August 2, 2026
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Duolingo Develops your Language Learning Skill Tree for Free

Kevin Shane66 mins

Duolingo is a new learning tool that uses gamification to teach and reinforce language learning. Say that you’re a beginning learner and want to build your vocabulary and translation skills. Log into duolingo.com, sign up and begin learning Spanish, French, Portuguese, German or Italian.

The program cleverly incorporates gamification by awarding points for completing vocabulary exercises and keeping track of the learner’s progress through line scales and level badges along the way. Log in each day for new sessions to view previous progress, your current level and to do optional review practice. The website has a desktop version that works on both the Mac and Windows platforms. You can also go mobile and run the learning program on either iPhone or Android devices.

And the best part? It’s all completely free.

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7 Reasons Why Apple’s Enterprise Bread and Circuses Fail in iOS 7

Gabe Zichermann315 mins

Yesterday Apple revealed iOS 7, the latest version of its operating system for mobile devices. The update was greeted – as usual – by thunderous applause from the company’s legions of fanboys and with vocal derision from pro-Android bigots. In the midst of all the hoopla and traded social media barbs, one thing seems glaringly obvious: Apple is out of ideas, particularly for business users.

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Can the Gamification of Female Masturbation Remove Its Social Stigma? – GCo Exclusive

Ivan Kuo495 mins

Masturbater. Master Baiter?

Whether you’re an expert animal trapper or a normal person who enjoys self-pleasure, the mere sound of the word masturbation isn’t pleasant for anyone. The clunky quadrisyllabic term meant to describe personal relief is so socially awkward that it’s ostensibly forbidden to talk about, despite being something every human being has engaged with at some point in our lives. Masturbation as it relates to women is an even bigger taboo to discuss, as a result of widespread dogma pushing absolute female purity throughout the development of most modern societies.

The act of masturbation is an important step in our sexual development as human beings, yet this dogma still exists. As a result of this many females feel a societal pressure to live up to these outdated beliefs and suffer from negative self-image and lowered self-esteem for their natural desires. The fact remains that many women and girls don’t masturbate at all and may not even know how to but does it need to be this way?

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3 Mobile Apps for the Gamification of Energy Conservation

Kevin Shane06 mins

It’s important to recycle and reduce consumption and turn off the water while brushing teeth, but who wants to sort trash? Who wants to go around the house making sure all the light bulbs are off? If you make it a game, you create a situation where people actually want to use less power, and some cases, you could even generate more power. There are a number of mobile apps for iOS and Android that aims to make the whole act of conserving energy a little easier. Here are three applications aimed at encouraging eco-friendly behavior.

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Are Brain Waves the Next Step for The Quantified Self?

Ivan Kuo55 mins

Activity trackers have become very popular among fitness enthusiasts, quantified-selfers, and gadget fans but are they making any sort of difference? I had mixed feelings about the Nike Fuelband when I reviewed it a year ago and Wired thinks it isn’t making you any healthier either. But maybe these glorified bluetooth accelerometers are missing a crucial feature: brainwave monitoring

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PromiseUP, the Gamification App to Help Keep Promises

Heong Weng Mak25 mins

Remember the promise you made to your mom that you would call every so often? What about the other time you promised your boss that would not be late for work again? Or that promise you made to yourself that you will quit smoking?

Many individuals are capable of keeping to their promises, but there are also many others who are unable to do so. The fallacy of making promises is that there is no one else besides the person who is being made the promise to that will hold the individual accountable for his or her actions. As there is a lack of an immediate feedback loop, it leaves the individual complacent in accomplishing their tasks and making good on their end of the promise. A new IOS app, PromiseUP aims to change that by helping people to fulfill their promises.

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Mobile Game Get Water Teaches About Water Scarcity with Good Gameplay and Narrative

Alex Landa36 mins

There are games that try to create a message while still attempting to remain enjoyable. Many times either the message becomes blurred or the game simply isn’t fun. Get Water manages to hit both marks properly.

Get Water by Decode Global is a simple screen-swiping endless running game about a young girl named Maya who is dragged out of class to obtain water while fending off various animals in her way. Many swiping games such as this have little-to-no story or purpose — they’re just casual games to play when waiting at the doctor or in between classes. Get Water has strong messages about water scarcity, gender inequality, and educational problems that plague other countries.

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Carrot App Review: A Gamified Snarky To-Do List? Ain’t No Businessperson Got Time For That!

Gary Henkle47 mins

When a colleague had heard about a new to-do list app called Carrot, it somehow made its way immediately to my desk. After several months into my job at Gamification Co I was juggling so many different responsibilities that I found it hard to organize my time, so I began reading books and collecting apps dedicated to all things GSD (Getting Shit Done). Eventually I will have to find time to organize all my organizational tools.

The reason I decided to add Carrot to my catalog is because it’s a To-Do list infused with gamification elements. You get points for each task you complete and a red status bar letting you know how far along you are, and how far you have to go before you can level up and collect a reward – so far a humorous fortunte cookieqsue statement you’re asked to share socially.

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Kaitiaki iPad App is Preserving Maori Culture with Gamification

Taavi Lindmaa24 mins

Game based learning is taking a specialized cultural approach with a new app designed to “engage and educate New Zealand School children.”

Acording to tangatawhenua.com (Maori News & Indiginous Views):

New Zealand has one of the highest proportions of disengaged students of any OECD country. The majority of students in low decile schools are Maori and are more likely to leave school educationally disadvantaged.

It has been proposed that an accelerated roll-out of e-learning to schools and improving the school-to-work transition may reduce youth unemployment and the resulting social issues.

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The Hidden Implications Behind the NRA Shooting Game

Ivan Kuo45 mins

The NRA has just released a free iOS shooting game one month after the Sandy Hook Tragedy and blaming the video games industry for excessive gun violence.

It is particularly easy to see how hypocritical it is for the NRA to release a shooting game of their own, despite having blamed video games themselves. The obvious criticisms about the game have already been well stated by The Huffington Post but there’s something even more reviling that I haven’t heard anyone mention:
There are microtransactions in this game 

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