About Serious Games

Serious games (SGs) or persuasive games are computer and video games used as persuasion technology or educational technology. They can be similar to educational games, but are often intended for an audience outside of primary or secondary education. Serious games can be of any genre and many of them can be considered a kind of edutainment.

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Tuesday 30 September 2008

Chris Pirillo talks about the Alice programming environment

Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience.





http://www.alice.org/

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Sergey Brin on Google Chrome browser



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Monday 29 September 2008

Virtual Tagging on Your iPhone (Video)



Developed by Tonchidot, a mobile application firm in Tokyo, the above demo video shows off the world’s first virtual tagging service for the iPhone: Sekai Camera, meaning “world camera” in Japanese.

Tonchidot did reveal that Sekai Camera does not employ image recognition, but was elusive (language barrier or intentional?) about how the technology actually worked. This type of innovation is something to get really excited about, even if the above demo turns out to be just a proof-of-concept. It’s a prime example of the iPhone platform’s game-changing ability to push boundaries, and some foreshadowing into the bright future that awaits it.

http://tonchidot.com/

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Sunday 28 September 2008

500,000 user accounts have been created for Warhammer Online in the first week



Mythic, the EA studio which has created Warhammer Online, has announced that over 500,000 user accounts have been created for Warhammer Online in the first week since launch. As the triumphant announcement states, "EA's most highly pre-ordered PC title, WAR has now become the fastest-selling new MMO of all time." This is a powerful vindication of EA's strategy of using an already highly recognisable brand for their MMO, rather than creating one from scratch. Perhaps more important, though, is that World of Warcraft's position at the top of the 3D MMO tree is not looking nearly as strong as it was a week ago.

more ...

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Saturday 20 September 2008

One man iPhone Developer makes $250,000 in Two Months



The game is called Trism, and it's an example of why – despite Apple throwing its toys out of the pram every time it sees an iPhone App it doesn't like – developers will continue to make quality software for the App Store.

more ...

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Wednesday 17 September 2008

Interactive multi-touch desks look like giant iPhones, say Durham designers



They look like something out of Star Trek, and they might well land in a classroom near you. They're school desks, but not as you know them, say their Durham University designers.

The interactive multi-touch desks look and act like a large version of an Apple iPhone.

"The new desk can be both a screen and a keyboard. It can act like a multi-touch whiteboard and several students can use it at once," said Dr Liz Burd, who led the university's Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) group that developed them.

"It offers fantastic scope for participatory teaching and learning," she said.

The desks, which are networked and linked to a teachers' console, recognise multiple touches on the desktop, using infrared light.

Several students will be able to work together, as the desks allow simultaneous screen contact using fingers or pens.

more ...

http://smart.dur.ac.uk/index.php?n=Main.MultitouchPage

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Tuesday 16 September 2008

Monday 15 September 2008

Serious ROI In Serious Games?



Forrester Research recently sent us a copy of “It’s Time To Take Games Seriously,” an overview of the burgeoning “serious games” industry. As the term suggests, these are video and computer games created to achieve practical, real-world outcomes, such as education or job training; consequently, it’s a space with an eclectic spectrum of players, from universities and NGOs to the military and for-profit corporations.


http://gigaom.com/2008/09/10/wheres-the-serious-roi-in-serious-games/

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75 FREE EDUGAMES



Terms like educational games, game-based gaming, and social impact games don't sound too bad. But, Serious Games sounds awful! I mean, who wants to get serious about playing games (I want to relax and have some fun!). The name itself is capable of killing the joy of playing games before even wanting to. I suppose some innovative name rebranding could help to facilitate and globalize the idea of using games to facilitate the (formal) learning process. Though, I think the term 'Edutainment' is quite good. My favorite would probably be EduGames. But, I believe we have yet to discover an attractive term for educational gaming that reach the 'Yummy' factor.


http://zaidlearn.blogspot.com/2008/05/75-free-edugames-to-spice-up-your.html

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Monday 8 September 2008

US universities are doling out Apple iPhones and Internet-capable iPods to students



Taking a step that professors may view as a bit counterproductive, some universities are doling out Apple iPhones and Internet-capable iPods to students.

The always-on Internet devices raise some novel possibilities, like tracking where students congregate. With far less controversy, colleges could send messages about canceled classes, delayed buses, campus crises or just the cafeteria menu.

While schools emphasize its usefulness — online research in class and instant polling of students, for example — a big part of the attraction is, undoubtedly, that the iPhone is cool and a hit with students. Basking in the aura of a cutting-edge product could just help a university foster a cutting-edge reputation.

more ...

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CIA, FBI push 'Facebook for spies'



When you see people at the office using such Internet sites as Facebook and MySpace, you might suspect those workers are slacking off.

A social-networking site for the world of spying officially launches for the U.S. intelligence community this month.

But that's not the case at the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency, where bosses are encouraging their staff members to use a new social-networking site designed for the super-secret world of spying.

"It's every bit Facebook and YouTube for spies, but it's much, much more," said Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analysis.

The program is called A-Space, and it's a social-networking site for analysts within the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

more ...

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PlayGen Flooding simulation game launched



An online game which shows how flooding could hit places such as London's Olympic Park and UK city centres without effective flood management has been launched.

The Floodsim.com game puts the player in charge of flood policy decisions for the UK - from major infrastructure works to planting trees and providing sandbags - and then reveals what happens when flooding hits the country each year.

more ...

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PODCAST: NIC MITHAM, CEO OF K ZERO


K Zero is a virtual worlds consultancy specialising in connecting real worlds brands and companies with the residents and environments of virtual worlds:

http://kzero.co.uk/

http://www.yada-yada.co.uk/podcasts/VirtualWorldsForum/audio/20080821mitham.mp3

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Sunday 7 September 2008

CamSpace: play any game, with any webcam




http://www.camspace.com/


http://www.camtraxtechnologies.com/

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ESPN, Play-by-Play Goes Virtual



The network, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, has spent the last year working on a new technology with Electronic Arts, the leading game publisher, that would allow ESPN commentators to interact live with realistic-looking, three-dimensional virtual players as they pontificate about coming matches during broadcasts.

more ...

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Saturday 6 September 2008

Google Earth Hurricane Tracking Layer



Google has just added a new sub-layer to the Weather layer called "Hurricane Season 2008". This layer contains position and forecasted paths for currently active Atlantic Hurricanes according to the US National Hurricane Center.

more ...

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RamoGames.com: Hundreds of kids educational games

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Hundreds of kids games, geography games, math games, puzzles, and other educational games for kids, parents, and teachers. New kids educational games added regularly.

http://www.ramogames.com/

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Thursday 4 September 2008

USING WII FIT IN YOUR LONGTERM FITNESS PLAN: 40+ TIPS, TUTORIALS AND SUCCESS STORIES



To say that Wii has been a popular pastime is an understatement, but the release of Wii Fit this year has sent Wii’s popularity skyrocketing. Maybe it’s because Wii Fit has gamers and non-gamers alike intrigued and challenged with the fun fitness activities. Regardless of why so many are picking up their Wiimote, this game offers a unique opportunity to have fun with your console and get a start on better fitness. If you’ve decided to use Wii Fit to help you get in shape, take advantage of these suggestions to enhance your workout.

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Second Life as a Platform for Augmented Reality



http://arsecondlife.gvu.gatech.edu

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Wednesday 3 September 2008

Films on USB Keys



http://www.custompc.co.uk/news/604788/ghostbusters-is-first-film-to-be-released-on-usb-stick.html#

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Mythbusters draw a MONA LISA in 80 milliseconds with 1100 paintball guns at NVIDIA's NVISION 08 Show



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Sony to Debut Photo-Realistic Safari Game



Sony Corp. is releasing a new safari game this week for its PlayStation 3 videogame console that purposely steers clear of attributes found in most popular videogames: It has no shooting, little action, no winning or losing, and not even an ending. Players simply observe wild animals in the savanna and take virtual photos.

But Sony is hoping that the game, called Afrika, will impress players with its advanced graphics. The developers, who spent nearly four years creating the game -- including two visits to Africa -- packed a fictitious national park with photo-realistic zebras, elephants, lions and dozens of other exotic animals.

more ...



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Stanford's "autonomous" helicopters teach themselves to fly


Stanford computer scientists have developed an artificial intelligence system that enables robotic helicopters to teach themselves to fly difficult stunts by watching other helicopters perform the same maneuvers.

The result is an autonomous helicopter than can perform a complete airshow of complex tricks on its own.

The stunts are "by far the most difficult aerobatic maneuvers flown by any computer controlled helicopter," said Andrew Ng, the professor directing the research of graduate students Pieter Abbeel, Adam Coates, Timothy Hunter and Morgan Quigley.

more ...

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/september10/videos/367_flash.html

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Tuesday 2 September 2008

Google Chrome: The new open source web browser - Is this the Google Web OS ?





Big leap froward in browser design. Not just multi-threaded but multi-process to maximize speed and stability for web based applications.

Tight integration with google gears for using web applications offline.

Based on the webkit rendering engine, same render that is used by the Linux KBrowser and Apple's Safari !

Javascript executes in multiple threads so one bad script can not lock the whole app. Crashes only end a single tab, not the whole app. Better memory management: by closing a tab you are killing a whole process and freeing it's memory for the OS.

Javscript executes in it's own virtual machine for added security and compiles rather than interprets code for improved performance. Much higher quality garbage collection than current VMs.

Browser has it's own process manager, separate from the OS, that shows the memory and CPU usage of each browser process. Easily see and kill problem processes.

All processes run in secure sandboxes. Page plugins (e.g. flash) run in their own processes separate from the page rendering process. Thus a plugin problem can not bring down the tab.

UI centred around tabs at the very top of the window and pointing up. Each tab is a mini browser itself with its own controls and address bar, independent of other tabs. Web apps can be launched in streamlined windows without browser controls.










http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome


http://www.google.com/chrome/index.html?hl=en-GB&brand=CHMG&utm_source=en-GB-hpp&utm_medium=hpp&utm_campaign=en-GB


http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/02/google-officially-announces-chrome/

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-10/mf_chrome

http://gillmorgang.techcrunch.com/2008/09/05/gillmor-gang-090508/





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The HP TouchSmart PC has touch-optimized applications in its HP TouchSmart software suite





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The power of ultrasonic waves has been harnessed to produce "virtual" objects in mid-air



The field of haptics - integrating computing and the sense of touch - has been around for some time but has required gloves or mechanical devices to impart a sense of feeling.

Now, a team of Japanese researchers has developed a system that uses focused ultrasound to do the job.

Its inventors may soon commercialise the approach.

more ...

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The Economist: Why video gaming can be good for business

AS THE Democratic National Convention got underway in Denver yesterday, so, too, did a novel attempt to drum up interest in the American electoral process. Microsoft has tweaked its Xbox video-gaming consoles so that they can be used to register to vote in the presidential election and to participate in opinion polls and online forums.

Part of an initiative to boost youth participation in this year’s election, Microsoft’s move shows how gaming technology can have an impact far beyond the narrow confines of a display screen. In a forthcoming book called “Changing the Game”, David Edery and Ethan Mollick argue that many skills and lessons from the gaming world are applicable in the business world. The smartest firms, the authors argue, will not only allow game-playing in the workplace, but will actively encourage it.

more ...


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