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Showing posts from May, 2010

Playware: Serious Games With Robots In Mind

Via: MIT Media Lab - Playware: Robots at Play Professor Henrik Hautop Lund, Center for Playware at Technical University of Denmark (who I was fortunate enough to meet f2f at the Games For Health 2010 yesterday closing in Boston), has also delivered his talk at the MIT Media Lab complex on May 28. Professor Henrik Hautop Lund is known internationally for his work in bringing robotics to use in novel ways. He has recently founded the Center for Playware to focus even further on how playful aspects of robotics may provide motivation for any citizen to perform different kinds of interaction with the robots of our future daily life. Lund has shown how the combination of a modern artificial intelligence, modular robotics and entertainment may provide novel opportunities in play, rehabilitation, sport, music, and teaching, because the approach provides non-expert users easy access to the technology in a playful and motivating way. About Playware Professor Lund defines Pl

Serious Games Engaging Next Gen in Community Planning

Chinatown Residents Play ‘Participatory Chinatown ' as Part of Revamped Urban Planning Process Via: Muzzy Lane - Community Planning Embraces Games To Attract A Younger Audience NEWBURYPORT — Just because community meetings are serious business doesn’t mean they can’t be fun, too. A new project in Boston’s Chinatown proves just that – by combining games, virtual interaction, and physical deliberation to help residents better shape the future of their neighborhood. Last week, more than 50 Chinatown residents gathered to play Participatory Chinatown , an immersive 3D game developed by Newburyport-based Muzzy Lane Software in partnership with the Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC), Emerson College, and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC). “We are passionate about the belief that gaming is a great medium to reach multiple generations, with a tremendous opportunity to enhance the way people interact,” said David Martz, vice president at Muzzy

M. Andersen and Serious Games: How To Hack Higher Education

Via: PREZI Maria H. Andersen has posted on Prezi a superb presentation on Playing To Learn Math that speaks for itself. Maria H Andersen In Her Own Words Officially, I teach mathematics at Muskegon Community College (Algebra through Calculus). I also have a consulting business, Andersen Algebra Consulting, through which I conduct professional training for faculty, author textbook materials, and consult for software and Internet companies in the industry. I am on the tail-end of a Ph.D. in Higher Education Leadership (ABD), researching math instructors' knowledge of, attitudes towards, and practice of specific instructional techniques. For the last few years, I've been really interested in technology and math, education and technology, and the future of higher education, and that has manifested itself in a blog/website http://www.teachingcollegemath.com In my ideal job I would get to teach (but not have to teach too many classes), have time to do a lot of writ

Reposted: HP Catalyst Initiative Serious Games As Sandboxes of Innovation

HP is building a global network of consortia to develop more effective approaches STEM education Via: Flux - Futurelab and HP Team Up To Launch The HP Catalyst Initiative HP is building a global network of consortia that is developing more effective approaches to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education. The goal is to create international collaborative “sandboxes” of innovation that explore the future of STEM education —a future where students use their technical and creative ingenuity to address urgent social challenges in their communities and around the world. By bringing together organizations that now work independently to create a global network of consortia that provide a cohesive, student-centered approach to STEM+ education, HP can be a catalyst for innovation that improves student performance. Through this initiative, HP is joining education leaders in collaborative ventures that address STEM+ education in new ways. The HP Catalyst Initia

Reposted: Caspian and Bohemia Shaping The Military Serious Games Market

PRESS RELEASE Bohemia Interactive and Caspian Learning Announce Industry Shaping Partnership London, UK, 18th May 2010 - Summary: Bohemia Interactive and Caspian Learning announce a formal partnership which will help shape the future of the military simulation and serious games market. Bohemia Interactive, the foremost military Serious Games organization and Caspian Learning , the leading rapid simulation and Serious Games company are forging a formal partnership that will bring exciting new offerings to military markets around the world. Given the technology and heritage of both organizations, this strategic venture will herald new offerings to the military sector and help to solve current training and simulation issues experienced by defence customers. Bohemia Interactive has been serving the military simulation community for almost a decade, and will bring its gold standard and industry leading simulation product “VBS2” to the partnership. VBS2 – Virtual Battlespace

Serious Games Hit The Mining Industry

Via: ForgeFX - Caterpillar Provides Cost Saving Training Simulators In order to compete in today’s mobile heavy equipment market manufacturers need to deliver training solutions along with the equipment. Market leaders in the construction and mining industry are increasingly using Serious Games to deliver virtual training systems. Caterpillar Is Using Serious Games As A Training and Marketing Tool A great example is Caterpillar Inc. also known as CAT, the world's largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, and industrial gas turbines. Caterpillar achieved better than expected earnings in Q1, with 2010 revenue estimated between $38 billion and $42 billion. On average, analysts are estimating a $2.66 profit on CAT shares in 2010. CAT delivers increased safety and cost savings to their customers through Caterpillar Virtual Training Systems and their custom line of mobile heavy equipment training simulators.

MASA Life Serious Games Development Framework

Via: MASA Group - Empowering Life MASA Life is a complete solution used for the development of virtual characters enabling you to easily create compelling training and simulation experiences and enhance Serious Games with player and non-player controlled actors. NaturalMotion, Trinigy, Mobility Art and Presagis have all partnered with MASA to provide leading game technologies and services adapted for Defense and Security under a common framework. MASA Life is a complete "Serious Games" Development solution enabling you to easily create compelling experiences for immersive training, part task trainers, cultural training simulation, tactical training and virtual prototyping. PRESS RELEASE Krauss-Maffei Wegmann Licenses MASA Life Form for Enhanced Training Realism NORFOLK, VIRGINIA (May 2010) — MASA Group is pleased to announce that Munich-based Krauss-Maffei Wegmann GmbH & Co. KG (KMW) has standardized on the MASA Life Form "Serious Games" dev

STANFORD Magazine: Serious Games As An Apollo Program For Math Education

Via: STANFORD Magazine May-June 2010 – Teaching Math KEITH DEVLIN is executive director of the Humanities Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research Institute at Stanford. His recent article Wanted: An Apollo Program for Middle-School Math , published under Farm Report News – Lecture Circuit, takes a stand for videogames adoption on a national level to produce a turn around in the mathematics performance of high school students. Here is the full article: “The United States ranks much worse than most of our economic competitors in the mathematics performance of high school students. That national slide begins in middle school.” “We now have the knowledge to turn that around and raise the level of mathematics performance across the board, within a single school generation, so that we are No. 1 in the world. All it would take is a national investment of between $150 million and $250 million over a five-year period to build and put in place a system that could achieve that ch

6rounds: Serious Gaming With Real Life Meeting Point

Via: Google I/O 2010 PRESS RELEASE Create Multi-User Activities And Games With 6rounds Video Chat Api Within 15 Minutes 6rounds is a flash-based social entertainment platform that challenges traditional video chatting methods by creating a beautifully designed, simple to use, and user friendly platform. It offers people a real place to meet, video chat, collaborate, feel close to one another, and to have fun together. By combining webcam chats, interactive activities and real-time games, 6rounds has managed to bridge the gap between the offline and online worlds in an entertaining, playful, fun and friendly experience. 6rounds is an interactive online environment, based on a combination of webcams, real-time games, media activities and social engagements. In September of last year, 6rounds was chosen to be featured as one of the first six Google Wave extensions, and the only video chat extension to date. It is constantly updating new versions of the exten

Toytek Serious Games Coming To The iPhone

Via: Toytek – The Ultimate Alphabet Game To Be Submitted to Apple On May 20th - (Now Postponed to Next Week) Toytek has developed Mike Wilks’s bestselling book The Ultimate Alphabet for the iPad and the iPhone, creating a unique Serious Game context for expanding both vocabulary and general knowledge. The Ultimate Alphabet  is a collection of 26 paintings, each depicting a collection of objects starting with a particular letter of the alphabet. Unlike children's alphabet books, it contains unusual words, with the paintings in a realistic style, but rendered surrealistic by the strange juxtaposition of subject matter. Wilks himself appears at least once in every painting, as does his trademark snail. Each letter is itself represented several times, typically in braille, morse code, semaphore, and sign language as well as in its printed form.  According to Wilks the book contained depictions of 7,777 words in total ranging from just 30 for the letter X to 1,22

HP Catalyst Initiative: Serious Games As Sandboxes of Innovation

HP is building a global network of consortia to develop more effective approaches STEM education Via: Flux - Futurelab and HP Team Up To Launch The HP Catalyst Initiative HP is building a global network of consortia that is developing more effective approaches to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education. The goal is to create international collaborative “sandboxes” of innovation that explore the future of STEM education —a future where students use their technical and creative ingenuity to address urgent social challenges in their communities and around the world. By bringing together organizations that now work independently to create a global network of consortia that provide a cohesive, student-centered approach to STEM+ education, HP can be a catalyst for innovation that improves student performance. Through this initiative, HP is joining education leaders in collaborative ventures that address STEM+ education in new ways. The HP Catalyst Initia

Caspian and Bohemia Shaping The Military Serious Games Market

PRESS RELEASE Bohemia Interactive and Caspian Learning Announce Industry Shaping Partnership London, UK, 18th May 2010 - Summary: Bohemia Interactive and Caspian Learning announce a formal partnership which will help shape the future of the military simulation and serious games market. Bohemia Interactive, the foremost military Serious Games organization and Caspian Learning , the leading rapid simulation and Serious Games company are forging a formal partnership that will bring exciting new offerings to military markets around the world. Given the technology and heritage of both organizations, this strategic venture will herald new offerings to the military sector and help to solve current training and simulation issues experienced by defence customers. Bohemia Interactive has been serving the military simulation community for almost a decade, and will bring its gold standard and industry leading simulation product “VBS2” to the partnership. VBS2 – Virtual Battlespace 2

Harvard Panel: Evolutionary Biology Looks At Videogames

Via: Harvard Alumni Affairs & Development (AA&D) Who Plays Games and Why: Evolutionary Biology Looks at Videogames  The Harvard Alumni Association invites you to a panel session: a discussion with Harvard Human Evolutionary Biology Professor Richard Wrangham, Emmanuel College Psychology Professor Joyce Benenson, and game developers Noah Falstein and Kent Quirk. Electronic games are competing with television for that essential resource: consumer attention. But exactly who is playing these games? And what is their appeal? Indeed, why do people find games “fun” at all, from simple board games to immersive 3D fantasy worlds? Is there a biological reason that males and females play dramatically different kinds of games? The many genres and formats of games will be surveyed in a brief multimedia overview, with a look at the different populations that play these different games. Then, human-behavioral scientists will collaborate with game-design professionals to explore the