Just a short addendum to my talk at the TYPO-conference last year, which I gave together with the very smart journalist Ralph Grauel: we discussed the potentials and advantages of computer games:

Today I read this:
Surgeons With Video Game Skill Appear To Perform Better In Simulated Surgery Skills Course
“Those [surgeons] in the top one-third of video gaming skill made 47 percent fewer errors, performed 39 percent faster and scored 41 percent better on the overall Top Gun score than those in the bottom one-third.”
(source)

I know what to ask my doctor or dentist before my next treatment…

Steering Wheel by LogiTech

Densha de Go! as one of many train games, which are very popular in Japan.

G-Con2 for Playstation (image)

Powerfishing as a representative for a long history of fishing games with physical controller.

Taiko from Namco (image) 

Konami's Dance Dance Revolution

A soccer game with EyeToy

KaraokeRevolution (Image from Flickr)

The Floor It! race cars are controlled through a realistic free floating steering wheel. On the website is a small movie, which explains the concept well. I like it for the way you work with the steering wheel – something we all dreamt of, when we were boys… Done at the IDII…

Very nice familytree of game controllers.

OnTarget – Another little game by Apparment10, which can be played in the urinal while peeing. One version of this game is creating visuals, which should be played in the bar or club…
Via Yanko Design

“Whether speeding down a virtual street in Sony’s Gran Turismo or slaying Spyro the Dragon, researchers hope games such as these will improve the lives of those with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, commonly known as ADHD, or cognitive-processing difficulties.”

The idea is based on controlling the brain activity of the child with a special helmet: once they zone out, the game will not respond anymore.

Link,

via New Scientist Technology Blog 

One of the highlights at Cebit 2006 was – at least for me – the Kicker Roboter developed by the Albert-Ludwigs Universität in Freiburg. The robot was very strong, especially when in “world cup”-mode…

The US Army has developed the high-end computer game America's Army (trailer), in which the player can go through a very realsisticly shown training and then paricipate in online war games. What looks like a quite boring marketing campaign, stands in a completely different light once you learn more about mirror neurons:

15 years ago, scientists studying monkeys noticed that the cells in the brain that fire when a monkey holds a peanut fire in the exact same way when the monkey simply sees someone holding a peanut. Called mirror neurons because they behave as if the monkey were watching itself in the mirror, these neurons allow the monkey to empathize, or automatically understand the experience of holding the peanut, without actually having to hold the peanut itself. (link)

(Thanks to Mathias Ljundström)

A research (Science for Kids version here)proves that people are able to control the level of pain through training. In an study they were hurt and shown the activity of the related region of the brain – represented through a flame. Within a training session of 39 minutes the participants learned to decrease and to increase activities in this brain region:

It is particularly interesting that pain patients need to be able to observe the functioning of the brain’s pain system to learn this form of control over these systems because pain patients already have continuously available sensory feedback of their own pain level, they already have a strong motivation to learn to control their pain, and they typically have tried and practiced many strategies to alleviate their pain over many years.

Well, their screen design could need some work…

In the current software ranking of Media Create, the leading Japanese market researcher for the entertainment industry, an interesting observation can be done: Within the current top 10 (alternative source) there are three brain training games: English Training, Brain Age 2 and Brain Age. All three games promises to enhance your brain capabilities in a “relaxed and informal way”. In last weeks Top 10, Brain Age 2 was for the 4th time in a row on position 1.

Brain Age will be available for the US market in April 2006. On the Japanese site of the game one can find the TV commercial and more infos.

On the Japanese site of the English Training game (“Eigo Zuke”) there is also a video introduction to the game.