Filed under: Video Games

With concussions becoming a focal point in sports medicine, doctors and trainers are searching for new ways to diagnose these dangerous injuries. According to The Washington Post, for the past year, athletic trainers at the University of Maryland and Ohio State University have been using Wii Fit to test the balance of football players in order to more accurately diagnose concussions. To begin, athletes perform a baseline balance test, which involves either standing on the Wii’s balance board and mimicking onscreen yoga poses, or shifting their weight to make marbles roll into an onscreen hole. They then receive a score based on their performance. If an athlete suffers head trauma, he’s asked to perform the tests again. Doctors and trainers can then compare the second results with the baseline score to see if any balance has been lost — a telltale sign of a concussion.

Many college athletes spend their downtime playing video games, so they’re comfortable with these tests, and even have fun with them. But fun and comfort only mean so much, since a concussion is tough to diagnose by balance alone. As long as the Wii Fit’s results are used to supplement regular check-ups, and not to supplant them, we say let the head games begin. [From: The Washington Post]

Wii Fit Used to Diagnose Concussions in Football Players originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Video Games

In a radical new study, South Korean psychiatrists at Chung Ang University, College of Medicine, claim to have reduced participants’ desire to spend hours online playing ‘Starcraft’ by dosing them with antidepressants. According to Wired UK, 11 participants in the study took doses of Bupropion, which also reduces the desire to smoke, over a six-week period. These participants were chosen because they had each regularly played ‘Starcraft’ for at least four hours a day. That didn’t strike us as too excessive, until we read that six of the participants had missed more than two months of school, and that two of them had been divorced — all because of their addictions. But, after drug treatment, the group’s desire to play ‘StarCraft’ dropped by 23.6-percent, and the overall amount of time they spent playing the game dropped by 35.5-percent (maybe because they were zonked out on pills). Furthermore, MRIs of the player’s brains post-drug intake showed weaker reactions to pictures of Zerglings — the six-limbed raptors from ‘StarCraft.’ If the prospect of a Zerg-rush doesn’t excite a medicated player, perhaps the cure to the ‘StarCraft’ disease has been found. [From: PubMed.gov, via: Wired UK]

South Korean Psychiatrists Dose ‘StarCraft’ Addicts With Antidepressants originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 20 Aug 2010 07:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Video Games

You might not know this, but Peter Molyneux is a genius (well, according to Managing Editor Leila Brillson, since they are best friends). The man behind ‘Black & White’ and the ‘Fable’ series isn’t content to hand gamers a controller, and tell them to mash buttons until the baddies are gone. He wants you to empathize with the characters, engage emotionally with the game, and consider the moral implications of the choices made in the virtual world. According to Molyneux, himself, his latest project, ‘Milo,’ is less of a game and more of a “very, very big tech demo.” After seeing it in action, we can safely say it’s one of the most compelling “tech demos” ever.

After the break, you’ll find Molyneux’s recent TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) talk, wherein he gives a lengthy demonstration of interaction with Milo, a virtual child who has just moved to America, through words and motions courtesy of Kinect. The really interesting stuff is the AI; Milo (or Kate, if you choose his female counterpart) are completely unique creations. These highly interactive and emotive characters are different (even if just slightly) every time you play the game. What’s more, thanks to the power of the cloud, Milo will grow and become smarter over time, able to recognize more words and objects as you introduce them to his world. We do wonder if Molyneux is purposely building a Skynet-like computer that will one day turn on us and enslave the human race… but we also can’t help wanting to hang out with Milo before that day comes. [From: TED, via: Engadget]

Continue reading Peter Molyneux’s Milo, the Virtual Child, Gets Shown Off at TED

Peter Molyneux’s Milo, the Virtual Child, Gets Shown Off at TED originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 20 Aug 2010 06:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Computers, Video Games

Electronic voting machines are notoriously buggy and hackable. Even the manufacturers of DRE (direct recording electronic) voting talliers have admitted so much. Some states have even gone as far as to ban the touchscreen devices. While they may not be great at recording votes (or leaving a paper trail), it turns out their outdated PC-like innards are perfect for playing retro arcade games. This particular machine, the AVC Edge, houses a 486 processor and 32 MB of RAM, making it about as powerful as a 15-year-old PC. Researchers J. Alex Halderman from the University of Michigan, and Princeton’s Ariel J. Feldman managed to open the machine, overwrite the embedded psOS+ operating system with the more pedestrian DOS, and install ‘Pac-Man‘ — all without leaving any evidence that the machine had been physically altered (aside from the ghosts chasing a yellow circle around the screen, that is).

Continue reading Electronic Voting Machine Hacked to Run ‘Pac-Man’

Electronic Voting Machine Hacked to Run ‘Pac-Man’ originally appeared on Switched on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Video Games, Columns

It may not be Halloween yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t spend some time haunting and hunting amongst the monsters and the freaks. This week, we’ll find out why sandworms are the new zombies (and why zombies aren’t quite played out yet), we’ll try to survive on desert islands (without the aid of any soccer ball companions), we’ll turn slack-jawed yokels into canned food, and we’ll delve into gaming madness with the Panopea generosa (i.e., the King Clam, one of the strangest game protagonists we’ve ever encountered). All for free, and all at your desk. You’re welcome.

Continue reading Games on the Go: Zombies, Aliens and Monsters… Oh My!

Games on the Go: Zombies, Aliens and Monsters… Oh My! originally appeared on Switched on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Video Games, Back to School

The University of Florida is not the first college to offer a course in ‘StarCraft,’ but it is the first to offer one that at least pretends to have some intellectual value beyond boosting your APM (actions per minute) rate. EME2040, or 21st Century Skills in ‘StarCraft’ is being taught by Nate Poling, and uses the blockbuster real-time strategy game as a tool for teaching lessons about time and resource management, as well as “adaptive decision making.” Poling says that managing businesses and facilities like hospitals and factories require skills similar to those required by ‘StarCraft’ — namely tracking units that have distinct specialties.

21st Century Skills in ‘StarCraft’ is only available to students enrolled in the honors college and who have at least a “basic knowledge of and experience playing ‘StarCraft’.” Shockingly, this is also the first online-only course taught at the University of Florida. The goal for Poling is to help his students learn by doing, rather than reading an endless parade of books and articles on the finer points of resource management. Of course, hospitals aren’t about to hand the reigns over to a bunch of college kids (even if they are honors students), so Poling has turned to the next best thing: games. The obvious choices here would have been ‘Sim City,’ or perhaps ‘Lemonade Tycoon,’ but the split-second decision-making and reflexive recall of unit-specific information make ‘StarCraft’ a much better sim of real world management skills. [From: Technology Review]

‘StarCraft’ Used to Teach Management Skills at the University of Florida originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 17:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Video Games

We’ve always wanted to try yanking a tablecloth off a table without destroying all of the fancy place settings. Leave it to our experimental friends from the east to tap into our strangest wants. According to Arcade Heroes, a new Japanese arcade game called ‘The Tablecloth Hour’ requires players to pull an actual piece of fabric, which yanks a virtual tablecloth from an onscreen table. Naturally, the object is to pull the cloth with just the right amount of touch and quickness so that the virtual dishes don’t crash to the floor. If you make your way over to Taito Station in Shibuya, Japan to test the console out, feel free to shout, “TA-DA!” for us. [From: Arcade Heroes, via: Oh Gizmo!]

Japanese ‘Tablecloth Hour’ Brings Virtual Yanking to the Arcade (Finally?) originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Computers

After months of back and forth and hand wringing, it looks like the strange tale of the Lower Merion school district may finally be coming to a close. In advance of the new school year, U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger has announced that the federal government will not be filing charges against the district or its employees over the controversial use of tracking software on school-issued laptops that snapped webcam photos of students. Memeger says that an investigation turned up no evidence of criminal intent. Still, if we were students in the district, we might choose to turn down the offer of a free, school-issued laptop. [From: Google/AP]

Feds Not Filing Charges in Pennsylvania School Spying Controversy originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Computers, Web

Never let it be said that computer hackers don’t have a sense of humor. Masato Nakatsuji has been arrested by Tokyo authorities for authoring the Ika-tako virus, which replaces the files on a target computer with images of squid, octopi and sea urchins. The virus has infected somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000 computers through the Winny file-sharing network. The malware disguises itself as a music file, and, when a victim attempts to play it, works its way through the hard drive, replacing programs, family photos and vital OS components with images of marine life.

Cute, but dangerous, since this is not the first time Nakatsuji has been arrested in connection with the creation of malware. In 2008, the coder created a virus that behaved similarly to Ika-tako, replacing data with images from an anime called ‘Clannad.’ That stunt landed Nakatsuji in jail for copyright violation. This time, Nakatsuji got slapped with the more severe charge of property destruction. The files that had been replaced were sent back to a server that Nakatsuji ran from his home, indicating he may have had more nefarious motives than simply practicing his computer programing skills, which was his excuse to police. [From: Wired and Asahi.com]

Continue reading Ika-tako Virus Replaces Your Files With Squid Pics

Ika-tako Virus Replaces Your Files With Squid Pics originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Computers

Hey, amateur astronomers, listen to this: A couple of at-home space nuts recently discovered a pulsar with a screensaver that uses idle PC time to process data collected from telescopes. By using Einstein@Home to ‘donate’ a PC’s processors to the pursuit of science, the program harnesses thousands of willing computers, rather than one supercomputer, to analyze data. This helps on-the-clock astronomers to cheaply continue their research while they sift through data collected from the Arecibo radio telescope and the LIGO gravitational wave detector.

Wells Fargo computer professionals Chris and Helen Colvin personally built the “run-of-the-mill” computer, which first discovered the pulsar on June 11th, before it was confirmed by another user, Daniel Gebhardt, in Germany on June 14th. The Colvins told Fox News, “It’s just something that runs in the background and we don’t think about it very much.” The trio likely won’t receive anything (besides bragging rights) for their discovery, but we think, at least, they should get to name the star. After all, their PCs could’ve just been wasting time playing retro video games instead. Check out an interview with the Colvins and Gebhardt after the break. [From: Science, Einstein@Home and The National Science Foundation, via: Fox News]

Continue reading Citizen Scientists Use Einstein@Home Screensaver to Discover a New Pulsar

Citizen Scientists Use Einstein@Home Screensaver to Discover a New Pulsar originally appeared on Switched on Sun, 15 Aug 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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