Surgeons who play video games perform better surgeries!

OK, maybe my title is a little misleading, but it got your attention didn't it? The real article states that surgeons who play video games appear to perform better in a simulated surgery skills course. The course's goal was to perform a successful laparoscopic surgery.

Out of the 33 surgeons who participated, the surgeons who played video games frequently made 47 percent fewer errors, performed 39 percent faster and scored 41 percent better on the overall score. Coincidence, I do not think so, as it is widely known that video games can enhance your hand-eye coordination.

The author of this study said, "training curricula that include video games may help thin the technical interface between surgeons and screen-mediated applications, such as laparoscopic surgery". Translation, video games are truly a practical tool to help surgeons become more precise, and in the process save more people's lives. Who knew video games could affect so many facets of our lives?

A video game you play by using only your mind?

Yep, you read it right, no more need for controllers. A team from Washington University at St. Louis, shown in the picture to the right, successful devised a game that you can play with only your mind.

The experiment the scientists conducted was connecting a piece of hardware that recorded a 14-year-olds brain activity. Then they programmed the game "Space Invaders" to interface with these brain waves. The result was the boy being able to control and shoot the spaceship by only thinking about it.

Now you might be wondering why this is important. Well it just so happens that this is the kind of research that is necessary for progress in the field of artificial limbs. If this technology of moving things with your mind is perfected, we will be able to control artificial limbs with just our imagination. Can you imagine moving a prosthetic leg or arm, just by thinking about it?

Rock Band = Awesomeness

Mark your calenders folks, November 20th the game Rock Band hits. What is Rock Band you might ask? Check out the video below to get an idea.

How to Play this thing
Yep, you get to play the guitar, bass, drums, and sing with a microphone! The best part is you don't have to have any musical talent what so ever to have fun with it. While that video might give the impression there a real "rock band", they are all game controllers. Here's a close up of the drums to the right.

All you have to do to play is match the colored notes on the TV screen, with the color on your particular instrument. To sing, you have to try and match the pitch that it says on the TV. The microphone has a vibration sensor inside that evaluates the pitch.

Why So Great?
The reason I think this game is great, is it will raise awareness for how cool playing musical instruments are, and hopefully inspire people to play the real things. Also it takes four people to play the whole band, so it will have playing video games together socially, and hopefully strengthen relationships in that manner.

Video Game helps Flood Planners in UK

After reading this article on BBC News, I learned about the UK's preparations for global warming flooding. Their main tool for research is a video game called FloodRanger.

It allows you play a 100 year period in a fictional setting, and act out different scenarios with flooding. According to the United Kingdom's chief scientific advisor the number of people at risk of flooding in Britain will increase to 3.5 million by the year 2080.

While that might seem far in the future, the time for action is now. Preserving valuable coast line, as well as devising other long-term solutions takes time.

The game will help researchers learn where to effectively build dams, and reservoirs to limit any flood waters. Also it will save millions of pounds to test these flood scenarios in a video game rather than testing the real thing. You have to be careful though, because you will lose in the game if the public opinion of your leaderships dips below 30%.

Video Games Help those with Food Stamps?

This might be an even greater video game than that UN World Hunger game I wrote about a couple weeks ago. In this game pack, released in Michigan, young adults who have food stamps are challenged to eat as healthy and as cheap as possible.


The Fantastic Food Challenge, is a four game package that is essentially designed for those with food stamps to make better use of their money. Because so many young adults played such games as kids, they ought to be able to learn more easily from them, too, said the project's director.

In the one game, "Price Makes Sense", players have to use their math skills to figure out the best food deal; for instance, that six servings of eggs at $1.20 is cheaper per serving than five servings of chicken at $2.00.

I find it funny that Michigan Service employees find it interesting this game pack is more effective than the charts and pamphlets they use to hand out. I mean who wants to read about how they can be better spenders when they can play a computer game doing it? Seems like common sense to me, what do you guys think?

Check out the Full Article from Wired.com on the Food Stamps Game Pack

Video Games + Exercise = The Gamerunner

Who said video games can't help you exercise? This new invention, called the Gamerunner, allows you to control how you move your character. If you walk on the Gamerunner, the character on the game will walk. If you run on the Gamerunner, you got it, you run in the game.


I think this invention is extremely innovative but it has it's downsides. First, it is only designed for First-Person perspective games that use a keyboard and mouse. That limits the amount of games you can use it for.

Also on the Gamerunner website, you can't purchase one of these yet, but when you can the estimated retail price is five hundred dollars. Translation? Not many people will be able to make use of this product, which is a shame.

Video Games to help kids with ADHD?

I always thought giving all that medication to little kids for things like ADD and ADHD was bad. Apparently researchers in Sydney, Australia feel the same.

They are planning to do a study with kids who have ADHD to hopefully prove video games increase their ability to focus. This experiment is being conducted after American researchers reported last week the benefits of non-medical intervention in the treatment of ADHD.

The way this study works is giving children video games that have built-in biofeedback controls. It monitors things like heart rate and brainwave patterns to see how much concentration a child can gather while playing the game. If the child's heart rate or brainwaves drop below a certain rate they lose control of the video game their playing.

I think this study is so interesting not just because video games are involved, but because it could help prove all this medication we are giving our children is not necessary at all.

You should check the full article out over at the Sydney Newspaper's Website.

Video Game System for Babies?

This product called the "v.smile baby" is as close to a video game system for babies as you can get. Produced by the company Vtech, it's designed to make a babies playtime productive with it's "Infant Development System".

Yeah, that really makes playtime productive, sit a kid in front of a TV with a controller and let him or her get fat.

The thing that freaks me out the most about this system is the "baby sign language" it teaches. An apparent precursor to talking, it teaches babies different motions, and signals to get what they want.

Shouldn't we be trying to teach babies just to talk? What baby who lacks the ability to speak, will be able to memorize symbols off a television to signal for a drink?

The only cool thing about the product is it's website: http://www.vsmilebaby.com. It's defiantly worth a look for it's awesome design. Beware though, the music is short, repetitive, and quite annoying.

Brain Age 1 & 2 keep the brain sharp!

Another commercial that I saw this week was for the game "Brain Age 2" . What this does is give you different activities to complete as fast as you can.

Most of the problems are math related, but some involve other subjects like music. What's really cool about this though, is when you want to give the answer, you just use a pointer to write right on the screen. That makes this game fast and easy for anyone.

Some people might be skeptical about it actually "keeping your brain sharp" but the game is based off of actual research. The research was conducted by Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, a prominent Japanese neuroscientist; so you know it must be good.

Honestly, after watching a 50ish-year-old man whiz through a bunch of math problems on the Brain Age website, I was very scared I wouldn't be able to keep up!

FLY Pentop Computer helps kids with homework

While watching TV this week I saw this commercial. I was so intrigued by this magical pen that I had to do some further research on it's capabilities.

What I found was a wealth of information regarding all the add-ons, and accessories necessary for this pen to function. In fact, if you wanted it to do what it does on that commercial, your going to have to buy quite a few things.

First the pen itself for $ 79.99. Then, this pen only works on special "Fly Paper" which you must buy for $ 8.00. Then if you want the pen to tell you the answers to your homework you have to buy different software packs. In the commercial it used a mathematics software package that costs $20.00.

I think this pen is a great idea for helping kids with homework, but I just see it getting abused quite often. Also the fact that you have to be so many accessories just for basic functions, makes me want to give this product a big "Nick Thumbs Down"!

Christian Video Game too extreme?

Continuing with the religious theme, there is quite the stir about a religious themed video game. Based on a series of fantasy Christianity books, the game puts you in command of brainwashed legions fighting for Christianity.

The game and book series, take place in a time where the events of the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, happened today. The controversy lies however with how all other religions other than Christianity is portrayed.

The Muslim Association of Britain called for a boycot of the game, saying "This game is irresponsible and highly racist. It demonises every other religion which isn’t Christianity."

Honestly, I think no boycott is necessary of this game. It's based on a series of popular books, "Left Behind". After selling over 60 million copies of the books, no one had a problem, or suggested a boycott of the books.

I think the issue is because it's a video game, and video games always come under fire faster than other forms of media for controversal content.

Halo 3 being used in Church?!?!

I read in the NY Times this past week, that a church in Colorado was using Halo 3 as a means of spreading God's Word. Allowing children below the regulated age of 17, which is the age legal required to play Halo 3, was OK because they "want to make it hard for teenagers to go to hell", accoring to Mr. Barbour. Children as young as 12 years of age were playing this violent game saying that, "It's just fun blowing people up."

I cannnot believe that a Church would ever steep so slow as to have a Halo 3 tournament. That is absolute dispicable. They are not only breaking the law, but somehow think they are saving children from hell by allowing them to play a shooting game? They are doing anything but! I think the title of the NY Times article sums it up best saying, "Thou Shalt Not Kill, Except in a Game at Church."

Nudie Jeans Co. utilize familiarity of games...

Keeping with the theme of Advertising Week, I present to you the Nudie Jeans Company. Even cooler than their name, the Nudie Jeans Company have an amazing website. Knowing that they are selling jeans to males, they designed their website to emulate a video game.

It really is genius how they took the familiarity of a character selection screen in a video game, to a jean selection screen on their website. In other words how your able to click on each style of jeans on the website, is exactly how you choose your video game character in a lot of games.

For having only a handful of stores in the United States, and Australia I am truly impressed with the cool website, and certainly appreciate their video game approach for selling their jeans.

An Advertising Company only for video games...

Halo 3 made $300 million dollars in one week smashing any opening record held by a movie; or any other entertainment source for that matter. This is just another example to the media that the male demographic of 18 to 36 year olds aren't really watching TV anymore, but rather embracing video games as the preferred medium.

To capitalize on the success of video games are these new advertising companies that operate exclusively with video game companies. The forerunner of these companies is Massive Incorporated. Visiting their website, I was amazed to see how in depth the website was. It showcased the different types of advertisements they can blend into different games, as well as detailing the technology they use.

The thing about video game advertising that I don't like is many of the ads are subliminal. They are selling products in many cases to young kids, who don't even know they are being advertised too. Also as someone who plays games, I hope that in the future video games don't become as littered with ads, as websites, and television shows have become.

UN educating children through video games...

I don't know many things that the UN does, but this has to be the coolest. The United Nations World Food Program designed a game to teach youths about the issue of global hunger.

The game is designed for 8 to 13-year-olds, and allows children to take the role of a Food Force aid worker. Essentially it challenges them to solve actual problems Food Force workers encounter. I think it's pretty amazing they can make the game so realistic yet interesting and fun to the children. The game has got a great response from both educators and the children playing it.

I really think more games like this need to come out. It's making an issue like world hunger interesting, and important to children, who would otherwise never of thought of it as much of a problem. Cheers to you United Nations!

Air Force using Video Games for Recruitment?

In this blog I try and focus on positive, unique uses of video games. However, this week I stumbled across an article regarding the United States Air Force using video games as a recruitment tool.

Halo 3 was released this week, so playing off the hype of that the Air Force set up a Halo tournament. Using the back of a pimped out military SUV, they attracted many adolescent gamers.

What is wrong with this? Well first the game is rated "Mature", so it's for ages 17 and older. Many gamers were near 13, much younger than the intended age. Secondly I think its appalling that they are using a video game as means to recruit people to the military, when they know they will attract teenagers. Do you feel this is morally right?

Video Games as Physical Therapy?

Continuing with the Nintendo Wii theme this week I came across an article highlighting a U.S. soldier in Germany whose doctor orders him to play video games. The time he spends playing helps rehabilitate his wrist and elbow he broke from a vehicle accident while serving in Kuwait.

Military therapists think it's more effective using video games rather than exercises because the game takes your mind off the motions you are doing. Therefore you can do more motions, and at a faster rate; both huge pluses.

It's pretty awesome that "video game therapy" is effective. And defiantly a great alternative from normal physical therapy. I can certainly see more people in therapy requesting such a program from their physician.

Wii a Huge Hit at Retirement Home

While browsing the web today I came across this image from an article from the Chicago Tribune. It showcased a retirement home in Illinois where the Nintendo Wii has become immensely popular. On the weekends they hold bowling tournaments on the Wii. 20 people are allowed to sign up for it, while many more people come and watch. I find it pretty comical that older folks are enjoying the same video games as I. It's like those board games that tell you fun from age 8 to 80. Hopefully with all this added stimulation none of the seniors will get hurt.

So It Begins...

Hello, and welcome to my blog that is going to be focusing on the unique topic of video games used for nontraditional audiences. This will be a researched based blog for the course Comn 274 at SUNY Geneseo. Hopefully I will provide some interesting and entertaining insight on this topic for you to enjoy.