When most people think of computer games, they think of escapist titles like World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, or Super Mario. Even most games that label themselves as simulations, like the ever-popular Madden football series, are meant to more for fun than realistic training.
Development studio Intelligence Gaming is behind a different kind of game, dubbed “serious gaming” – games that are designed to teach users rather than entertain them. The company has previously created games for the United States Navy, and has now been contracted by the Army to develop a new kind of game that is part virtual reality, part movie. The company teamed with development and design firm EffectiveUI to create a technology called RealityV based on Adobe’s upcoming Flash 10 platform. The result: 3D interactive simulations that could revolutionize training in the military, health care, retail stores, and any number of other industries. → Read More
Some people have way too much time on their hands. via The Matt Hickey → Read More
This is pretty cool. I’m all for tweaking your setup a little bit, but the guys at this Gigabyte-sponsored Championship in Taipei take it more seriously than I ever could. Maybe that’s because there was a $5000 prize at stake. Hmm… The pictures are great if you’re a system builder: all cables and pipes and thermoses (thermi?) filled with liquid nitrogen. They had 11 full canisters for the participants to work their way through; now that’s a sign that this is a serious competition. There’s a lot to the story and if you’re an overclocker yourself, it’s definitely worth a look. For the record, a Finnish team called Sweden-2 took top honors but the Americans took home the “freestyle” prize. We tied with the Russkies for 2nd place overall, but they had a higher 3DMark score so they took the silver. Next time, Boris. Next time. → Read More
Design philosophies could hardly be further apart. Google’s ironically named Chrome browser, which launched last month, advanced the notion that browsers ought to be neither seen nor heard. Like operating systems, they should sit obediently in the background and make sure that the applications on top of them run quickly, reliably and safely.
Flock has always taken the opposite approach, insisting that the browser should provide a lot of upfront functionality on its own, not fade out of sight. Tonight’s release of Flock 2.0 – which brings the Mozilla-based browser up-to-speed with Firefox 3 technology and adds new support for MySpace and media RSS – reasserts this notion by giving the browser an even higher level of visibility than before. → Read More
http://www.viddler.com/simple_on_site/e3cc97f7 Here’s a demo of the PSP accessing the PlayStation store in case you guys haven’t hacked your PSP and want to legally download games. On a side note, I’m thoroughly enjoying EA’s NCAA Football 09. My Beavs are kicking ass! → Read More
Any Apple fanbois in the crowd going to see this wherever it’s released in the fall? Assuming it will make it into theaters. This whole “Cult of Mac” is rather intriguing, but makes me wonder why these people flock to a company the way they do. It’s really weird. → Read More
Looks like it’s not just a matter of capping CPU usage and lowering fan speeds to keep that battery going now. That makes sense when you consider that the new GPU/CPU combo is doing a lot of dynamic load sharing, although it’s unclear how Apple is implementing the Hybrid GPU capabilities of the new GeForces. You’ll have to log out after making the change, which suggests it’s changing some pretty deep processes, or possibly even loading a different driver. I hope this doesn’t make it difficult to switch profiles when you’re going from plug to battery and back. → Read More
Pentax’s flagship DSLR the K20D just got a price drop and is now available for $999.95. The K20D is now equipped with a newly designed CMOS sensor with 14.6 effective megapixels. Other notable upgrades include a 2.7-inch LCD with adjustable brightness and Live View. The LCD is wide-view, which means you can view images approximately 160 degrees both vertically and horizontally to take full advantage of Live View. The dust reduction system now features a Dust Alert function that knows exactly where a particle of dust is so you know what to clean. The body is now fully weather-resistant and dust-proof. The enlarged CMOS sensor is now super sensitive and can reach up to 6400 in expanded ISO mode. The K20D is now equipped with the Pentax-original PRIME (Pentax Real IMage Engine), which ensures you get true-to-life images. The PRIME’s memory is taken care of via DDR2 so everything is pretty quick. Check out the DPReview here if you’re in the market. The W60 also saw a price drop and is now available for $300. I’m in the midst of reviewing this particular model and can tell you that it’s worth every penny. Look for the review soon. → Read More
Remember those unfortunate Eee Boxes we mentioned last week that were shipped with an active virus on the hard drive? Well, Asus is being a big boy about it and has ordered a recall. That restores some of the cred they lost last week, but I’m still wary. Apparently the infection came from a USB stick they were using to test the things. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you look at it) they’d only sold a couple hundred of the things before this minor calamity, so there’s not too much damage to pay for out of pocket. → Read More
When it comes to layoffs, 1/3 of total staff seems to be a magic number. Portland based Jive Software, which is backed by Sequoia, laid off around 40 people today, a third of their total staff. This follows massive employee growth over the last year. Twelve months ago the company had around 60 employees.
Two Vice Presidents are among those that left – Marty Kagan, VP Engineering and Scott Campbell, VP Sales. → Read More
Update 2: Corrected figures are below, as are the originally reported figures for comparison. The mistake was in Ask’s numbers. Its market share declined half a percentage point to 4.3 percent instead of increasing to 5.4 percent.
Ahead of Thursday’s earnings announcement from Google, comScore just released its search market share figures for September. Google’s overall share of search queries in the U.S. dipped from 63% in August to 62.9% 62.2%. Yahoo and Ask (whose search is powered by Google) saw the biggest gains. → Read More
Apple has provided video in case our hands-on and previews didn’t hit the spot. You get a look at the manufacturing process, the multitouch stuff you may not be familiar with, and a lot of floating MacBooks. Like, a million of them. If you want more hi-def stuff, there’s more here or you could just order one and get it in super-hi-def. Update: Watch today’s press conference here. → Read More
http://www.prnewswire.com/mnr/mnr_lib/200808/players/player-single.swf?job=34799Get right the hell outta town with this thing. Here’s a blender – a blender – using wireless power. It’s the result of “eCoupled intelligent wireless power” which has been created by Fulton Innovation. The company is working on building the same magical power system into other “high-powered kitchen devices like blenders, grills, and coffee makers.” No word on when we’ll actually see these things in our own kitchens or how much it’s gonna cost at first. All I know is that I want it. → Read More
