Thompson Punke: Swimming has Speedo, tennis has Lacoste, soccer has Adidas, and now ping-pong has Thompson Punke, a Brooklyn-based company that aims to leverage the recent attention surrounding table tennis in the US. Created by table tennis enthusiast and ex-JWT creative James Cooper, along with design agency Red Antler, Thompson Punke is the first clothing brand to focus on ping-pong counter culture. The T-shirts feature classic ponger slogans such as “Cho!,” a Chinese word meaning both “yes” and “ball” that avid players often shout after scoring a point. Fully committed to the table tennis lifestyle, every order arrives wrapped in ping-pong fanzine-printed tissue paper.

Ping Pong Summer: Ping Pong Summer is an upcoming independent film from director Michael Tully about a ping-pong obsessed teenage boy on a family vacation to Ocean City, Maryland in 1985. Along the way, he meets a table tennis guru, played by Susan Sarandon, who becomes his mentor and subsequent life coach. Sarandon’s role didn’t require much game training, as she is a self-proclaimed “ping-pong propagandist” and part owner of the ping-pong social club SPiN. Aside from a few notable names, the film has prioritized authenticity and cast mostly local youth actors. Producers are aiming to premiere the film at festivals later this year.

The Ping-Pong Hangout: To promote Google+ Hangouts API, a new Hangouts customization tool for developers and marketers, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (GSP) created The Ping-Pong Hangout, a virtual tournament that pitted advertising agencies against one another. Hangouts API’s facial recognition capability enabled players to control their paddles exclusively through head and body movements in real time. After six weeks of fervent head-to-head gameplay—48 agencies participated in 2,500 games— digital agency Big Spaceship came out victorious. While certainly entertaining, GSP’s overall goal was to illustrate Hangouts’ distinctive engagement technology and the opportunity for agencies to build their own unique experiences for clients.

Project SHIELD: GDC always gives attendees a rare opportunity to have one-on-one face time with new products not yet released to the public. This year, one of the most notable was NVIDIA’s Project SHIELD, which sees the leading tech firm entering the portable gaming market for the first time. Mobile gamers will be able to stream more than 2,000 games digitally in HD online from Valve’s Steam network. Slated for release in Q2 of this year, Project Shield also adapts to TVs and desktop monitors via wireless connectivity, as well as through HDMI output, allowing users to engage in dual screen gaming.

Xbox SmartGlass: Microsoft also emphasized the multi-screen experience at a press conference where they further showcased the abilities of Xbox SmartGlass, a companion app that transforms mobile phones or tablets into second screens that interact with the Xbox360 for enhanced entertainment. Indeed, the company is encouraging users to experience games, movies, and television in an entirely new way, offering facts, trivia, and strategic tips to assist in the mastery of game completion. Viewers of this season’s Game of Thrones will be able to use SmartGlass to peruse interactive maps, read about characters, and view exclusive behind-the-scenes content.

Micro Power: QUALCOMM advanced the processing game with its most powerful chipsets yet. While they were introduced earlier this year at CES 2013, the Snapdragon 600 and Snapdragon 800 also had GDC attendees abuzz. The 600 is most notably the processor powering the Samsung Galaxy S4, the ASUS PadFone Infinity (a hybrid phone/ tablet), and the LG Optimus G Pro, which sold 500,000 devices in 40 days within its Korean launch. The 800, which powers the Google Nexus 7 Tablet, also boasts optimum sound: a contributing factor to why some analysts are saying the unreleased LG D801 could become one of the most powerful devices in the market.

94Fifty Sensor Basketball: Sports technologies company 94Fifty, named after the dimensions of a pro basketball court, is releasing an electronic basketball that analyzes players’ performance and helps them sharpen their skills. The Bluetooth-equipped Spalding ball, developed by InfoMotion Sports Technologies, has embedded sensors that detect players’ shot speed, arc, backspin, and dribble angles, and transmits feedback data to an app to determine areas for improvement. Players can also complete challenges, training sessions, and compare stats with others worldwide. Used by several D-1 teams, the smart basketball isn’t just for those competing in March Madness; it’s aimed at youth, too, and is available through a Kickstarter campaign.

Babolat Play & Connect: Unveiled last year at the French Open, the Babolat Play & Connect racquet provides real-time statistics intended to help tennis players improve their form. Through electronic sensors, the racquet collects service speed, the power of each stroke, and ball spin, while also detecting the type of stroke and position of the ball on the racquet. Players can set goals, collect performance metrics wirelessly or downloaded via a USB, and track their progress. Also, they can obtain feedback from others and challenge their friends by sharing their skills via social networks. Babolat plans to bring the Play & Connect to market later this year.

Haptic Snowboard System: A haptic snowboarding system by Daniel Spelmezan, a researcher at the Université Paris-Sud, coaches new riders on how best to stay on their boards. Pressure sensors built into their snowboards and snowsuits detect riders’ movements, sending vibrations to their thighs and shoulders to alert them of where and when to shift their weight. Spelmezan has tested his system among ten novice snowboarders and an instructor. Snowboarders received two lessons—one with and one without the sensors—and riders reported that the smart snowboard system decidedly helped reinforce skills. Although not yet available commercially, Spelmezan hopes to further develop the tactile sports instruction concept.

Offsite: This past September (what seemed like) half of Williamsburg boarded a fleet of buses bound for a Catskills sleep-away camp. The reason? The Last Weekend, a three-day sojourn intended to facilitate personal interaction through art, music, and culinary activities. Though unaffiliated, last month’s Offsite bore resemblance to the summer event. The multi-disciplinary affair, organized by a museum veteran and a community engagement specialist, gave New Yorkers the opportunity to escape the urban grind not only for the pastoral surroundings of the Berkshires but also a weekend of creative workshops. Sessions included everything from lantern construction to natural dyeing.

Brooklyn Craft Camp: Brooklyn has become a well-established international brand, in no small part because of its thriving maker culture. Brooklyn Craft Camp, a one-day event happening in Greenpoint next weekend, is giving the uninitiated an accessible, social way to see if they can do it themselves. Attendees of the “one-day DIY vacation” choose four 90-minute craft classes from a Portlandia-worthy course catalog (among the choices are terrarium assembly and headband crocheting), guaranteeing that they will leave the camp with both skills and self-made souvenirs. Cocktails and music to craft by provide atmosphere that’s perhaps more socially lubricating than the typical camp activity.

Life of Yes!: Former digital media producer Saya Hillman has been self-employed for nearly a decade, and believes that the solo path is “the best thing ever”—so much so that she’s teaching others how to trade the goal of ‘work-life balance’ in favor of just living. Among the offerings in her neo-life coaching program is Life of Yes!, a weekend getaway that aims to resuscitate rote self-improvement agendas by distancing participants from their everyday. Attendees are strictly forbidden from attending with acquaintances, but activities (Kumbaya-style sing-alongs, campfires) are designed to make sure that, just like at summer camp, everyone comes home with new friends.

Halo 4 Infinity Challenge: 343 Industries and Virgin Gaming partnered for the Halo 4 Infinity Challenge, a tournament for Xbox 360 Halo players. Participants compete for a chance to win more than 2,800 prizes—not too shabby for doing something they do almost every day anyway. The event breaks down into two parts: War Games and Spartan Ops. The top point-earner on the global War Games leaderboard scores a customized UNSC Ford F-150 SVT Raptor Truck designed by the artists of 343, while the player to rack up the most chapters within Spartan Ops is awarded a two-minute cameo in Halo’s next installment.

League of Legends Championship Series: Next month, the third season of Riot Games’ League of Legends (LoL) Championship Series will begin as teams compete weekly against professional gamers in a bracket-style elimination format. Riot will broadcast the action on its site in HD for free, along with interviews, analysis and stats coverage. LoL, the multiplayer online battle arena game, has garnered a reputation for attracting some of the largest and most enthusiastic eSport crowds. Its Season 2 World Championship hooked over 8 million viewers, with 8,000 fans packed into USC’s Galen Center to cheer on the two teams as they competed for a $1 million prize.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2:  Video game publisher Activision and developer Treyarch have made a significant push towards spectator gaming with the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. The first-person shooter title now allows players to livestream their matches from Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 through YouTube. Fans can also take on the role of shoutcaster (or CODcaster, in Call of Duty lingo), to offer viewers a play-by-play account of the on-screen action, just like a sportscaster. In addition, the game has integrated a new feature that lets fans tune into players’ mic feeds so that they can eavesdrop on team communication.

Boosted Boards: Skateboards aren’t just for X Games-ready aerial tricks; they can also be used as a viable mode of transport. Perhaps seeking to put them on equal footing with some of the latest bikes, Boosted Boards is a new brand of motorized skateboards. The so-called ‘world’s lightest electric vehicle’ is a 12 lb. longboard (so trendy right now) that’s powered by lithium batteries. A full charge, which takes just two hours, delivers six miles of use. The Kickstarter-seeded company just last month received more than four times the amount of crowdfunding it sought, suggesting that urban planners may soon have to devise a new street lane.

Stair Rover: Maintaining balance on a skateboard is difficult—not to mention an underrated core workout—so it follows that few riders outside of the pro circuit opt to roll on routes that involve stairs. The new Stair Rover, however, boats a stair-gliding mechanism designed to give riders of more varied skill levels a fearless way to conquer even the most daunting flights of steps. PoChih Lai, the product designer who invented it, conceived of the prototype board as a solution to London’s challenging urban landscape. Made of aluminum, maple, bamboo, rubber and PVC, it was exhibited at Show RCA 2012.

Krainkn: Most children commence their cycling lives with training wheels, yet comparable preventative measures are not typically taken for juvenile skateboarders. Krainkn is a forthcoming skateboard accessory that acts as a balancing aid for beginners. The tube-and-handle attachment, which bears some similarity to waterskiing lines, fixes securely to most seven-layer maple decks, thereby giving neophyte tricksters a relatively failsafe way to maintain their centers of gravity. Moreover, it makes wheel-less decks usable on alternative surfaces, like grassy slopes and, curiously, trampolines. The project did not meet its crowdfunding goal but, with two years of R&D behind it, it’s bound to come to fruition regardless.

The Wild Unknown Tarot Deck: Documenting one’s daily tarot card reading on Instagram is becoming a more prominent practice among those who are fond of the ritual mainly for its use of fine art. Artist Kim Krans of The Wild Unknown, a celebrated line of handmade objects that includes children’s books, calendars, and (unfortunately) discontinued glass prisms, recently released a gorgeously illustrated tarot deck that sold out immediately. The product, a hands-on spin-off of Krans’ limited edition tarot prints, consists of 78 magically rendered hand-drawn cards contained in an equally sublime box complete with a witchy black lifting ribbon and a fold-out guide. A companion Tarot Guidebook is forthcoming.

Paco Cao’s “Eternal Rest”: Two years ago, a MoMA retrospective of Marina Abramović introduced participatory performance art to diverse audiences, with visitors lining up for hours for a chance to enter a veritable staring contest. Spanish artist Paco Cao, in his latest work “Eternal Rest,” is also using the audience as the medium by conducting tarot card readings in which he connects visitors with one of four dead pop icons: Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, or Whitney Houston. Reportage from the afterlife has been limited, making the deck itself, which marries the visages of the aforementioned stars with great works from the Renaissance, the real attraction.

FarmVille Fortune Teller: Farming simulation may not seem like bait for players of social games, yet the persistence of Farmville’s surprising popularity is such that Zynga is hesitant to expand from the Web, where it dominates, into mobile. Part of the appeal of the game is its constant evolution, the most recent stage of which is the Halloween week introduction of a Fortune Teller booth feature. The puzzle challenges players to collect virtual tarot cards that are redeemable for in-game prizes. The catch? The cards—there are three different types—must be configured into specific combinations in order to win. Like with any good online game, cheats are plentiful.

Game of Urban Renewal: Artist Flavio Trevisan created a board game, The Game of Urban Renewal, that lets Toronto residents determine the fate of their city through the lens of its complicated political history. Each player assumes an identity, such as Mayor, Developer, or resident of a demolished development. Then, participants choose a card that provides directions on what types of institutions they can build on a 3D city map. If their urban experiment isn’t going as planned, they can choose to demolish and start again. Modeled after real life outcomes, the instructions explain, “The game never ends. Continue playing until all players have left the game in pursuit of other interests.”

The New SimCity: First released in 1989, SimCity is the legendary computer game that lets budding architects build their own imaginary metropolises. Its newest iteration, set for release in February 2013, poses much tougher social and political decisions that mirror current hot button issues, like the use of renewable energy, socialized medicine, preservation of natural resources, and pollution. Each choice has pros and cons. For example, instead of dirty, cheap coal plants, players can build alternative power sources—but those come with a much higher price tag and occupy more space. With 3D graphics and provocative examinations of class systems, SimCity has come a long way from its floppy disk inception.

Block By Block: Minecraft is a popular game that lets users build structures out of textured cubes in a 3D world. Now, the game’s development studio, Mojang, has partnered with UN Habitat for a project called Block By Block that uses Minecraft as an urban planning tool. Developed to assist the Sustainable Urban Development Network, Block By Block gives local youth a voice and encourages them to ”show planners and decision makers how they would like to see their cities in the future.” Players, through replicated real-world environments, can alter current plans and offer new ideas digitally, no architectural training necessary. The pilot project, for Nairobi, Kenya, is in the planning phase.

Steam Greenlight: Valve’s Steam platform was an early innovator in the now-established online game marketplace. Seeking to preserve its leadership status in the industry, the company launched Steam Greenlight, a new system that empowers the Steam community by enabling them to help select the games they wish to see released on the platform. The initiative, which is sort of like an online focus group, allows developers to post game information, screenshots and videos. Gamers then vote on their favorites, with their most oft-picked concepts rising to the top. Developers can also submit preview snapshots during the creation process, a strategic tactic that recalls Modcloth’s successful Be the Buyer program.

Puzzle Clubhouse: Schell Games CEO Jesse Schell launched his company’s latest title, Puzzle Clubhouse, with the intent of doing for videogame creation what YouTube has done for filmmaking. The story-driven online game consists of monthly installments, each of which features puzzles that must be solved by players in order to get to the next one. But in a user-generated twist, players are also given the opportunity to vote on the direction of the game, as well as contribute their own stories, art, music, and even jokes. In creating the game, Schell, a former street performer, was inspired in part by the audience interaction inherent in improv comedy.

Gambitious: More money has been pledged to Games projects than to any other category on Kickstarter this year, with Games funding alone totaling $50 million at last count. (In fact, Puzzle Clubhouse contributed $11,403 to that sum.) Potentially taking a piece of that pie is Gambitious, a new crowdfunding platform for videogames. The company differs from Kickstarter in that it doesn’t allow just anyone to post a project. Rather, it meets with all creators to confirm that they have not only ambition but also a viable business plan. Gambitious is currently open to developers and publishers in the European Union, but plans to be available in the U.S. soon.

LA River Expeditions: Most Southern California residents equate watersports with the pursuit of the almighty wave, yet some are bypassing the city’s famous beaches in favor of a lesser known body of water. LA River Expeditions, an organization devoted to revitalizing its namesake waterway, offers a sanctioned program that allows rebel kayakers to paddle their way down portions of the relatively undiscovered 51-mile riparian ecosystem. The endeavor is more than just a recreational outlet, however. By altering the public’s perception about what most think of as a sewage basin, this initiative aims to establish the environmental stewardship necessary to protect the river.

North Brooklyn Boat Club: Swimming in the East River is not a pastime that interests many New Yorkers, but more city folk are testing the waters via kayak lately. North Brooklyn Boat Club, one of a number of local kayaking outfits, is a volunteer organization promoting “human-powered boating on and environmental restoration of the waterways” in neighborhoods more widely recognized for the so-called ruination of the borough. The group provides waterway access to rowers intrepid enough to explore the river’s infamous estuary, Newtown Creek. So intent is NBBC on restoring the polluted inlet for public recreational use that it’s secured funding for a proper community boathouse set to open in 2014.

Riverside Kayak Connection: Detroit is reinventing itself post-decline, but the value of its natural resources has been overshadowed by technological advancements and retail upstarts. A number of fledgling businesses, however, are looking to the city’s river to stimulate the local economy. One, Riverside Kayak Connection, is getting Motor City residents afloat with an eclectic range of classes and tours. Beginners can learn the basics (forward and reverse strokes, the wet exit), while more experienced kayakers can embark on guided expeditions that offer both challenging paddling conditions and historical context. Rental fees start at $35 for a two-hour session—not a bad deal considering the boats used have four-figure price tags.