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You Can Now Play Solitaire and Tic-Tac-Toe in Google's Search Results (venturebeat.com)

Posted by msmash on from the some-fun-is-not-bad dept.

Paul Sawers, writing for VentureBeat: Google announced a couple of fun little nuggets today: you can now play Solitaire and Tic-Tac-Toe directly in Google's search results. Available through the desktop and Google mobile apps, anyone searching for the keywords "solitaire" or "tic-tac-toe" will see the usual search results, but featured prominently alongside them you'll also now see a "tap to play" option which whisks you off to play the game. Google is no stranger to hiding so-called "easter eggs" in its products, including Search -- for example, last year it had a surprise in store to mark the anniversary of Super Mario. Moreover, Google already lets you play some games within Search, including Pacman.

28 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. AI needs some improvement by coldsalmon · · Score: 2

    I just won a game of Tic-Tac-Toe for the first time ever.

    1. Re:AI needs some improvement by freeze128 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Google's WOPR won't be online until spring.

    2. Re:AI needs some improvement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Google's WOPR won't be online until spring.

      Google, the only winning move is not to play.

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    3. Re:AI needs some improvement by Jason+Levine · · Score: 1

      Back in middle school, I was so proud of myself when I figured out the thre rules to never losing a game of Tic-Tac-Toe. I've passed this down to my kids so now all our games end in ties.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    4. Re:AI needs some improvement by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      That's just the machines trying to lull you into complacency before the nuclear attack.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    5. Re:AI needs some improvement by swillden · · Score: 1

      I just won a game of Tic-Tac-Toe for the first time ever.

      Since it's trivial to write an algorithm that plays optimally and since a player using an optimal strategy will never lose, Google clearly did not try to create an "AI" whose focus is winning. Instead, they appear to have created an algorithm that is a fairly decent novice player. Which, actually is a good deal harder than optimal play.

      Well, maybe not. It wouldn't be too difficult to take an optimal play implementation and randomly cause it to choose a bad move. For example, if it's playing X you could have it select a move at random, rather than always taking a corner. And at each subsequent move you could give it a smallish chance of making a bad move. That approach might simulate a decent novice well enough.

      Perhaps a better approach would be to use machine learning and have it learn from novice games, or even from well-played games, but leave it incompletely trained. That might make it more "human-like".

      --
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    6. Re:AI needs some improvement by allo · · Score: 1

      you saw the difficulty switch at top of the game? there is an option "impossible", which does what you would expect.

    7. Re:AI needs some improvement by slinches · · Score: 1

      The real challenge is setting the difficulty to Easy and trying to lose.

      --
      Knowledge Brings Fear
  2. Lame!!! by npslider · · Score: 1

    I won't be impressed until a fully interactive holographic version of Pokemon Go is projected from my display after I think about performing a Google search on LOL cats.

    I once played the single player version tic-tac-toe on paper for 24 hours straight, I always won. I'm considering going pro.

  3. Re:Bad precedent by npslider · · Score: 2

    Doesn't Oracle own the patent on Solitaire?

    I see a flock of lawyers placing pre-orders for new yachts in the near future...

  4. Re:"tap to play" by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    I had a coworker who taught intro to computers in evening classes at a community college 15 years or so ago.

    On more than one occasion he had a student get confused by the concept of "Right-Click with the Mouse" they would try to *write* "click" using the mouse.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  5. Re:Are you Fucking Kidding Me? by ausekilis · · Score: 1

    I've never bitched about a Slashdot story before, but this is bullshit.

    It's not lost on my that you posted as AC... Probably to CYA from all those that would search through your history to call you out an a lie. You wouldn't lie to us, would you?

  6. Games, games! by jdavidb · · Score: 1

    Great job, Google; keep it up! When will we be getting Settlers of Catan, FreeCiv, and World of Warcraft in our search results?

    --
    Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
    1. Re:Games, games! by npslider · · Score: 1

      What I am waiting for is all the original Nintendo games, in time for the Christmas! ;)

    2. Re:Games, games! by darkain · · Score: 2

      Well, if you're on a device that supports Google Play... https://play.google.com/store/...

  7. Chess by unixisc · · Score: 2

    Toss in Chess. In fact, toss in some other games as well - Risk, Monopoly, Stratego, et al

  8. Re:Conway's Game of Life is another by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

    Better than Niantic's Game of Death in Japan!

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  9. Can I play the goolge CPU in global thermonuclear by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    Can I play the goolge CPU in global thermonuclear war?

  10. Pic Tac Toe by nuckfuts · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The problem with Tic Tac Toe is that it's too deterministic. It will always end in a draw unless one player does something stupid.

    That's why I made up a variant I call "Pic Tac Toe". On each player's move, they can choose to write either an X or an O. The first person to get any three in a row wins.

    I don't know if anyone else has come up with this, or if it can also be proven to be deterministic. I suspect that it might be, but at least it adds a bit more variety to the game.

    1. Re:Pic Tac Toe by OrigamiMarie · · Score: 1

      There's Order versus Chaos https://www.youtube.com/watch?... , I haven't worked out who has the better deal in this game yet, or how computationally interesting it is. But your game reminded me of it.

    2. Re:Pic Tac Toe by Keybounce · · Score: 1

      Alternatively: Player one places a symbol. Player 2 decides which side to play.

  11. Re:So, instead of fixing search by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Search is perfect. What's there to fix? So now they got this all tossed in

  12. Re:Conway's Game of Life is another by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    Here is one Gmail bug that has been around for literally years: you're used to running Gmail on a computer, and have set up mailing lists. If you are on the road with a mobile device and find that you have to use the Gmail app to communicate, you will find that although you can message with any person in your Gmail contact list, your existing mailing lists are inaccessible.

  13. Google Fiber? by maharvey · · Score: 2

    So this is what the former Google Fiber staff was assigned to develop...

  14. Re:"tap to play" by Quirkz · · Score: 1

    That's a unique one. The closest to that I get is a user who, when I asked her to right-click, said, "Oh, I call that opposite click."

    I told her that was inventive, but nobody else used that term, and started to move on. "So when you right-click ..."

    "When I OPPOSITE click!" she jumped in, and persisted on continuing to call it that.

    --
    The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
  15. Not the Real Thing by rduke15 · · Score: 1

    That Solitaire is not the Real Thing, which is the old Windows 3 to XP solitaire, the only one worth playing, with the Susan Kare design.

    It runs fine under Wine, btw. All you need is sol.exe and cards.dll.

  16. Dinosaur cactus jump by Neo-Rio-101 · · Score: 1

    Also recently noticed that there's another easter-egg in chrome thanks to a lot of downtime.

    The Dinosaur that appears when there's no internet connectivity is a game. Click on him and he'll run from left to right to jump over cactii (and pterodactyls)
    A bit of an easy game, and it gets a bit repetitive, but there you go....

    --
    READY.
    PRINT ""+-0
  17. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion