Kongregate: A "Serious" Games Social Network

The most developer-friendly Flash community on the web

Via: GigaOM - Inside the YouTube of Games
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Written by Blake Snow

About Kongregate

Founded in 2006 and currently in a state of heavy development, Kongregate seeks to create the leading online hub for players and game developers to meet up, play games, and operate together as a community.

By wrapping user-submitted Flash games with various community features, Kongregate's site serves as a unique way for users to play great web-based games alongside friends. Anyone can add their own games to Kongregate’s library in a process that’s fast and simple.

Kongregate operates with an understanding of how difficult it can be for talented game developers - from the aspiring gamesmith to the independent studio - to get the recognition and compensation that they deserve. That's why Kongregate shares microtransaction and advertising revenue with contributing developers, who retain the full rights to their games.

The Market

Casual Flash games generate monthly page views in the hundreds of millions, but the game industry has been painfully slow to capitalize on this massive audience.

Jim Greer, former Technical Director at Pogo, thinks that there is a big business to be made out of casual games, and raised a million dollars for his new start-up, Kongregate, which aims to be the YouTube of games, offering free, ad-supported Flash games and an online community to increase the site’s stickiness.

What’s so YouTube about Kongregate

‘YouTube for games’ is really just the attention-getter for people who don’t know that much about the space. Kongregate is a community for web gamers and developers.

Kongregate by the numbers

Page views for March were 2.4 million. That’s up from 400K in February. Registered users are in the low five figures - until recently the only incentive to register was to socialize. Now that they have persistent rewards for playing games, they’re seeing much better registration rates. Right now they have 483 games, and they’re coming in at a rate of 40-50 per week. Those are from 224 developers.

Leveraging Ad Revenue

The participation rate for YouTube is somewhere around 2%. That means 98% of the users came there to view videos, not upload them. Good games are something you play for hours. A good viral video you watch for two minutes. So they can have a lot fewer games and have plenty of entertainment value…

By default, all developers receive 25% of the ad revenue generated from their games… [But] it’s possible for a game to earn 25%, 35%, 40%, or 50% of ad revenue (depending on performance).

Unlike YouTube, users can’t share games on other sites and blogs (yet), but this is something Greer believes is “less of a blockbuster strategy than it was for video.”

So what’s it going to take for Kongregate to become the number one online game destination? “Much better virality than we have right now,” says Greer. “I’m very happy with where we’ve come in the six months since we founded the company. I think we can do a lot in the next six to twelve.”

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Studio SFO: Serious Games Enabling Successful Meetings

Virtual world space for meetings and conferences

Via: Studio SFO - Second Life Expo and Event and Conference Meeting Space

Specializing in fully integrated experiences that go from online onto the "real world", Studio SFO offers a complete solution for companies of any size wishing to hold meetings inside the 3D space.

Studio SFO produces events, content, and media relating to "virtual worlds" such as Second Life, IMVU, Multiverse and others that are currently emerging.

They have already produced more than 125 events in these virtual environments, some simultaneously with real-world events, and have expertly designed spaces based on experience - they know what works in this medium.

Bob Ketner, owner and creative director at Studio SFO, has a background rooted in interactive electronic entertainment, supported by an MA in Industrial Design.

Through Studio SFO he offers design and consulting for virtual world projects. He has been a main writer for the Avatar Fashion book series. He also co-chairs the Virtual World SIG, and another show in virtual worlds called the MRO SHOW.

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Serious Games: A Sizeable Market - Update

Video game industry finding more business outside the entertainment sector

In my previous post Serious Games, Serious Money: A Sizeable Market, dated March 12, 2007, I've tried to extrapolate a few "back of the envelope" figures for the actual size of the Serious Games market, departing from PricewaterhouseCoopers' media outlook report 2006 for the video game sector worldwide.

This report has now been updated, with the following major highlights:

Video Game Sector Projections

By 2011, the worldwide gaming market will be worth $48.9 billion at a compound annual growth rate of 9.1% during the five-year period. The compound gains handily exceed the 6.4% advance that PwC eyes for the overall entertainment economy during the period.

(Personal Note: As piracy rates subvert the actual market size, my best estimate for the worldwide video game market could rise to $58 bi by 2011).

Its data include consumer spending on games, but do not include spending on hardware and accessories.

Key growth engines will include online and wireless games, new-generation consoles, as well as the burgeoning in-game advertising business.

The overall gaming audience continues to expand and become somewhat more female and older than in the past thanks to casual games and games becoming an "important part of culture" - which in my view would embed the Serious Games segment.

Whereas the military was one of the first customers of Serious Games, it has been joined by a long line of users, including other government agencies, healthcare providers, schools (both K-12 and universities) and Fortune 500 companies (for team building, leadership training, sales training and product education, among others).

For the U.S. gaming business, PwC projects 6.7% compound annual gains for 2007-11 to $12.5 billion. In the U.S., the size of the games market will top the music sector next year, it projects.

In the U.S., online and wireless games should see the biggest gains through 2011, as PwC predicts online will expand from an estimated $1.1 billion market last year to $2.7 billion in 2011, and wireless will double from $499 million to $1 billion.

In-game advertising will be a key spark for U.S. gaming revenue, growing from an estimated $80 million last year to $950 million in 2011, according to PwC. But this estimate could prove conservative as "advertisers like to reach the younger males" that many games tend to attract.

Video Games Sector Current Status

For 2006, PwC's preliminary estimates are for the U.S. gaming market to have expanded 10.6% to $9 billion, and it expects the first-ever jump beyond the $10 billion mark this year to about $10.4 billion.

Worldwide game spending jumped 14.3% to $31.6 billion in 2006 and should rise 18.5% to $37.5 billion this year, according to the preliminary data.

Serious Games Segment

This is my conservative estimate: the Serious Games market would be ranging between $200 - 400 million per year only in US, in 2007.

There is now an emergent supply chain for Corporate Serious Games, with a number of corporations taking the first steps and commissioning Serious Games development, which could easily make available additional $ 400 - 600 million per year. The same applies to Healthcare providers (e.g., training for surgery, for emergency medical response, and for managing surgical teams), bringing the overall figure for the Serious Games market close to $ 1.5 billion in 2008.

As Serious Games are Gaining Solid Traction in Europe and the video game industry is finding more and more business outside the entertainment sector, this figure could rise to $ 2 billion shortly.

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Serious Games Gaining Solid Traction in Europe

Serious Games developing fast in Europe

Serious Games Europe reports that Serious Games are gaining solid traction in Europe. In addition to the establishment of the Serious Games Institute in the UK reported in April, they have the following upcoming events already scheduled:

Apply Serious Games: Themes include: Effective immersive environments & virtual worlds. When to use platforms and when to build your own - with a debate on MMOGs vs Virtual Worlds and a shoot-out between Second Life and Forterra's OLIVE; Connected systems: web 2.0 with games and virtual worlds; How & Where mobile is best connected to make the full complement of interactive platforms. 28 June, London, UK

Serious Virtual Worlds: First International Conference on the Professional Applications of Virtual Worlds. 13 – 14 September 2007 @ The Serious Games Institute, Coventry TechnoCentre, UK. The theme for this first Serious Virtual Worlds conference is ‘The Reality of the Virtual World’ and takes a close look at how virtual worlds are now being used for serious professional purposes.

In addition:
CGames 2007: 11th International Conference on Computer Games: AI, Animation, Mobile, Educational & Serious Games. 21-23 November 2007 @ the Université de La Rochelle, France. Organized by The University of Wolverhampton, England, is one of the leading research conferences devoted to the advancement of the theory and practice of games development.

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Serious Games Developing Leadership

Serious Games challenging us to make better leaders

The recent Business Week article IBM's Management Games has been reproduced at large by several blogs and sites over the Web , therefore I have no intention to replicate it here.

Besides promoting Innov8, object of my prior posting Serious Games For Improving Business Process Management, in the middle section of the article a theme, that is close to my heart, is addressed: Developing Leadership.

It states that "McKinsey & Co. is using video games to test recruits for leadership potential and assess their team-building style. Royal Philips Electronics and Johnson & Johnson, meanwhile, are using multiplayer games to improve collaboration between far-flung divisions, as well as between managers and their overseas underlings."

"What distinguishes the latest corporate forays into the gaming world is the degree to which companies are tapping virtual environments to hone the leadership skills of their workers."

"By 2011, 80% of Internet users will have avatars, or digital versions of themselves, for work and play, according to market researcher Gartner . By the end of 2012, half of all U.S. companies will also have digital offices or "networked virtual environments," adds Gartner. The online game world will become an important place to hold meetings, orient new hires, and communicate across the globe."

Such an aggressive projection has made me recap the context provided by three University of Wisconsin-Madison professors Constance Steinkuehler, James Gee and Kurt Squire for their work with the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Laboratory at UW-Madison, a testing ground for learning games.

Games that make leaders

Video games let their players step into new personas and explore alternatives. Not only that, but people can try to solve problems they’re not good at yet, get immediate feedback on the consequences and try again immediately

”Because games keep things “pleasantly frustrating,” Gee said, players have incentives to keep on improving their performance. That can lead to learning outside the game as well.

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Game Developers chase Serious Games Business Models

Serious Games challenging us to play a better future

Via: Mass High tech News

The ideas for Serious Games technology -- from military simulation to personal health care -- are coming quickly for entrepreneurs, but establishing a business model is a different story.

The traditional model for many entertainment-based games -- a boatload of development before revenue, followed by huge amounts of marketing and retail distribution -- are not practical for the budding "serious games" industry.

Kent Quirk, for example, started CogniToy LLC in 1997 to develop entertainment-based games. The company was "moderately successful," according to Quirk, with a title called "Mind Rover," which sold about 20,000 copies in the late 1990s.

But now he is working on a game called "Melting Point," which has been built to educate both children and adults about the environmental factors of global warming by allowing them to experiment with various environmental, scientific and political factors in a simulation game. Quirk originally wanted to take Melting Point to consumers in the traditional gaming manner. But as the idea came closer to commercialization, he realized that he couldn't follow the same blueprint.

"Originally I was going to sell to the mass market as a downloadable game that took two hours to play," Quirk said. "But it's too difficult as a small company with limited funding, so I have simplified it to a 5-minute Flash game."

That short game will act as a marketing tool for a full-length game that Quirk hopes will be adopted by a partner and become server-based, where it can be sold to educational institutions or individuals.

CogniToy, however, is just one model in a nascent serious-gaming industry looking for a standard approach. Others, such as Compass Rose Games LLC in Marblehead and Dragonfly Game Design Inc. in Westborough, have adopted a contract model.

Compass Rose is working on a game that helps patients with diabetes modify their behavior to control their disease. The company works under a model in which it is hired to develop games for third parties. CEO Tom Hunter would not divulge client names.

The nine-person DragonFly, which was spun out of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 2003, works on a similar contracting model. It has developed a budget-balancing game for the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

"We chose that model because it's more stable," said Michael Gesner, CEO of DragonFly. "You don't have to rely on royalties after the product is developed to move forward."

Lexington's Whatif Productions LLC develops simulation software for the U.S. military, COO Fred Skoler said.

Venture capitalists have tended avoid game companies because of the uncertainty involved, said David Rauktys, a partner at Burlington-based consulting firm Venture Advisors.

"Generally, VCs avoid a lot of traditional gaming companies because the success models behave more like Hollywood: It's a consumer-driven blockbuster model," Rauktys said.

Despite the uncertainty of a standard go-to-market model for "serious games," most insiders are optimistic about their commercial future. And while the serious gaming segment is still too young to have significant market numbers attached to it, observers think it could capture a portion of the traditional gaming market (expected to reach $44 billion by 2011, according to California-based research firm DFC Intelligence) over the next several years.

Dragonfly's Gesner added that the ongoing experimentation with business models is part of the maturation process, and that once someone sets a standard, innovation will follow.

"I think there is plenty of money to be made in this industry. It's just a matter of someone taking the ball and running with it," he said.


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Forterra's Olive: An Attractive Platform for Serious Gaming

Serious Games challenging us to play a better future

Via: Forterra Systems

Forterra Systems, the market and technology leader in private virtual worlds, announced early this month the immediate release and availability of its On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment - OLIVE™ 1.0 platform as a software development kit (SDK).

Forterra Systems builds distributed virtual world technology for the corporate, healthcare, government, and entertainment industries.

Over $50M has been invested to date in the OLIVE architecture, yielding one of the most scalable virtual world environments available. “This technology will be a transformative force for our customers. They are already indicating that they can achieve their business goals more quickly, less expensively, and with greater reach through creating their own virtual worlds,” said Dave Rolston, Forterra’s CEO. “Our customers and partners are already creating an amazing array of compelling applications around distance training, organizational exercises & rehearsals, virtual office collaboration, emergency preparedness, customer service, product/process prototyping, therapy & rehabilitation, partner communities, town meetings, and retail operations optimizations.”

Dr. Parvati Dev, Director of Stanford University’s Medical Media & Information Technologies (SUMMIT) Program, and Dr. W. LeRoy Heinrichs, SUMMIT’s Associate Director, are international experts on the application of interactive learning environments, including simulation and game-based learning, for medicine.

The research studies conducted under their leadership demonstrate the effectiveness of OLIVE for trainees to practice in a Virtual Emergency Department, interacting in real time with colleagues and patient-actors over the Internet.

Scenarios of victims exposed to nerve toxins and radioactive bomb blasts support the learning of large-scale emergency management and rehearsal of events that cannot be reproduced safely in the real world.

This education technology is less expensive and logistically more convenient than bringing dozens of learners and volunteers together in real life. Patient avatars, equipped with physiology models, enable teams of trainees to diagnose critical medical conditions and practice coordinated effective treatments.

Dr. Dev commented, “The medical simulations we created and tested on the OLIVE platform, represent a major breakthrough for distance learning in medicine. I believe Forterra is releasing a disruptive technology that will yield dramatic learning benefits across many industries in addition to what I see in medicine.”

The University of Central Florida School of Film & Digital Media is another Forterra partner. The school's Interactive Performance Lab Director, Jeff Wirth, selected OLIVE as the virtual world platform from which to run their latest "Simu-life," blending virtual and real experiences in their mixed-reality performances.

"With the OLIVE platform we are able to establish relationships of trust between inter-actors and participants as they seamlessly transition back and forth between real and virtual environments. We believe that the business community will soon discover the benefits of this process."

Forterra Inc. will demo their multi-player platform used for “serious games" at the Virtual World SIG next week. (Teleport link : Please check back on this page for teleport links).

The 3D Virtual Worlds Special Interest Group (SIG) is a bi-monthly meeting for developers of virtual world platforms and related applications. This series of events brings together the programmers, content developers, and visionaries required to build virtual worlds.

Virtual worlds have emerged amidst the mix of gaming, social networking, and 3D modeling technologies. Now they are the focus of considerable attention as a platform for media, virtual economies, and collaborative work. Many virtual worlds are created for and rely on developer-generated content as an integral part of their collaborative plan. This SIG will facilitate the collaborations and business partnerships required to build these virtual and emulated spaces.

Remaining dates for SIG meetings in 2007: Aug 27, Oct 22

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Multiverse: Strolling Seamlessly Between Game Worlds

Allowing Serious Games to be played through one client

Via: Multiverse and The Economist

WHEN you sit down to play a “massively multiplayer online game” (MMOG) your computer connects to a distant server which holds all the data needed to model the synthetic realm and to co-ordinate the actions of different players. The “client” software on your computer updates the server with your every move, and the server keeps all players informed of each other's actions. This enables each player's computer to render a vivid, three-dimensional world.

The software that does this, however, is proprietary: each game requires its own client and server software. MMOGs and virtual worlds are, in short, like walled gardens. You cannot move from one virtual world to another.

What happened on the Internet was that the web came along and provided common, open standards for both client and server software, doing away with proprietary online services and bringing together previously separate communities. Now a firm called Multiverse Network hopes to do the same for MMOGs. It has created MMO client and server software based on open standards, and a way to move between virtual worlds built on its platform, just like following a link from one web page to another. And it has made its software available for free download by anyone who wants.

Multiverse provides the full technology for world creation without an up-front license fee, though they do take 10% of game revenues when the developer starts charging for the game. If they never charge, it's free forever. The platform itself is a scalable, extensible technology for creation of a prototype or production world.

Even now, some teams are able to put together very respectable worlds in a matter of a few weeks. The platform is built from the ground up to enable a wide range of innovation in game and world design, and to be available for no money up-front. All of this changes the dynamics for creative game design, removing the imperatives created by some of the high-cost alternatives, by making a fast and free alternative. It puts the game designer back in charge of the design process.

The visuals displayed from the game on the website are decent, but not what most would call "AAA" quality.

According to Ron Meiners (Developer Relations Director, Multiverse), "the visual capabilities are already in the engine now. It's up to the developer to decide what level of graphic detail works for the project. Metaverse wants to support the complete spectrum of developer choices, and currently supports a wide variety of high-end graphic effects", he says. Basically, the platform supports being extended to support more, though they don't know who's done this yet. They also support a wide range of full-screen compositing effects. But it's up to the developer to make and implement these choices.

With a common client and an integrated network, all of them available to the public will be much more visible, and all of the non-profit worlds being built, for academic or marketing purposes, will act to draw in new users to expose them to the whole network. This also enables people to add components to the technology that others can make use of.


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Serious Games Give Ancient Rome New Life

Serious Games enabling digital remake of Ancient Rome

Via: Spiegel Online International

After 10 years of work, researchers this week unveiled a detailed 3-D simulation of ancient Rome, circa A.D. 320. Visitors can examine 7,000 buildings and even go inside the Colosseum for an in-depth tour.

It took centuries for Rome to rise up on the banks of the Tiber River to become one of the ancient world's most influential and advanced cities. But researchers from around the globe managed to recreate the jewel of antiquity in just 10 years -- in a digital copy.

The recreation, completed by the Rome Reborn project based at the University of Virginia, was unveiled earlier this week and allows users a unique look at what the city looked like in A.D. 320, a time when the city was at the peak of its glory. Fully 7,000 buildings were recreated for the project. Digital visitors can even take a detailed tour of the Colosseum and get close ups of the myriad bits of decoration and extravagance on monuments throughout the city.

"This is the first step in the creation of a virtual time machine, which our children and grandchildren will use to study the history of Rome and many other great cities around the world," Bernard Frischer, leader of the project, told reporters as he presented the project in Rome on Monday.

The project recreates almost the entire city center within the old city walls and cost $2 million (€1.5 million) to complete. It shows how buildings, now almost completely in ruins, fit together at a time when the vibrant city had a population of around 1 million.

Some buildings came in for extra treatment and digital tourists can look around inside sights such as the Colosseum and the Senate.

Frischer relied on the expertise of an international team of archaeologists, architects, and computer experts in putting together the simulation. The team is hoping it will be useful to researchers trying to gain a more accurate image of ancient Rome, and the Rome Reborn Web site will also post new discoveries about the city.

Project organizers have so far not made the complete simulation available online due to the immense memory capacities necessary, but Linden Labs -- the company which gave the world "Second Life" -- has been contacted about putting the entire simulation online.

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Serious Games For Global Problem-Solving

Serious Games challenging us to Play Safe, Play Environment

Via: Microsoft - Microsoft, Games for Change Team Up to Encourage Global Problem-Solving Through Digital Gaming

Microsoft Corp. and Games for Change (G4C) announced early this week a joint commitment to explore new ways to bring together the world of digital gaming with the world of social change at the fourth annual Games for Change Festival at Parsons The New School for Design.

As part of the announcement, Microsoft outlined an all-new socially minded global gaming competition, Xbox 360™ Games for Change Challenge, to drive awareness for games based on social themes.

This worldwide competition, set to launch this summer to participants in more than 100 countries, will challenge college students to come up with the best game based on the theme of global warming.

Jeff Bell, corporate vice president of global marketing for the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, made the announcement during the 2007 Games for Change Festival Expo Night, following an introduction from Bob Kerrey, the president of The New School and a former Nebraska senator.

The United Nations group that tracks global warming forecasts different levels of warming, based on different assumptions about population, energy usage and economic growth. All show a sudden spike in temperatures over the next decades. Graph: IPCC

Microsoft and Games for Change will award cash prizes to the best entries. In addition to the prize money, which can be applied to the winner’s education, winners will receive an invitation to visit Microsoft to present their entry to the Microsoft games management team for possible inclusion as a download in the popular Xbox LIVE® Arcade service. Finally, the first-place team or individual will also win the opportunity to become an apprentice at Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business as part of its internship program.

The students will develop games based on global warming using Microsoft® XNA™ Game Studio Express software. Launched in December 2006, XNA Game Studio Express has democratized game development by leveling the playing field for smaller game developers, nonprofessionals and academics who wish to be involved in driving innovation and creativity in the game design process.

“The current generation of gamers is among the most socially conscious in history,” said Suzanne Seggerman, co-founder and president of Games for Change. “We know from experience that young people are looking for ways to help make the world a better place, and who better to support this effort than an industry leader like Microsoft?”

Warmer air temperatures over the past 50 years are only one of several possible causes of recent large icebergs breaking off from Antarctica

The Games for Change Festival is part intellectual symposium, part game emporium. Now in its fourth year, the festival brings together academics, game creators, nonprofit representatives, business executives and activists to discuss the impact of games on our culture and evaluate the potential for a new genre of socially minded video games.

“Microsoft is very happy to work with Games for Change in taking video gaming to a whole new level by bringing in brand-new concepts and people to the game-making process,” Bell said. “We are passionate about the potential games have in expanding horizons, creating networks and helping design real-world solutions.”

More information about the Xbox 360 Games for Change Challenge will be available at http://www.xbox.com/g4c.

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Formula One Leveraging On Serious Games and Neuroscience

McLaren's simulator has been Lewis Hamilton's racing schoolroom

Via: The Guardian - Flawless Hamilton makes it look so easy

Lewis Hamilton may not be the youngest driver to win a formula one race, but his victory in yesterday's Canadian grand prix will take its place among the most remarkable achievements in the history of the sport. As the first driver whose approach to the job comes close to matching the sophistication of his machine, he has single-handedly raised the stakes for his own generation and those to come.

No one has ever made the business of driving a formula one car look so easy. Last Sunday he gave a performance of flawless composure in the most demanding of circumstances, controlling an afternoon in which the disruption caused by four safety-car interludes effectively meant that he had to win the race five times over.

Hamilton has been prepared for this and other aspects of the job with all the seriousness and some of the specific training techniques brought to bear on astronauts and fighter pilots.

Ron Dennis put at Hamilton's disposal the greatest learning tool that any driver has ever been given. McLaren's simulator, developed over the past eight years at a cost estimated to be above £20m, has been Hamilton's schoolroom, where he sits in a full-size formula one car, minus wheels and a functioning engine, in a darkened room in front of a large, curved plasma screen. The chassis is suspended on a multi-point hydraulic rig which moves in response to his touches on the steering wheel and pedals as he watches a circuit unfold on the screen, with appropriate sound effects.

Everything in this grown-up video game is programmed via the simulator's software: the minutest details of the circuit, the response of the engine under different conditions, the type and wear-rate of the tyres, as well as the noise of the engine. No wonder that when Hamilton arrived in Melbourne at the start of the season, on his first visit to Australia, he took to the Albert Park track as if he had been driving there for half his life. In a sense, he had.

Dennis also introduced him to Dr Kerry Spackman, the New Zealand-born neuroscientist who has worked with him in and out of the simulator on developing his psychological responses and increasing his brain's ability to absorb, analyse, store and recall information. The brain is an instrument whose properties are only just being understood - scientists studying the effects of strokes, for example, are discovering that the right exercises can enable it to develop new circuits to replace those damaged or destroyed - and Spackman's use of virtual-reality techniques has enabled Hamilton to exploit his natural talent even further by expanding his mental capacity. In a way, it is like adding an extra litre to his Mercedes engine.

Just how realistic is the simulator? Two-time former world champion Mika Hakkinen drove the current McLaren simulator a couple of months ago, and he deliberately crashed the car at a corner he'd never crashed at in the real races to try it out, and actually strained his wrist in the virtual crash. That is how realistic it is.

Reed also Most effective training is a simulator, and they are spreading into business at Communities Dominate Brands

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Microsoft Surface: Serious Games At The Coffee Table

Serious Games challenging us to play a better future

Via: Sci Fi Tech - Microsoft Surface to rock your dining experience

Microsoft Surface - Endless Possibilities

Have a taste of it!

A few years ago at CES, Bill Gates demoed a future technology that would allow users to sit down in a restaurant, hotel, or airline lounge and use an interactive table surface to get work done. It was a very kludgey design at the time and didn't look like it would actually be made. Flash forward to May 29 when Microsoft's Steve Balmer officially unveiled Microsoft Surface.

Essentially Surface is a high powered computer built into a beautiful looking table with a 30-inch touch sensitive screen that can recognize objects placed on it. Using dynamic touch, infrared cameras, and physical objects, users can order food, browse photos, load their Zune with music, play games and a lot more.

While it would be great to have one of these as the new coffee table in the house, Microsoft is targeting retail stores, restaurants, and entertainment venues with a price range of $5,000 to $10,000. Availability? Beginning at the end of this year (2007), consumers will be able to interact with Surface in the re. locations.

As reminded by Jamais Cascio, via Open The Future, the system bears a remarkable resemblance to the multi-touch display Jeff Han demonstrated at TED in 2006, but it's unclear just how much (if anything) he had to do with the Microsoft product.

Surface does include some nifty features that Han's vertical-mounted screens couldn't do, such as recognizing when a digital devices has been put onto the table and reacting accordingly -- downloading pictures from cameras, opening up a jukebox app for a MP3 player, ordering via a food and beverage app, helping us to make plans for the evening using the map and phone app.

Looking for all the world like one of those old Ms. Pac Man video game tables found in older bars and pizza joints, Surface seems very cool, but can it beat tabletop Pac-Man?

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Seneludens: Serious Games As Therapeutic Behavioral Environments

Serious Games improving brain plasticity and rewiring

Via: Seneludens by Mihai Nadin

Aging is accompanied by a lack of interest in playing. This is often based on the aging individual's decline in cognitive and physical abilities and leads to a vicious cycle: physical inability leads to further cognitive deterioration. Furthermore, the aging individual's anticipatory abilities are weakened, which leaves him/her more open to accident.

However, engaging the aging in playful activities could result in a new form of individualized behavioral gameplay to compensate for this decline. In order to mitigate cognitive and physical deterioration, providing the aging with games than engage them to play could turn out to be a new form of individualized behavioral therapy.

Game-based Rich Environments

The long-term project Seneludens is dedicated to a new category of games focused on stimulating the aging to play games that will maintain and even improve brain plasticity, hence cognitive and anticipatory abilities.

The title is derived from two words:

senescence (from the Latin sene, “old age”), that is, changes that take place in a living organism as time advances;

and ludens (as in homo ludens, playful human, playfulness being a characteristic of humankind).

For Mihai Nadin, a pioneer in the field of computer graphics and a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, this vision could become part of electronic games available to seniors in coming years.

The 68-year-old engineer heads a $13 million research project aimed at designing games and other therapeutic behavioural environments for the aging generation.

Mihai Nadin is testing a game that simulates walking through a city. Gamers walk on a sensor, following directions on a screen and avoiding obstacles. Nadin says the game improves the ability of the mind and body to work.

Nadin envisions a day when video games will be used as tools for rehabilitation at nursing homes. But he says that day may be a long way away if game makers view the elderly simply as a lucrative demographic. "I would prefer that companies raise… their ethical standards and start thinking: Don't we have the responsibility to produce the games that reflect their needs, that will make their life better?"

The research project, which is a long-term project (5 to 8 years, pending available funding and the development of new scientific models), was formulated in September-October 2004. Many faculty members, many professionals from the fields of medicine, geriatrics and brain imaging, along with therapists, and social workers, have provided input.

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Serious Games @ BBC: First TV Show Broadcasting in SL

BBC's Money Programme has spotted the potential for broadcasting in Virtual Worlds

Via: Digital-Lifestyles

Last Friday saw the first BBC TV programme broadcast in Second Life.

The Money Programme is the BBC's flagship business affairs programme. It has been reporting on the business and financial world for the past 37 years and has won many awards for its coverage.

The programme's job is to investigate the important stories in business and finance and to show how big business really works and how it affects all our lives.

The programme is broadcast at 7pm UK time on Fridays on BBC TWO. There are also a number of specials produced by the Money Programme team that are broadcast in later evening slots.

The series ranges from hard-hitting investigations into financial scandals to observational documentaries with access to some of the biggest companies in the UK.

First BBC Programme Broadcast in Second Life

There were two ways to watch the Friday 1 June episode of The Money Programme: in the real world, you could have seen it at 7pm on BBC Two; in Second Life, you would have to get your avatar to the Rivers Run Red Cinema (coordinates Rivers Run Red 200, 123, 45) at 7pm, 8pm and 9pm to see the first BBC programme broadcast in Second Life.

Not surprisingly, the subject was virtual worlds. Max Flint and his spiky-haired alter-ego, MP Masala, traveled deep into cyberspace to meet its virtual entrepreneurs, and find out how real fortunes are made.

The programme explored two different examples of virtual worlds:

First, places such as Second Life, which attempts to recreate the real world, with real trading and real money changing hands, but which is free to enter. Multi-nationals like Reebok, Nissan and Calvin Klein are also getting in on the act and making real money selling "virtual" products in Second Life.

Secondly, Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMORPG) which charge monthly subscriptions to participants, like World of Warcraft which has more than eight million paying members.

Both Second Life and MMORPGs are proof that there are real fortunes to be made in cyber space.

Flint (the real one, that is) traveled to San Francisco to meet one of the industry's biggest names: Philip Rosedale, the creator of Second Life. He also met the people behind Reebok's virtual shop, and then in London visited marketing company Rivers Run Red.

Rivers Run Red has amassed a multi-million pound turnover by doing all its business inside virtual worlds, including creating the cinema in Second Life where The Money Programme was "screened". It’s highly probable that Rivers Run Red can’t quite believe their luck that the BBC has given them the largest advert imaginable.

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Serious Games As A Way Of Life: Global Kids Is Hiring

Global Kids challenging us to play a better world

Via: Global Kids Digital Media Initiative - New Job Openings at Global Kids

Exciting news! Global Kids' Online Leadership Program, now in its seventh year, is about to experience significant growth in a number of areas with the hiring of additional staff members.

Apllications for two job positions are already closed, but there are still 6 dream jobs (as Moo Money from Second Life Insider call them) open.

Dream Job 1: Online Leadership Program Associate - Video Specialist

Global Kids is looking for someone to help with the successful two-day a week machinima program, held at the Museum of the Moving Image, called the Virtual Video Project and developed in collaboration with the museum staff.

Specifically, the specialist will be responsible for bringing her or his knowledge of film making techniques, such as storyboarding, editing, and plotting and adapting those to the virtual world of Second Life

Application material

In this project, Global Kids work with 20 high school students on a groundbreaking digital moviemaking after school program. Students have the unique opportunity to learn a variety of skills that will empower them to become critical thinkers, media producers, and global citizens.

Participants create their own virtual films in a supervised, teen-only area of Second Life. Students examine important social issues and create their own animated films about them. Working with recognized experts and leaders in the field of online virtual environments, students participate in digital culture in a hands-on, thoughtful way. At the conclusion of the year-long program, students will distribute their films on the Internet, showcase them at a museum film festival, submit them to youth-media festivals and organizations, and screen them at their schools.

Dream Job 2: Online Leadership Program Associate - Foundation Programs in Second Life Producer

This position will entail bringing the subject areas of a major national foundation into Teen Second Life, the 3D virtual world for 13-17 year olds, including such topics as juvenile justice, human migration, and the environment.

Application material

Equal focus will be split between working with the foundation’s departments to understand how a virtual world can be used for educational purposes and developing and running such activities within Second Life. In addition, this position will share responsibility for an after school program bringing marginalized teens from around New York City into Second Life to participate in the development and running of these activities.

Dream Job 3: Online Leadership Program Associate - Gaming and Social Networks Specialist

This is a part-time position within Global Kids’ Playing 4 Keeps (P4K) program, a successful after school game development program funded by the Microsoft Corporation. The position is responsible for collaborating with other staff to develop and facilitated the after school program and liaison with the funder.

In the first year of the program P4k collaborated with GameLab to develop Ayiti: The Cost of Life, a fun and challenging web-based game about poverty as an obstacle to education in Haiti. The second year, just now concluding, has worked with three groups of teens to create a game in Teen Second Life about the history of prison medical research of African American males. Both programs were based in a high school in Brooklyn.

Application material

Gamelab says they are happy to have been involved
The photo came from the Ayiti Game release party. The game is about poverty as an obstace to education in Haiti, and was made by Global Kids Leaders and Gamelab

P4K, in its third year, will be placed at a new school and the game development platform is still under discussion.

This candidate is strongly encouraged to express interest and display the capabilities for working fulltime at Global Kids by filling an upcoming part-time position at Global Kids as the Social Networking Specialist.

More specifically, Global Kids is anticipating September funding for the development of a social networking site for teens passionate in creating, sharing and thinking critically about the roles digital media play in their lives.

Dream Jobs 4 and 5: Online Leadership Program Associates - YouthVenture Program Manager and YouthVenture Program Associate

Application material

These positions, supported through funds by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, are integral to a new partnership with YouthVentures. YouthVentures supports groups of teens to develop social enterprises. A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas business entrepreneurs typically measure performance in profit and return, social entrepreneurs assess their success in terms of the impact they have on society. The specific focus of these YouthVenture teams will be health and issues related to health care. The location where teams will be recruited and trained is within Teen Second Life, the 3D virtual world for 13-17 year old.

Dream Jobs 6: Online Leadership Program Assistant

Application material

The assistant will join GK's rapidly expanding Online Leadership Program (OLP) in New York City, where the position will be based. GK’s work in TSL is on the cutting-edge of developing best practices in applying global youth development practices and educational in virtual worlds. The assistant will support the Online Leadership Director and other OLP staff as the OLP program staff grows from three to eleven, being involved with tasks from the mundane to the sublime.

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