n00b World Reorder, part 1 [Cope, via Boing-Boing]

Thus began the first scientific conference held in Azeroth, the online universe inhabited by millions of people playing World of Warcraft. Anyone who has been part of a conference's organizing committee knows that some glitches and mishaps are just unavoidable. And as usual, the problems that actually did occur were unforeseen. It was a success nonetheless. By the end of the third day, a real scientific exchange took place, I married one of the conference participants, and within an hour of the wedding, we were all dead.

There are a lot of feel-good stories circulating about how scientists are using online games to study behavior, but this one is a lot of fun.

Slaying Monsters For Science [Science, thanks Gumblackwood!]

“The growth of in-game advertising, both current and projected, makes it an attractive medium for brands looking to reach hard-to-reach consumers,” said Elizabeth Harz, EA’s Senior Vice President of Global Media Sales. “This study solidifies what many in the industry have known for a long time: in-game ads are effective and well-received by the gaming community.”

Hooray! We're only alienating 18% of the gaming public! Hit the jump for the rest of the numbers, most of which seem to be aimed more at attracting advertisers rather than assuaging consumer concerns.

Landmark IGA-Nielsen Study: 82% of Consumers React Positively to Receiving Contextual In-Game Ads During Game Play

New research data from 1,300+ consumers indicates brands receive measurable lift in perception, awareness when advertised in-game

Tuesday 17th June/...Integrating dynamic advertisements into videogame environments provides brands a measured lift in overall consumer awareness and opinion of the products they are exposed to during game play according to the Consumers’ Experience with In-Game Content & Brand Impact of In-Game Advertising Study, a landmark research study conducted by Nielsen BASES and Nielsen Games on behalf of IGA Worldwide, the leading in-game advertising network.

“With young adults now spending on average 6 hours a week gaming, advertisers should be excited at how well their messages were embraced and the brands positively perceived,” said Justin Townsend, CEO of IGA Worldwide. “The consumer insights we’ve gleaned from this data will help drive the industry’s first research-based in-game advertising measurement standards as well as strengthen IGA’s position as an effective in-game ad network brands can trust to efficiently deliver their message to target audiences.”

One of the most important factors confirmed by the Study is that most consumers reacted positively to in-game ads: 82 percent felt games were just as enjoyable with ads as without. In addition, there was an average 61 percent increase in consumers’ favorable opinions of products advertised in-game post-play.

“The growth of in-game advertising, both current and projected, makes it an attractive medium for brands looking to reach hard-to-reach consumers,” said Elizabeth Harz, EA’s Senior Vice President of Global Media Sales. “This study solidifies what many in the industry have known for a long time: in-game ads are effective and well-received by the gaming community.”

One of the most comprehensive in-game advertising effectiveness research studies completed to-date, Nielsen tested multiple variables with multiple brands across multiple games, as opposed to just a single brand in a single game. The research also showed how IGA’s in-game unique advertising opportunities generate significant advertising value across key ad metrics.

"In-game advertising is an opportunity to present targeted brand messaging to a highly desirable demographic. This new data shows how important it is how the targeted and contextual ads are displayed in videogames. Participating in this study with IGA Worldwide has provided valuable new insights into effectively using the medium." said Chad Stoller, Executive Director, Emerging Platforms Organic, Inc.

Nielsen surveyed over 1,300 PC gaming participants in their homes by linking IGA’s proprietary measurement software with research trackers embedded within sample game disc. This unique methodology allowed for unprecedented in-depth analysis of consumer receptivity to in-game ads. The participating brand advertisers included Taco Bell, Jeep and Wrigley and game titles were provided by Electronic Arts and Activision.

Select Findings from the Study:

• There is an average 44 percent increase in post-game aided recall from pre-awareness;

• Positive brand attribute association increased 33 percent across all brands;

• Over 70 percent of consumers who were most opinionated about in-game ads, felt the ads made them feel better about the brand, feel more favorable toward the brand, make them more interested in the brand, and believe the ads are for innovative/cutting edge brands;

• Over 60 percent of the most opinionated consumers feel the ads catch their attention, make games more realistic, do not interrupt the game experience, and are promoting relevant products;

• In-game ad exposures with a duration over 2 seconds, as they are measured in IGA’s in-game ad methodology, generates on average an almost 30% increase in key ad metrics, including ad noticeability +100%, recall +42%, and fit +27%, vs. ad exposures with a duration of less than 1 second

“This study offers proof that dynamic in-game advertising is an influential digital ad medium,” said Dave Anderson, Senior Director Business Development, Activision. “Just as important to us is how users react to the ads. From the research it is clear that the overwhelming majority of consumers enjoyed the gaming experience just as much, if not more, with dynamic ads present. As game publishers, it is reassuring to know advertisers and consumers both stand to benefit from dynamic ads.”

IGA’s network offers dozens of games across multiple genres and platforms, as well as a range of standardized awareness advertising formats with digital measurability. The Company’s advertising products and metrics are in-line with the ad industry and measure ad exposure during game play, including key metrics like minimum time viewed, size and angle thresholds.

Videogame advertising is poised to grow to a $2B global industry by 2012 according to eMarketer, making games the fastest-growing major advertising medium. As a result, advertisers are making significant investments in the in-game environment as an effective strategy to reach target audiences.

[AP] [Pic]

Power usage [Choice]

These gender differences might help explain why males are more attracted to, and more likely to become "hooked" on, video games than females. I think it's fair to say that males tend to be more intrinsically territorial. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who historically are the conquerors and tyrants of our species.

Certainly, Reiss might have evidence in hard science, but it sure sounds like he's totally underestimating women. Lots of them are "hooked" on games! Some are tyrants, too!!

Games Are Guy Thing [Game Politics]

My understanding is that Nintendo is saying that if you track BMI, and by using this program, that you'll improve your BMI, or lower your BMI. I say baloney to that. In fact, I'm sure you'll see very little change in BMI. It's not just BMI you want to look at, but how fat you are.

When you are physically fit, you tend to replace fat with muscle, and your BMI probably won't change...I really think it's false and misleading.

Wii Fit: Interview with Dr. Judith Stern [GameSpy]

Half-Life Havoc (HLH) is a lesson in video game physics created in Half-Life 2 using the included level editing tools. Taking inspiration from games like Garry's mod and Portal, HLH aims to create an environment where players can take some time to appreciate the complex physics simulations that are present in modern games. HLH is made up of a series of rooms, each of which has a puzzle or game that illustrates a feature of Half-Life 2's physics engine. Commentary nodes spread throughout the level teach the player about what is going on in each of the games and gives insight into video game physics.

Half-Life: Havoc

...And then [Dimitri] moved from [an] experiment to a moment in time that happened six months ago when a discovery was made, and this discovery has been so exciting that it has lead to Lionhead focussing on it and sculpting a game around that. I think that discovery is so significant... This discovery has lead us to start a game and that game will be on the front cover of Nature magazines and Science magazines.

Not precisely a game, but there has been talk lately of physics (and science in general) in games, and this is a neat little program that's fun to spend a while playing with. It's still in beta and has the requisite bugs you might expect, but here's what the creator has to say about it:

Phun is a Master of Science Theises by Computing Science student Emil Ernerfeldt for supervisor Kenneth Bodin at VRLab, Umeå University. The solver is based on work by Claude Lacoursière

Phun is meant to be a playground where people can be creative. It can also be used as an educational tool to learn about physics concepts such as restitution and friction.

You can snag the download (Windows only for now, but an OSX version is apparently on its way) at the Phun website, where there's more information. There's also a thread going over at the GameDev.com forums.

For the last few years, the buzzword for game engine design has been physics, but most games didn't use it for anything more than the most basic eye-candy. HL2 showed that the model itself could actually be fun and interesting as part of the gameplay. I like to imagine doing the same thing for other fields - chemistry, for example, which has never been one of my strong subjects but would almost certainly make for amazing puzzles a la MacGyver. To some degree, this progression is already taking place; what's Spore but an expansive biology toy?

A fun and thought provoking read, even for those of us who run screaming from labs of any kind. Give me musty library stacks any day.

Anomalous Materials [The Escapist]

"Exposure to violent video games, even E rated video games, increases aggressive thoughts, increases pro-social behavior and increases general arousal," said Dr. Greg Snyder, a psychologist at Omaha's Children's Hospital.

Probably not what he meant mind you. Snyder went on to theorize that exposure to violent video games desensitize our children to the real thing.

"The more normal it is, the more likely it is they're going to activate or engage in those behaviors when provoked or even unprovoked," Snyder said.

"Just like any new media, it gets attacked. When any new genre of music comes out, it gets attacked. TV will, of course, get attacked. I'm sure, way back when, books got attacked," Miller said.

Video Games Normalize Killing, Doctors Say [KETV 7 - Thanks Everyone!]

There are many possible uses for virtual displays. Drivers or pilots could see a vehicle's speed projected onto the windshield. Video-game companies could use the contact lenses to completely immerse players in a virtual world without restricting their range of motion. And for communications, people on the go could surf the Internet on a midair virtual display screen that only they would be able to see.

Contact lenses with circuits, lights a possible platform for superhuman vision [UWNews.org]

Noting that the study focused on subjects who played video games for only 30 minutes, Chou said many youngsters spend far more time on video games each day, unaware that doing so on a long term basis could damage the frontal lobe of the brain, as well as the anterior cingulate gyrus.

Not my anterior cingulate gyrus! Fuckbeans. I love my cingulate gyrus.

The frontal lobe of the brain is associated with thinking, speaking, and impulse control, so the study definitely explains 75% of Xbox Live users. Meanwhile my beloved cingulate gyrus monitors the internal emotional response, which is why I am so cold and dead inside. Decreased blood flow to these areas is generally exhibited in patients suffering from schizophrenia and depression.

All I can say is thank goodness I am no longer 25 years old and thus not affected by these findings.

Playing video games may sap emotional control: survey [Taiwan News Online via PC World]

Physics is extremely demanding in terms of resources and some of the ideas that I have developed here are not currently achievable — but the advances in the tools and technologies are foreseeable, giving us the power in the future. From now on, gameplay can be improved with uses that are not just cosmetic. The development of dynamic game environments that the player can change on the fly is already a trend in today's level design. Physics makes this evolution possible.

Physics is more than skin deep? It's a short article and not too heavy on the science speak.

Physics in Games: A New Gameplay Frontier [Gamasutra]

How does the Guitar Hero III X-plorer guitar controller fare when faced with the whirring blades of the BlendTec Total Blender? I won't spoil it, but know that it doesn't hold up too well to a Pete Townshending. For a blender that costs as much as a PlayStation 3 it had better fuck this thing up.

"What we're trying to do is take people into a virtual crack-related neighborhood or crack-related setting and have them experience cravings, just like they would in the real world," Rosenthal said.

It's all a form of classical conditioning, a phenomenon first explored by Ivan Petrovich Pavlov. Pavlov conditioned dogs to salivate when a sound occurred, commonly believed to be the ringing of a bell. By ringing the bell before feeding the animal it began to associate the bell with the anticipation of food.

The main difference here is the use of virtual reality to provide the stimulus, rather than actually putting crack cocaine on a table and hitting the addicts with rolled-up newspaper whenever they reach for it. "Bad crackhead!"

While the program has had some success, Rosenthal doesn't see his work as merely a way to help addicts recover their lives.

"This isn't about cocaine, and this isn't really about substance use," He said. "This is about creating new learning and extending that learning to the real world."

Astrophysicist Dr. Gaurav Khanna is using eight linked Playstation 3s to measure what sort of gravity waves would be produced if a super-massive black hole were to swallow a star.

The eight PS3s, donated to the doctor's research by Sony, replace Khanna having to tap into supercomputing sites at $5,000 a pop, Wired reports. He said the "gravity grid" of PS3s, which has been up for about a month now, are equal to about 200 of the supercomputing nodes.

"The interest in the PS3 really was for two main reasons," explains Khanna, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth who specializes in computational astrophysics. "One of those is that Sony did this remarkable thing of making the PS3 an open platform, so you can in fact run Linux on it and it doesn't control what you do."

The other of course is the upcoming release of Eye of Judgment.... better pick up a some velvet robes Dr. Guarav "Gravity Grid" Khanna.

Astrophysicist Replaces Supercomputer with Eight PlayStation 3s

... The study needed an external factor that influenced study time. It found it in video games, specifically by dividing the students based on whether their roommates had brought gaming rigs to school. About half of the males and a quarter of the females fell into this group. But the impact of access to gaming didn't depend on the students' gender: those with video games in their rooms spent about two-thirds of an hour less on academic work per day out of a mean of 3.5 hours of study time. That decrease closely tracked the amount of time that the students reported spending gaming, suggesting that there was a direct transfer of effort between the two activities.

As Ars Technica points out, this is not really a gaming problem, rather a time management one. A life outside of academia is to be strongly encouraged (everyone needs an outlet for stuff not relating to books, lectures, tests, and essays), but it has to be balanced out with academic requirements. Isn't this simple common sense?

Deathmatch: video games vs. study time, a flawless GPA victory [Ars Technica via GamePolitics]

"The recent inclusion of PS3 as part of the Folding@home program has afforded our research group with computing power that goes far beyond what we initially hoped," said Vijay Pande, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and Folding@home project lead. "Thanks to PS3, we are now essentially able to fast-forward several aspects of our research by a decade, which will greatly help us make more discoveries and advancements in our studies of several different diseases."

PLAYSTATION®3 Helps Folding@home Become The First Distributed Computing Network To Reach The Petaflop Milestone Reached Gamers Help Scientists Speed Up Their Research and Find Cures for Diseases Including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Cancer

TOKYO and FOSTER CITY, Calif., September 19, 2007 - Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) today announced that PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) computer entertainment systems, part of Stanford University's Folding@home™ program, have enabled the distributed computing project to reach a petaflop, a milestone never before reached on a distributed computing network. Known amongst the scientific community, a petaflop is the ability of a computer to do one quadrillion floating point operations per second (FLOPS). In other words, if every person on the planet were to perform a simple mathematical calculation, such as calculating a percentage, each person would have to perform 75,000 calculations every second for the world's population to achieve a petaflop.

By achieving a petaflop, scientists with the Folding@home program are now able to conduct research that typically would not be possible for 10 years down the line. Thanks to the PS3's powerful Cell Broadband Engine™ (Cell/B.E.), scientists will now be able to make greater progress in their studies of protein folding and its link to diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and certain forms of cancer.

"The recent inclusion of PS3 as part of the Folding@home program has afforded our research group with computing power that goes far beyond what we initially hoped," said Vijay Pande, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and Folding@home project lead. "Thanks to PS3, we are now essentially able to fast-forward several aspects of our research by a decade, which will greatly help us make more discoveries and advancements in our studies of several different diseases."

"When we introduced PS3, we knew its incredible processing power would allow for a great deal of innovation and creativity," said Jack Tretton, president and CEO of SCEA. "It's extremely rewarding to see that the scientific community has found a way to harness PS3 technology for humanitarian purposes and we continue to be amazed at what gamers and the Folding@home community have been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time."

Because the process of folding proteins is so complex, computers are used to perform simulations to study the process. Since these simulations can take up to 30 years for a single computer to complete, Folding@home enables this task to be shared among thousands of computers connected via the network, utilizing distributed computing technology. The Folding@home program up until recently leveraged only the distributed computing power of personal computers (PC) from around the world. The PCs that made up the Folding@home network numbered roughly 200,000 giving the program the equivalent of about one-quarter of a petaflop. On March 15, 2007, PS3 joined the program and since then close to 600,000 unique PS3 users have registered to the Folding@home network, bringing the overall computing power of the program to more than a petaflop.

PS3 users can join the program by simply clicking on the Folding@home icon within the Network menu of the XMB™ (XrossMediaBar) or can optionally set the application to run automatically whenever the PS3 is idle (*1).

Simulation models are of increasing importance within the field of applied epidemiology. However, very little can be done to validate such models or to tailor their use to incorporate important human behaviours. In a recent incident in the virtual world of online gaming, the accidental inclusion of a disease-like phenomenon provided an excellent example of the potential of such systems to alleviate these modelling constraints. We discuss this incident and how appropriate exploitation of these gaming systems could greatly advance the capabilities of applied simulation modelling in infectious disease research.

According to the article in the Times, "As the virus spread, very real challenges emerged, such as the failure of quarantine measures, further transmission by character's pets and the existence of "immune" characters, who act as carriers, passing the virus to others while failing to succumb to symptoms." With the never ending onslaught of negative press, it's nice to see games like WoW getting some pretty good positive press - and interesting, to boot. The paper will be in the September

How a computer game glitch could help to fight off global pandemic [The Times via Wonderland & GamePolitics]

The untapped potential of virtual game worlds to shed light on real world epidemics (abstract) [Lancet Infectious Diseases]

"We only need four days to complete the process. This means that visitors will be able to watch the game slowly take shape before their eyes. GC visitors in the glass development studio will be also be able to subject the different versions of the game to their own quality testing," explained Boje Holtz of exDream.

The Glass Development Studio at GC family

Visitors to the Games Convention Can Experience How a Computer Game Is Created at First Hand

The The German Federal Association for Interactive Entertainment Software (BIU) has joined up with Leipziger Messe to create the first glass development studio at the GC - Games Convention. From 23 to 26 August the Hannover development studio exDream entertainment will be developing a game at the GC family hall (Hall 5, stand F40), providing visitors with an insight into the typical working processes involved in the development of a game.

The game will be a puzzle similar to the games classic Tetris. Visitors to the show will be able to watch the four-man development team at work from idea and concept to programming and graphic design. In addition, the exDream team will also be answering any questions regarding the process of developing a digital game. "We only need four days to complete the process. This means that visitors will be able to watch the game slowly take shape before their eyes. GC visitors in the glass development studio will be also be able to subject the different versions of the game to their own quality testing," explained Boje Holtz of exDream.

The glass development studio opens on Thursday, 23 August 2007.

In the game, players control their ships, but the sharks are controlled by real-world white sharks with GPS units attached to their fins. Real-world telemetry data provides the position and movement of actual great white sharks in the game, so every shark that players encounter corresponds to a real shark in the real world.

Ships in the game move in real-time, so players receive email and/or SMS alerts during the day when their boat is within range of an encounter. Players login, choose crewmembers and an approach technique, and then collect various data from the nearby sharks.

This reminds me to set the TiVO.

Sharkrunners [via Wonderland]

"This isn't the kind of technology, or model, that this industry — or Orkin — is used to considering," notes David Lamb, Orkin's vice president of learning and media services. He's working with senior officers in the company to build a business case for such training, and, given the potential savings the company could eventually realize across its 400 branch offices, "there's a very high probability we'll move into this arena."

Stone's other clients include a medical devices firm, a global energy company looking to train power plant employees in a safe environment, and a major logistics company that he's created a driving simulation for using the Wiimote in a plastic steering wheel assembly.

But why the Wiimote, when other motion sensing devices have been around for years?

The advantage of the Wiimote is that it's a "human-centric device," says Eric Klopfer, a professor at MIT. A gyroscopic mouse, by contrast, "maps well onto the computer's interface, but not to the person's. The Wiimote fits the user. ... People know intuitively what to do with it when they pick it up because we use it like devices we are familiar with — bats, rackets, wands, etc."

Hit up the link below for a deeper look at what Brown can do for you. Comments about the sexual applications of the Wiimote in Second Life are sure to follow.

Wii + Second Life = New Training Simulator [Wired]

Today Sony has announced their continuing support with an update set to go live tomorrow that will increase folding speeds, improve the user location display on the map, and allow for longer names for teams and individual donors.

The folks at Stanford are ecstatic:

"The PS3 turnout has been amazing, greatly exceeding our expectations and allowing us to push our work dramatically forward," said Vijay Pande, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and Folding@home program lead. "Thanks to PS3, we have performed simulations in the first few weeks that would normally take us more than a year to calculate. We are now gearing up for new simulations that will continue our current studies of Alzheimer's and other diseases."

PlayStation 3 Users Significantly Contribute To The Folding@homeTM Program

Tokyo, April 25, 2007 - Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCE) today announced that great progress has been made in the one month since PLAYSTATION 3 (PS3 ) computer entertainment systems became part of Stanford University's Folding@home program, a distributed computing project aimed at understanding protein folding, misfolding and related diseases. Since the program launched in March, participation by the PS3 user community has been phenomenal, providing Folding@home with immense computing power that is helping to fast forward its research. Furthermore, thanks to PS3's powerful Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.), the Folding@home program has become one of the most powerful distributed computing networks in the world and is quickly approaching a level of computing power that is of historical proportions.

Exhibiting its continued commitment to the program, SCE also announced that starting tomorrow, it is providing a Folding@home application update that will further enhance the user experience. The updated software features an improvement in folding calculation speeds, increased visibility of user location (*1) on the globe and the ability for users to create longer donor or team names.

"The PS3 turnout has been amazing, greatly exceeding our expectations and allowing us to push our work dramatically forward," said Vijay Pande, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and Folding@home program lead. "Thanks to PS3, we have performed simulations in the first few weeks that would normally take us more than a year to calculate. We are now gearing up for new simulations that will continue our current studies of Alzheimer's and other diseases."

Some of the key accomplishments made since the Folding@home program launched on PS3 include:

More than 250,000 unique PS3 users have registered to the program in just one month.

PS3 users are delivering nearly 400 teraflops, achieving a total computing power of over 700 teraflops at a single moment. This is more than double the computing capacity of the network before PS3 joined the program (*2)

The "halo-effect" of PS3 has been evident as the number of active PCs has increased by 20 percent in the last month.

"We continue to be thrilled with the ongoing contributions of the PS3 user community in helping the Folding@home program study the causes of many different diseases that afflict our society," said Masayuki Chatani, Corporate Executive and CTO Computer, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. "As we move forward, we are issuing a call to action for all PS3 owners around the world to download the Folding@home application and help this cause. These PS3 fans can also be part of history as the Folding@home distributed computing program inches closer to achieving a petaflop - a measure of computing power that has never before been reached."

PS3 users can download the new update version 1.1 by restarting the Folding@home application. New Folding@home users can join the program by simply clicking on the Folding@home icon within the Network menu of the XMB (XrossMediaBar) or can optionally set the application to run automatically whenever the PS3 is idle (*3).

Starting with Folding@home, SCE will continue to support distributed computing projects in a wide variety of academic fields such as medical and social sciences and environmental studies through the use of PS3 and hopes to contribute to the advancement of science.

UC Irvine's Calit2 Computer Game Culture and Technology Laboratory, which researches ... games, announced on 19 April that it is joining up with South Korean researchers at the Center for Digital Industry Promotion. Their purpose? To examine "heterogeneous game networks, new game devices, and tools and techniques for developing beyond next-generation games." The three year project hopes to "help expand domestic and international markets for computer games that incorporate new technology to facilitate cross-cultural game development and play," which is a mouthful.

Still, research on the cross-cultural back and forth of 'pop culture' and comparatively 'new' media is a popular topic these days, and for good reason. With Chinese and Korean companies trying to pitch games to Western markets, Western firms trying to pitch to the Korean and Chinese markets, and Japanese companies just laughing since they're smack dab in the middle, no effort required, it's entirely possible that some geeky academics in Irvine, CA and Daegu City, South Korea will help smooth the sometimes choppy waters of cross-cultural pop culture. Something that makes my little academic heart beat just a little faster. Maggie Greene

UC Irvine Research Institute Announces International Collaboration [via Business Wire]

Okay, not crazy exactly, but those predisposed towards violence, aggression and neurotic behavior. Call it crazy lite(tm). The study looked at 120 children in the early teens before and after a 20 minute Quake II session. While the already aggressive children were either more or less aggressive depending on their emotional state before playing, the majority weren't affected at all.

Prof Devilly said much of the research linking aggressive behaviour to violent video games had been unconvincing.

"It's the only message parents have ever received and it's just not accurate," he said.

The study showed aggression linked to game playing depended on a player's mood and predisposition to aggression, he said.

Most kids 'unaffected' by violent games [The Sydney Morning Herald via GamePolitics]

It's actually incredibly inspiring. These two have taken the exercise of creative thinking and made it into a science, charting how time relates to the level of interest a person has. Plus, they interview each other about where each get their ideas and compare the similarities of their process. It's very nerdy-Woodstocky. Kim Phu

Will Wright and Brian Eno [Fora TV]

Stanford University's Folding@Home program has gotten a lot of play this week, and so it should. The program harnesses the power of idling PC's and PS3's to calculate data that will eventually help find cures for Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's, various types of Cancer and other diseases.

This is all well and good and I'm sure we all want to do something to help the cause, but how does this program really work? What exactly is protein folding and what will be the eventual outcome? GameVideos producer Kathleen Sanders finds out in this sit down interview with Sony's r&d manager, Dr. Richard Marks.

This is a program all owners of the PS3 should try and opt into if they can. I know I would if I actually had a PS3, but I will be downloading the PC version to use on my computer here at home. If you are interested in joining a team for the experiment, why not join our own newly formed Team Kotaku. And as Kathleen so eloquently puts it at the end of the interview, "If you don't download it, then you're kind of automatically an asshole."

I will warn you: this is a very scientifical and techie interview with lots of big words, so if it's early where you are, you might want to down a couple cups of coffee before taking this one on.

Such games have come to represent a variety of social anxieties: about youth violence, new computer technology, and the apparent decline in the ability of adults to control what young people do and know.

do video games kill? [contexts via GamePolitics.com]

"When people play action games, they're changing the brain's pathway responsible for visual processing," says Bavelier. "These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it. That learning carries over into other activities and possibly everyday life."

Action Video Games Sharpen Vision 20 Percent [Science Daily - Thanks Michael!]

Greg Miller of the Columbia Daily Tribune puts the relationship between pets and gamers into a whole new perspective. Maybe your pets don't love video games so much as they are jealous of them. He relates a story about his cat throwing up on a copy of WWF Royal Rumble for the Sega Genesis for Christmas in 1994, as well as a particularly bad experience this Thanksgiving, where his dog got clocked by a wiimote during a spirited family game of bowling. He spoke to a pet supply company owner about the issue.

"Pets get jealous of all kinds of stuff," he said from the store on I-70 Drive S.W. "Pets are like little children, and they never get past the age of 3 or 4. So think about it."

Pets retch, fetch to pin gamers to a short leash [Columbia Daily Tribune]
Photo from Greg Miller

In a short but sweet article the New York Times picks apart the Wii's remote and how it works. They also included some pretty cool graphics that show the way the thing works and what it looks like all exploded.

The secret to the Wii Remote, says the article, are MEMS, micro-electrical-mechanical systems:

...the controller's most-talked-about feature is the capacity to track its own relative motion. This enables players to do things like steer a car by twisting the remote in the air or moving a game character by tilting the remote down or up.

"This represents a fabulous example of the consumerization of MEMS," the tiny devices known as micro-electro-mechanical systems, said Benedetto Vigna, general manager of the MEMS unit at STMicroelectronics, a leading maker of the accelerometers embedded in the controllers. (Nintendo itself declined to talk about the controllers' inner workings.)

He said the motion sensors, using the technology that activates vehicle air bags, can accurately sense three axes of acceleration: up and down, left to right, and forward and backward.

This is mostly achieved within the MEMS, micron-size machines that depend on submicroscopic structures carved into the silicon. For example, one structure moves like a tiny diving board, stimulated by the actions of the game players.

The structures are enveloped in an electrical field, Mr. Vigna said. When the MEMS elements are moved, the electrical field changes and the MEMS chip is sensitive enough to detect the changes.

These accelerometers are so sensitive, Mr. Vigna said, because electrons — those subatomic particles that whirl around the nucleus of atoms like a video game in the making — can sense the subtle atomic-level movement of the silicon structures.

So I guess that means you don't need to whip the remote around like you're trying to punch a hole through a brick wall. Brian Crecente

This started me thinking. What if the appeal of the Wii went so far beyond the standard video gaming demographic that it effected non-humans? An interesting theory, but I would need a guinea pig to test it out.

As you can see, Sheba here seems unaffected by the introduction of the wiimote into her natural habitat. In many other animals this would be a negative result, but guinea pigs are convinced that most everything is either delicious hay, and therefore tolerable, or a Peruvian, therefore life-threatening. The wiimote definitely falls into the 'hay' category.

KOTAKU FUN FACT! - Peruvians eat upwards of 22 million guinea pigs a year!

Mmmmm.

Anyway, I took the hay verdict as conclusive proof and rushed into the living room to watch for that whacky old guy's free government grant money infomercial and have Rufus sign release papers, when I noticed this:

Well there goes that theory. I suppose I could have just lost the PS3 evidence and published my findings to suit my beliefs, but then I'd be no better than every two-bit scientist that ever published a skewed violent games turn your children into demons report. My cat isn't a Nintendo fancat. He's just a lazy all-round gamer like me only fuzzier, who dreams of having opposable thumbs like the big mammals. Judging by the lack of a 360 controller, he's also most likely Japanese. You learn something new every day. Michael Fahey

It'll be interesting to see how this turns out, though as some commentors on his page have already pointed out it really isn't all that scientific without taking into account the food you eat and other activities. I'm just overjoyed that I didn't end up having to do it. Hooray for sloth! Michael Fahey

Wii Sports Experiment [WiiNintendo.net, via Hot Shot Gamer]

ArsTechnica claims that last year's suspicious research conclusion, that gamers actually enjoy games with advertising more than those without, is probably just as bunk as it sounds.

Not only was the study funded by those that stood to profit from such a result, but it just doesn't sound right. A new study by ComScore Networks asserts that 63 percent of "hardcore gamers" (16+ hours per week), and 73 percent of more casual gamers polled, did not want in-game ads.

AT suggests an alternative:

The reality is that advertising generates $1-2 of profit per title sold. This is not the sort of massive subsidy that game designers would have you believe is necessary to keep the games coming. If advertising provided 25 or 30 percent of the title's development budget, the argument would make more sense. When a new game sells for $60, though, adding another buck to the price is hardly going to break anyone's bank.

The problem with this solution is that it does not take into account the cost of extra programming time required to create two version of the same game, even though the differences would probably be limited to texture swapping. I'm not sure how much work that would be, however. Eliza Gauger

Most gamers do not agree that advertising makes games more realistic [Ars Technica, thanks Frodo (who also provided the image for this post)]

The project is called Teaching With Games and has the support of Take Two, EA, Microsoft, and the ISFE.

"I can definitely see the potential of using games in the classroom. It proved to be a great tool for motivating students and engaging their interest. I would like to use games for teaching in the future if the technical problems could be addressed," commented Claire Gemmell, a teacher at St John's School & Community College in Marlborough. The technical problems she's referring to involved licensing and copy protection issues that prevented some teachers from easily installing the software or running the games on school networks.

Games in the study included RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, Sims 2, and Knights of Honor.

I personally have been a proponent of regular old gaming (as opposed to educational games, which usually suck) as learning tool since I realized how savagely I fought to acquire the reading skills necessary to play adventure games when I was wee.

Games are set up to reward learning just as a basic tenet of play, so they're already ideal forms of teaching. What did you learn from gaming, my wee apelings, and how did it help you? Eliza Gauger

Study: Games Can Aid Learning at School [Gamedaily BIZ]

Following outcry against similar results of a smaller study conducted last year, Susquehanna Financial Group's Video Game Journal once again took to the facts to try and find a correlation between game sales and the opinions of game reviewers.

And once again, with an even larger sample than originally taken, their data indicates that there is no reason to believe that anyone cares what reviewers think, after all.

...a theory (that game ratings matter) that fails under scrutiny is accepted as conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom is wrong. And we have not even addressed the causation argument - that a higher rating causes a game to sell better. There is no reason to argue causation, because while correlation does not equal causation, the absence of correlation means no causation in our case.

WHERE IS YOUR LESTER BANGS NOW? Eliza Gauger

Game Score-to-Sale Theory Again Disproven [Gamasutra]