if it really is as good as it claims." Depending on your bent, you may agree with Unknown Lamer that this sounds less impressive when phrased as "fooling a person ~18 percent of the time." I think that's a pretty high number, myself!

An anonymous reader writes "A team of game scholars, game journalists, and plain old geeks have gotten together to put together San Francisco's first and most comprehensive non-profit museum dedicated to the design, creation, history, and play of computer and video games. The museum is currently raising funds and shopping around for a San Francisco space, but they've already managed to get some obscure relics — including the only copy in existence of 1984's never-released Atari Cabbage Patch Kids game. As a scholarly resource, the museum is also dedicated to making its entire collection playable by visitors."

Gamespot reports that the episodic sequels to the original Sam and Max title will be available on GameTap starting next month. Sam & Max Episode 1: Culture Shock will be available starting on October 17th for subscribers to the PC-download service. Non-subscribers will be able to download the game at some future point. From the article: "Just under a year ago, indie studio Telltale Games acquired the rights to make games based on the underground comic Sam & Max: Freelance Police. The news was a godsend to many old-school gamers who loved the first game the comic inspired, 1993's Sam & Max Hit the Road, and lamented the 2004 cancellation of its sequel, Sam & Max: Freelance Police." Update: 09/08 19:24 GMT by Z : Jake Rodkin from TellTale wrote to make sure we pointed out the copious details that didn't make it into the Gamespot piece. For those of us without GameTap, we can look forward to the non-subscription release on November 1st.

duck2ducks writes "Adventure game fans had a rough time last year when the eagerly-awaited Sam and Max sequel was canceled, revived, and canceled again. Fortunately, the rights have now been picked up by Telltale Games (currently at work adapting Jeff Smith's Bone graphic novels) - and since Telltale is made up of former LucasArts designers, the dog and hyperkinetic rabbity thing may have found the perfect place to call home."

CanarDuck writes "Telltale games is a company founded last year by a trio of former Lucasarts employees. They have announced that they will develop a game based on Jeff Smith's popular comic series Bone. There is an interview at Adventuregamers discussing the title, and the fact that it will be a point and click adventure game."

CamelToes writes "Sam and Max 2 is not dead! According to a Gamespot article, the team that was working on bringing the new Sam n' Max adventure game 'has formed a new studio called Telltale Games. The San Rafael-based developer will concentrate on re-energizing the adventure game market.' Amazing what an on-line petition will do these days."