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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Friday 30 January 2009

Shape-shifting robots take form



How would you like to have your very own shape-shifter? Perhaps a liquid metal T-1000 Terminator to help around the house. Or a universal tool kit that could reshape itself into any implement at the press of a button. For an astronaut in orbit, an army mechanic in remote terrain or even a homeowner trying to fix a furnace on a cold winter night, it could be just the thing.

Well, one day maybe. The traditional approach to building shape-shifting devices has been to use materials based on shape memory alloys, polymer sheets or nanoparticles. But these have proved difficult to control and have other limitations, so researchers have begun taking a different and less exotic tack.

more ...

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Thursday 29 January 2009

Michael Arrington giving up blogging ? Can't take the death threats !


At over $2,000 a day we couldn’t keep paying for security indefinitely. And the police were helpful but couldn’t do much based on the threats until he acted. We had the option of getting a restraining order but that just tells the person exactly where you are (the places they can’t go). So for a week I was literally in hiding with my parents at their home. The TechCrunch office was empty, and the police made regular checks to see if things were ok. One evening they almost arrested one of our employees who stopped by the office to pick up something.

Seeing my parents fear for their lives and not understand how or why their son was in this position changed me, made me a much less forgiving person in general.

I write about technology startups and news. In any sane world that shouldn’t make me someone who has to deal with death threats and being spat on. It shouldn’t require me to absorb more verbal abuse than a human being can realistically deal with.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/28/some-things-need-to-change/



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Wednesday 28 January 2009

TwitterCamp is a twitter air app for conferences to show back-channel tweets on big screens



TwitterCamp is a desktop application that allows you to monitor tweets from your friends using the popular Twitter service. The application was built for the ApolloCamp mini-conference and uses the Adobe AIR runtime and Twitter Search API. The application is especially suited for running on large displays such as plasmas, LCDs, and projectors at conferences. It is simple to customize the interface so that you can use the application for your conference.


http://www.danieldura.com/code/twittercamp

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Members of the US Congress have slowly increased their use of twitter


According to the website TweetCongress.org, which tracks lawmakers’ Twitter feeds, 29 Republican members are on Twitter, compared to 16 Democrats and one Independent: Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.


http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/republicans-all-a-twitter-over-the-visit-2009-01-27.html


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Saturday 24 January 2009

Creature Keeper is Spore for kids



The new game, which will allow multiple children to play together in a very Spore-like universe, will be called Creature Keeper, said Lucy Bradshaw, the general manager of EA's Emeryville, Calif.-based Maxis studio, which created Spore.


http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-10147827-235.html

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Wednesday 21 January 2009

iPod touch: the hot accessory for your sniper rifle



http://www.tuaw.com/2009/01/21/ipod-touch-the-hot-accessory-for-your-sniper-rifle/

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Behind the Scenes of TWiT with Leo Laporte and Cali Lewis









http://www.geekbrief.tv

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Linden Lab acquires Xtreet and OnRez, brokers of virtual goods for Second Life



For a 5% sales commission, the sites serve up an Amazon.com-like one-stop shopping experience for Second Life goods. What kind of goods? How about your very own President Obama avatar (pictured above) for about $7.50?


http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/01/second-life-xtr.html


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Tuesday 20 January 2009

Whosegame contest on Serious Games



Participate and win up to 5000€ !

Participation is open until March the 31st 2009 !

You must submit your game in english but you can also choose to translate it in any other Whosegame language !

Then your games will be displayed on Whosegame and evaluated by a jury and Whosegame members.

http://www.whosegame.com/contestcard.php?contest=51

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Monday 19 January 2009

Michael Arrington's Minimalist $200 Web Tablet Prototype

I'm thinking that tablets like this will be the personal, networked, on-demand, TV screen of the future. However it needs a swype virtual keyboard, a dock to recharge, bluetooth for using a real wireless keyboard and a stand. No one wants to have to hold a tablet on their lap for a long period. Ideally the dock and stand should be a single thing that serves both purposes.



http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/21/we-want-a-dead-simple-web-tablet-help-us-build-it/


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Quake Live, the upcoming free in-browser version of Quake




http://beta.quakelive.com/beta/



http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/14/people-are-now-playing-quake-live/




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Sunday 18 January 2009

Jaiku goes open source on the google app engine - will compete with laconi.ca/identi.ca




I'm thinging jaiku's support for standards like XMPP and OAuth along with its mobile client and Google App engine will make it a strong laconi.ca competitor.

Soon, anyone, for free and with little effort, will be able to install and modify the Jaiku code, launch it on App Engine, and run their own microblogging platform. Combine that decentralization with standards such as OAuth and the forthcoming activity stream standards, and what we’re seeing here is the accelerating trend away from microblogging being a destination to microblogging being a pervasive and ubiquitous part of the fabric of the web itself.


http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/17/jaiku-founder-were-not-dying-were-morphing/

http://www.zengestrom.com/blog/2009/01/signal-and-noise-on-jaiku-this-week.html










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iPhone is the ultimate study companion ?



With gigabytes of storage, dimensions comparable to traditional note cards, and a full color screen, the iPhone is the ultimate study companion. And, unlike many of its smartphone competitors, the iPhone and iPod Touch have huge appeal for the younger crowds that generally flock to study materials.

Unfortunately the current state of the ‘Education‘ section of the App Store leaves something to be desired - many of the top apps are poorly designed, and some of the best-selling applications in both the ‘paid’ and ‘free’ sections have fewer than 100 total reviews.

more ...


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Saturday 17 January 2009

The National Association for Music Education to bring Wii Music to classrooms across America



The collaboration will bring Wii Music to schools in 51 cities, with the goal not being to teach kids exactly how to play music, but simply to get them interested and engaging them with some key educational concepts.

more ...


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Friday 16 January 2009

Current state of the race for the perfect tablet smartphone

RIM Blackberry:



Nokia n97:



Microsoft - Sony, Samsung and HTC:






Google Android G1:




Apple iPhone and Palm Pre:




Apple vs RIM vs Palm vs Microsoft vs Nokia vs Google.
Where are they now, where are they going and who will win ?


http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/15/what-apple-could-learn-from-palms-webos/



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T-Mobile G2 from HTC: graffiti text and stylus in Android



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Thursday 15 January 2009

HP TouchSmart Notes application being used by autistic children





http://interactivemultimediatechnology.blogspot.com/2009/01/interacting-and-communicating-with-hp.html

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Interview: Developing for Palm Pre and WebOS




Conrad clarified that, despite all apps being mixtures of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, webOS is more than just a big browser -- it has direct access to local files and UI elements. However, he echoed the fears of others that this web-friendly programming interface won't exactly be well suited for gaming, expressing hope that Palm will address this with integrated Flash support or some sort of a lower-level API to appease those who want to tap that OMAP processor directly.


http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/14/pandoras-cto-talks-about-pre-webos-sdk-gaming-and-small-chil/

Tom Conrad has a long history in engineering and product design: he's led teams that have worked on everything from operating systems to video games, including the fondly-remembered PC classic You Don't Know Jack. Currently the Chief Technical Officer for Pandora Internet Radio, Tom's in a unique position to offer insider opinion on the development and capabilities of Palm's new WebOS and Pre smartphone, having worked with the company on these products for a number of months now while creating a version of the Pandora player for webOS.

http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9685/interview-with-pandora-about-developing-for-webos/


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Wednesday 14 January 2009

Storytron - Interactive storytelling for artistic expression and corporate elearning



http://www.storytron.com/corporate-elearning.php


http://www.storytron.com/faq.php

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Intel's Classmate Tablet comes to UK schools and retail




A new version of a laptop originally designed by Intel for the developing world is making its debut in the UK.


The newly designed Classmate machine can be converted from a traditional laptop to a tablet PC to allow children to write and draw more naturally.

It will be available in the UK in February, and will be sold directly to schools as well as via online retailer Amazon and high street store Argos.

more ...


http://www.powerset.com/explore/semhtml/Classmate_PC?query=classmate


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Be a salesperson for Google with the Google Apps reseller program





Ever wanted to be a salesperson for Google? Well, now you may get your chance through the Google Apps Reseller program, which allows companies to sell their own versions of Google Apps, the business offering that bundles products like Gmail, Google Docs, and more. The program creates a new way for technology service providers to make money from Google’s products — and for Google to grow the size of its salesforce.

more ...








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More Palm Pre Videos




http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/13/palm-pre-everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know/

http://www.viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/141/

http://www.viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/139/

http://blog.laptopmag.com/in-depth-videos-of-groundbreaking-palm-pre-in-action

Smartphone competition: It’s too late for Nokia and Microsoft, but not too late for Palm in USA:

http://scobleizer.com/2009/01/12/smartphone-competition-its-too-late-for-nokia-and-microsoft-but-not-too-late-for-palm-in-usa/

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Amazon uk