FUTURE-MAKING SERIOUS GAMES

XAITMENT Eases Serious Games Workflow

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 05:50:00 PDT

Turning your concept into intelligent Serious Games

xaitment engineers intelligence that mirrors reality. Highly modular and completely intuitive, thecomprehensive AI solution suffuses your game agents (bots) with lifelike behaviors

Via: xaitment inc. - New Graphic Interface Simplifies Workflow Processes and Reduces Workload for Game Developers

Press Release

AI Developer xaitment Launches xaitMap 2.5

Saarbrücken/Quierschied, Germany - July 14th 2009 – xaitment GmbH,one of the leading developers and service providers of artificial intelligence (AI) for the games and simulation industries, today announced the release of xaitMap 2.5, the first in a series of upgrades to its AI toolset. The new version offers game developers a completely new graphical interface with which to simplify the design of navigation meshes (NavMesh) based on any given level geometry. Additional features like geometry tagging, batched builds, a project wizard and the support of pathfinding objects like spawn points and blocking areas further increase xaitMap’s ease of use.

Like all existing and upcoming modules of the xaitment toolbox, xaitMap 2.5 eases the workflow of game development teams. Not only can it be integrated with any in-house tool in a studio’s pipeline with a minimum of time and effort; xaitMap 2.5 has been specifically designed to accelerate the adjustment of builds and the automatic modification of NavMeshes. Moreover, the new graphical interface minimizes mistakes that can result from complex AI programming.

“xaitMap 2.5 offers all game developers a powerful AI game tool that helps save production costs while giving development teams the opportunity to effectively reach their creative potential,” says Dr. Andreas Gerber, Group CEO of xaitment. xaitMap 2.5 is easy to integrate into existing development environments and simple to operate. Stand-alone or together in combination with other xaitment AI game tools, it offers everything developers need for the successful development of artificial intelligence in a game production.“

xaitMap 2.5 consists of the graphical interface, xaitMap Creator, and the xaitMap Library. Together, these solutions use a unique spatial subdivision technique for creating navigation meshes. The navigation meshes are created automatically by simply entering specifications about the environment and the non-player characters (NPCs) into a NavMesh Generator. The NavMesh is generated in a matter of seconds, enabling developers to easily make changes to the game map and to experiment with many different designs in order to improve the gameplay.

Serious Games @ Refineries

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:25:00 PDT

Serious Games rendering 3D Virtual Refinery

Via: ExplainMedia and Simulation Solutions – Virtual Refinery

Operator Training Simulators have been around for decades. Started as hardware-based solutions, in the 1980s OTS applications became available for PCs.

Software that simulates the workings of a chemical processor is an important tool for training courses. Before the operators take on the responsibility of running a full-size unit, they run it in simulation.

However, the chemical processing environment requires operators to work as a team: one person working at the controls and another working at the equipment itself, usually outside. While older simulators only trained those working at the controls, the newest generation of programs also gets the 'outside operators' working.

An example of these new systems is the Virtual Refinery.

Virtual Refinery Exterior

It provides a 3D environment in which the learner can move about freely, to find and adjust various parts of the chemical plant.

ExplainMedia has taken proven Simulation Solutions training programs, long made available to DCS operators, and is rendering corresponding 3D Virtual Refinery Outside Operator modules.

With these added virtual reality capabilities, Outside Operators can actually open and close hand-operated valves, start and stop pumps, take field reading, see and hear equipment running, communicate with the control room, etc. Instructors can mentor and manage training sessions, instead of being tied up in role playing the functions of an Outside Operator from previously provided “remote function” switches.

Virtual Valve

Virtual Switches

Users can navigate both outside and inside valves, pumps, towers, and reactors and observe dynamically over a full range of operating conditions how equipment, feedstock, catalysts, and products respond to changing feed rates, temperatures, pressures, etc. All Outside Operator station functions and responses are being driven by differential equations and mathematical models, not mere animation routines.

The Virtual Refinery package is a 12 module Distillation Series. The Distillation Series was the first of a set of off-the-shelf Series, followed by comprehensive Series for Furnaces, Compressors, Crude Units, FCC, etc.

Since May, the Virtual Refinery suite of products includes an Atmospheric Crude Unit and a Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit, linked to a process simulator.

With the addition of the ACU and the FCCU, the total number of simulator driven virtual environments is now fifteen, explaining all aspects of the distillation process, from a simple pump, to a complete plant.

Detailed Custom Programs, realistic DCS Emulations, and state-of-the-art Virtual Reality based Outside Operator Stations combine to form the key elements of the Virtual Refinery, and create a “test bench” capability for safety and engineering studies previously unavailable. Users can “field test” control schemes and outside operator duties against a virtual plant, and also improve procedures, conduct realistic training for entire operations teams, and ultimately help develop the most efficient and safest way to troubleshoot and respond to plant upsets and emergencies.

About Simulation Solutions

Simulation Solutions, Inc. is a U.S. based privately held company that was formed to provide process simulators for training operators, engineers, and technicians to control and manage refining, chemical, petrochemical, pulp and paper, and utility processes.

Simulation Solutions is headquartered in Shrewsbury, NJ. With over 20 years of experience in the hydrocarbon industry, and in excess of 225 simulator systems installed, they are a leading supplier worldwide.

About ExplainMedia

Based in Petaluma, California, ExplainMedia develops visualization solutions for the process technology industry. They offer a number of off-the-shelf products and development services, tailoring a wide range of software libraries and 3D model libraries.

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Serious Gaming With AR IDs

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:14:00 PDT

Serious Games powers the future of user interfaces

Via: Games Alfresco – TAT Augmented ID

Augmented ID is a TAT (The Astonishing Tribe) concept that visualizes the digital identities of people you meet in real life.

With a mobile device and face recognition software from Polar Rose, Augmented ID enables you to discover selected information about people around you.

All users control their own augmented appearance, by selecting the content and social network links they want to show to others.

From Games Alfresco:

“One of the oldest concepts in the mobile AR community is using augmented reality to match a person with his/her identity. The Swedish software and design company TAT has just unveiled their own take on this “augmented id” with the aptly named Augmented ID. TAT enables you to check up one’s web identity by looking at him/her through your mobile’s camera, as the following concept shows:

About The Astonishing Tribe

TAT is a Swedish software technology and design company offering products and services that differentiate and enhance the user experience of portable devices. TAT is headquartered in Malmö, Sweden, and has local offices in Korea and USA.

TAT was founded on a passion for developing digital visual experiences through the combination of aesthetics and technology. This passion emerged from years of experimenting with computer graphics on restrained platforms. The six founders successfully competed as a team on the Nordic demo scene in the 90s, where the challenge was to create beautiful and advanced visual experiences in limited time on a limited hardware platform.

The mobile phone user interface is where communication between the user and the handset takes place - where the relationship is created.

Hardware limitations often cause phone manufacturers to compromise on the visual representation of graphical user interfaces, hindering them from fully expressing their brand values and usability.

With extensive knowledge in design, graphical programming in limited technical environments and using TAT Cascades, (TAT's software technology platform for user interfaces), TAT assists handset manufacturers in developing new graphical user interfaces.

TAT has added the WOW effect to mobile user interfaces for more than 250 million devices worldwide. TAT works with 4 of the 6 leading OEMs in the mobile device space today. Publicly announced clients include SonyEricsson, Motorola, S60, Samsung, Vodafone and Orange. TAT has an extensive network of partners covering the whole value chain in the mobile device market.

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Serious Games Call For Projects

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:16:00 PDT

Serious Games submission for immediate grants

Via: Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie de Valenciennois (CCIV)

Within the scope of the Economic Development Regional Plan (SRDE), the new Pôle Images Nord–Pas de Calais (Nord-Pas de Calais Images Cluster), has launched a call for projects with the objective of promoting the development of both Serious Games and Audiovisual Projects in the region.

The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Valenciennois (CCIV) is in charge of the “Serious Games Projects” category and will manage the submission process.

This call for Serious Games entries aims at facilitating immediate grants which cannot exceed 50% of the total cost of the project.

You may find the complete documentation to apply by the 27th of July at www.valenciennes.cci.fr/frame.htm:

Download the call for projects overview

Download the rules for Serious Games Projects Grants

Download the submission form

For further details please contact : Marc LAVIGNE - (0 33)3 27 284 143

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Serious Games For Civil Engineering Students

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:24:00 PDT

Serious Games improving Public Works safety

Via B2B Games – The Public Works Federation of the Rhône-
Alpes region, B2B GAMES & Persistant Studios are proud to present: «3D Networks» (« 3D Réseaux »)

3D Networks (3D Réseaux) is a new generation of Serious Games bound to train and inform working staff and civil engineering students about the risks of public works near underground networks.

The Public Works Regional Federation (FRTP - Fédération Régionale des Travaux Publics) for the Rhône-Alpes region, is the first federation in France to use a Serious Game to educate players about the risks inherent to these activities.

FRTP is the trade association that represents the profession of Civil Engineering in Rhône-Alpes, providing a set of services to Public Works companies, particularly training.

By having the players performing various characters according to their function (from the man on the ground to the bulldozer driver), 3D Networks has created an immersive game to be used both by private companies and public works’ training centers, such as vocational training centers and professional secondary schools.

The Serious Game will be available for download on the Federation’s websites, both at local and national levels, and will be presented by its members on giant screens and PCs during professional events.

3D Networks Serious Game was developed by B2B Games, a Lyon-based company, in collaboration with Persistant Studios, a Paris-based development studio, utilizing Persistant’s real-time 3D technology HellHeaven.

“Thanks to the HellHeaven engine, the solution can match any kind of demand”, says Pierre Vinson, B2B Games exports: “integration of complex elements, multiplayer features and optional customization from the logo on a jacket to a fully designed power plant.”

“As an example”, adds Pierre Vinson, “for the Nuclear Industry it could provide:

- Training/risk awareness tools /nuclear safety simulation, e.g. maintenance operation, nuclear decontamination simulation, emergency simulation
- Communication/demonstration tool, e.g. 3D tour of a nuclear power plant in high resolution, product/services showcase
- Complex situation simulation requiring a fully 3D interactive environment with precise elements

About B2B Games

B2B Games is a content provider and Serious Games developer, currently based in Lyon, France. The company was created in 2005 by Yves Santelli, former exports manager for Infogrames (Atari) and exports director for Anuman Interactive.

Since its inception, the company has been working in the development of Serious Games for industries such as Aeronautics, Textile and Logistics.

About Persistant Studios

Founded in 2005 by four engineers from Epitech, Persistant Studios is a JEI (Young Innovative Enterprise) dedicated to the production of real-time 3D environments for simulations, video games and Serious Games.

Their HellHeaven technology allows the creation of real-time 3D visualization, configuration, demonstration, interaction and gameplay applications. HellHeaven contains an extensive content-creation tool chain for fast prototyping and custom applications tailored for specific needs.

Find more at http://www.hellheaven.fr/public/2009_04_29_HH_brochure_EN.pdf

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Serious Gaming In Hyper Realistic Environments

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 08:54:00 PDT

MellaniuM and Serious Games beyond reality

Via: MellaniuM – MellaniuM’s Furnace Virtual Real World Goes Web.Alive

I had previously blogged about MellaniuM’s 3D Simulations in the Virtual Real World (VRW).

Virtual Real Worlds can be created to provide realistic 3D simulations for education, work, and entertainment. Virtual Real Worlds shall be rich in content and accuracy (texture, ambiance, models, etc.) containing real 3D simulations as an ideal environment for collaboration and fast learning.

The flexibility of the Virtual Real World system stems from the initial design decision to separate style from content; this allows a standard design to be used as the basis for many Virtual Real World scenarios.

Many will remember the fly-through of a furnace that MellaniuM created a couple of years ago.

MellaniuM has now generated a completely interactive furnace environment as a test bed to showcase its hyper realistic environments.

Now, with the addition of avatars and using Nortel’s web.alive, we can truly explore the structure of this most complicated machinery “hands-on”. We can even do things we couldn’t do in real life, like hop into the furnace to see how everything works.

Trying to devise some implications, e.g. for engineers, this could be a breakthrough: assembling one of these things is no easy task, so being able to really work through it in 3D makes their job much easier and clears up a lot of misunderstanding.

PREVIOUS POSTS:

MellaniuM On The Verge Of 3D Convergence
MellaniuM: When Reality Feels Like a Serious Game
MellaniuM: Serious Games Widening Your Horizons By Simulating The World Serious Gaming With World’s Heritage

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Serious Games As Mobile ARG for Kids

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:57:00 PDT

Serious Games creating a magical adventure

Via: The Hidden Park

Children think it’s a magical adventure. Parents think it’s a perfect afternoon in the park. We think that’s innovation!

Bulpadok is an Australian studio who has just created a mobile ARG for kids: The Hidden Park.

The Hidden Park is an adventure for parents and kids that can be played in public parks, where kids follow a GPS enabled map, answer phone calls, and collect evidence of magical creatures. Currently it's only available in specific parks (New York, Boston, Toronto, London, Munich, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Melbourne). A version where parents can add their own parks will be available from next month.

The Hidden Park is also a whole new form of outdoor gaming on your mobile phone, currently available for iPhone users on Apple’s App Store (click here to download). The game uses all the iPhone’s built-in features to allow kids to interact with the park in ways that were previously impossible. It’s an amazing and engaging experience that promotes imagination, fitness and problem solving.

How it Works

The application uses the iPhone features to lead children into a fantasy world of trolls, fairies and tree genies - right in their local park.

First, download the app from Apple’s App Store. The adventure unfolds from there…

The children navigate their way through the park by following a map that lets them know where the magical creatures live. Of course, Trutton’s map is magical – as they move past landmarks in the park the map tells them where to go next.

The children must solve puzzles and riddles on their way to the next destination. Clues to the answers can be found on the signposts in the park.

Following Trutton’s directions, the children take photos of various landmarks. As if by magic, Trutton’s fantastical friends appear in the photos – sometimes right next to the children!

The photos are stored in a gallery, so at the end of the day the children have an album of their adventure. It’s an amazing adventure, an amazing app, and the world just got that little bit more magic…

Maximizing the capabilities of the iPhone, The Hidden Park uses all its in-built features, pushing it to the limit to deliver a valuable user experience.

Assisted Global Positioning System (A-GPS)

By using the iPhone’s speedy A-GPS feature, The Hidden Park is able to accurately pinpoint each player’s movements within the park and plot this against the interactive map that forms the heart of the game. Through Location Based Services (LBS) technology, the game triggers particular animations and tasks as the user reaches key waypoints along their journey.

Digital Camera

The inbuilt digital camera plays a key role in The Hidden Park by allowing the player to document their journey in a highly interactive fashion – refer to Screen Grabs section. Powered by 2.0 megapixels of resolution, the inbuilt camera is more than sufficient for producing sharp photographic results at print quality.

Accelerometer

The Accelerometer is an inbuilt feature that allows the iPhone’s display to respond accordingly to any physical motion of the handset. In the case of The Hidden Park, this feature has been used interactively for when photos are taken of the player during the game - refer to Screen Grabs section. After a photo is taken, you shake the iPhone to activate the Accelerometer, which scatters the mystical characters over the top of the image. The phone can be shaken numerous times to randomly scatter the characters, until the player is happy with the configuration.

Alternate Reality Gaming (ARGs)

Alternate Reality Gaming is taking the gaming experience to an entirely new level. Players are required to interact with the real world around them instead of a simulated digital playing arena. The Hidden Park has taken the emerging genre of Alternative Reality Gaming and brought it to mainstream family entertainment. As the real world forms the platform for the game, any number of multimedia vehicles can be used - phones, email, Internet etc. – to drive the user experience. For the creators of The Hidden Park, the iPhone provided a perfect vehicle for ARGs. The Hidden Park is one of the first iPhone games to capitalize on this opportunity.

Geocaching

Geocaching is a type of treasure-hunt in which the participants use GPS receivers or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called ‘geocaches’ or ‘caches’). Since May 2000 a small group of enthusiasts has grown into a sprawling community supporting over 823,000 geocaches placed in over 100 countries on all seven continents, including Antarctica.

About Bulpadok

Bulpadok is a mobile content studio founded by James Kane in November, 2008. The studio has just released its first iPhone App, The Hidden Park. The app sits somewhere between geocaching and ARGs.

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Serious Games Break For Michael Jackson Tribute

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:48:00 PDT

Michael Jackson challenging us to play a better world

Michael Jackson - Making-of "We Are the World"

A must-see Michael Jackson's video, amongst thousands available on YouTube, which gives us a taste of his perfecting style, can be found here: a 10-minute video-clip with MJ recording "We Are the World".

NOTE: "We Are the World" is a 1985 song written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, produced and conducted by Quincy Jones and recorded by a supergroup of 45 popular musicians billed as USA for Africa (United Support of Artists for Africa) Solos (in order of appearance) Lionel Richie Stevie Wonder Paul Simon Kenny Rogers James Ingram Tina Turner Billy Joel Michael Jackson Diana Ross Dionne Warwick Willie Nelson Al Jarreau Bruce Springsteen Kenny Loggins Steve Perry Daryl Hall Huey Lewis Cyndi Lauper Kim Carnes Bob Dylan Ray Charles.

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Serious Games For Japanese Practice

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:12:00 PDT

Serious Games challenging us to play a better education

Via: NihongoUp – Learning Japanese the Fun Way

NihongoUp is a Japanese reviewing tool for foreign students and native speakers alike developed by Philip Seyfi.

I’ve just installed the free trial version of the AIR application from http://nihongoup.com/ and found out it has a few educational mini-games to help improve your typing speed on a Japanese keyboard, sentence structure and vocabulary.

When you start up the application, you have four choices: Katakana, Hiragana, Kanji, and Particles – all this packaged in NihongoUp learning game, which aims at keeping you motivated during the review of this most demanding language.

Hiragana and Katakana:

In this game, balloons with different Hiragana (or Katakana) come down: you have to type in the falling syllables before they reach the bottom of the screen.

Kanji:

In the kanji game, you get a sentence at the bottom with a highlighted section. You have to click on the balloon containing the kanji that can be correctly placed in the proposed sentence to move on to the next one.

The game is now available for JLPT 3 & 4 levels, but according to the website JLPT 2 and JLPT 1 sentence lists for the Kanji exercises are coming soon.

Particles:

In the particles game, you get a sentence with a missing particle, and then four choices. You have to choose the particle than can be placed into the sentence.

Overall Impressions from Japanese Speakers

“Nihongoup does some neat things for Japanese language practice. There’s some room for improvement, which is fine because it’s an early product. t’s kind of one of those things where it’s really good that it’s simple, but has room for a little more (I think?). I do wish the sentences were easier to read (more kanji, please!), and I’d also like to see more settings for different difficulty levels within each section (faster speeds, etc).”

Find more at NihongoUp Blog

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Serious Games Cutting Edge Technology

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:44:00 PDT

xaitment’s AI technology integrated into Trinigy’s Vision Engine

PRESS RELEASE

xaitment integrates xaitEngine into Vision Engine
Trinigy’s Vision Game Engine now contains multi-platform support for xaitment’s AI solution.

Saarbrücken, Germany – May 28, 2009 - xaitment GmbH, one of the leading developers and service providers of artificial intelligence for the games and simulation industries, and Trinigy, a leading provider of 3D game engines with offices in Germany and Austin, TX, announced today that xaitment’s AI technology – the xaitEngine – is now integrated into Trinigy’s Vision Engine.

Trinigy’s Vision Engine is one of the world most advanced and widely-used game engines for PC and console games. Numerous teams across four continents are using the Vision Engine to create games in a range of genres.

The xaitEngine is the leading technology for advanced artificial intelligence in games and simulations. The xaitEngine’s modular approach enables games developers to easily incorporate both highly complex AI for simulated behaviors and lower-level AI for game control, application logic and animation.

The xaitEngine’s integration into Vision Engine 7 gives all Trinigy licensees the opportunity to easily combine advanced artificial intelligence with superior graphics and gameplay.

“Game studios around the world have chosen the Vision Engine for its ability to create games of the highest standard,” said Dr. Andreas Gerber, Group CEO of xaitment. “We are very excited about the partnership with Trinigy and to become part of that success story. More and more game developers are using external solutions for the implementation of path finding, behavior and especially for game logic and game AI. The integration of our AI products into the Vision Engine is part of our strategy to offer the market an all-inclusive AI solution and marks another important step for our clients and company.”

The xaitEngine is designed from the ground up to support the needs of game designers, artists and programmers alike, and to integrate seamlessly into game pipelines and applications. Its modular design gives teams the choice to integrate all the AI features they need or just the AI functionality they want for their specific title. Due to the intuitive, graphical interface of xaitment’s application, even the most advanced NPC (non-player character) behaviors can be integrated without one line of code. These unique features simplify the whole workflow of a game production and allow development teams to create more immersive games faster and more cost-effectively.

“We are pleased about the integration of xaitment,” adds Felix Roeken, General Manager of Trinigy. “We have received a lot of requests for the xaitEngine. I’m glad that we can now offer our clients a solid multi-platform connection which allows them to use the two technologies immediately.”

The two solutions are available separately. Large and small developers can purchase the entire xaitEngine or any of its stand-alone modules for demo purposes or full development projects.

About xaitment GmbH

A spin-off of the world-renowned German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), xaitment was founded in 2004 with the mission to create lifelike AI for games and simulations. Their mission led to the development of the xaitEngine, a highly customizable and highly modular multi-agent system that enables bots to learn from their mistakes, coordinate activities, compete with each other and achieve their goals with uncanny realism. For more information about xaitment and the xaitEngine, visit www.xaitment.com.

About Trinigy

Trinigy is an independent company focusing on the development of advanced 3D graphics technology with offices in Germany and Austin, TX (USA). In the field of 3D game engines, Trinigy is one of the world's leading companies. Trinigy’s Vision Engine 7 is one of the world’s most advanced technologies for AAA to online distributed productions. Currently in use in 100+ commercial game productions all over the world, by well-known companies such as Ubisoft, Firefly, Take 2, Neowiz, Dreamcatcher, and others, the Vision Engine has proven its versatility for use in a multitude of game genres, including real-time strategy, racing, first person shooters, role-playing games and massively multiplayer online (MMO) games. Vision Engine 7 is available and optimized for PC (DX9, DX10), Xbox360™, PLAYSTATION®3, Nintendo Wii™, XBLA™, PSN™ and WiiWare™. For more information about the Trinigy Vision Engine, please visit: www.trinigy.net.

Previous posts:
XAITMENT Grows Into North American Market
Gas Powered Games Endorses xaitment Lifelike AI
XAITMENT Turns Your Concept Into Intelligent Games
XAITMENT Incorporates Lifelike AI Into GIANTS Upcoming Serious Game
XAITMENT BrainPack: A Step Forward For Lifelike AI In Serious Games
XAITMENT Brings Emotional Intelligence To Serious Games
Serious Gaming to Become a Successful Farmer

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BankRush: Retail Banking Serious Game

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:23:00 PDT

Serious Gaming to understand banking sector

Via: IndustryMasters – Bank Rush – The Bank Business Simulation

The IndustryMasters Team announced early June that their new business simulation game Bank Rush has become available on-line.

Developed by Tycoon Systems, Bank Rush is a serious game for people who want to better understand the banking sector. This very realistic banking game puts players in the role of the CEO of a major retail bank, to compete against each other for market leadership and shareholder value.

Background Scenario

The financial crisis began in 2007 with the loss of confidence by investors in the value of securitized mortgages in the United States.

In September 2008, the crisis deepened! Stock markets worldwide crashed and entered a period of high volatility, and a considerable number of banks, mortgage lenders and insurance companies failed in the following months.

In February 2009 U.S. President Barack Obama signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law.

The Federal Reserve announced that it will purchase $1.15 trillion in US Assets to prop up liquidity and lending to spur economic growth.

Now it's your mission to manage the Bank through the crisis! You will adjust your interest rates for loans and deposits, adjust the marketing budgets and invest into new market segments. To expand your business you can borrow fresh money from the Central Bank at low interest rates! But caution: there might still be some surprises in the balance sheet and loan defaults may destroy your profits.

Competitive Environment

The Bank is operating in direct competition with 4 other banks. Your task, as the new CEO, is to intensify the competition and grow your bank in a sustainable way.

Your Bank operates in the retail sector and provides services for private individuals such as Current Accounts, Saving Accounts, Credit Cards and long term Loans & Mortgages.

You compete against 4 virtual competitors that have different products and strategies. The US Accounts Bank and the UK Bank are the strongest competitors and try to outgrow each other. Two other competitors, the Global Trust bank and the Euro Bank Group are heavily hit by the financial crisis.

By operating checking accounts and long term deposits you get capital into the bank that you can lend out to other customers as loans.

It is essential that you try to lend out loans as expensive as possible (high interest rate) while refinancing the money as cheap as possible (low interest rate) to get the best result.

Setting the Interest Rates

Whenever the Central Bank changes the interest rates (Fed Rate), the whole market moves with it. To help you making the right settings, you will get warning messages if your interest rates deviate strongly from the market's average. In any case you should frequently check your competitors’ rates and make sure your rates fit the market.

Expansion & Marketing

To grow your interest income you need to give out more loans to new and existing clients.

And for a high profitability you need to make sure that the workload of your managers reaches close to 100%.

To raise the workload you can get new customers by investing more into marketing. Once the workload is high, you can lower the marketing budgets to a sustainable level.

If you expand your current products or invest into a new one, the workload start low and you need to invest substantially into marketing to get enough new customers to bring up workload and profits.

Sources of Funding

Treasury is the 'heart' of your Bank where the overall funding and cash allocations are made and the bank balance sheet gets shaped.

Ideally, funds lent to clients should balance with funds borrowed from clients. In practice, this is not likely to happen and there are two additional sources of funds: the Central Bank and the Interbanking Market.

The Economy shows 4 important indicators on a monthly base, looking 12 month back: the Change of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product), the annual Inflation Rate, the Jobless Rate and the Fed Rate. Until March 2009 the macro-economic scenario is modeled with real US economy data.The Fed Rate has a direct impact on the re-financing cost of the Banks and should be watched closely. At start of the simulation (January 2008) the Fed Rate gets lowered to 3% and continues to move downwards until it reaches the all time low of 0.25% in December 2008.

Sign-up for a free trial account and start your career as a bank director.

About Tycoon Systems

Tycoon Systems is a software company focusing on the development and marketing of business education technology.

15 years ago, their founder Thomas Lehnert has developed his first business simulation CABS, with the vision of providing an experience-based learning environment for business education. From this vision, Thomas and his team have created IndustryPlayer and IndustryMasters, used by many thousands of business students across the globe.

Both IndustryPlayer and IndustryMasters are based on an interactive real-time multi-player technology. Like in the real economy, the participants are competing against each other in industries which evolve dynamically, depending on the decisions of all players. In real-time, the participant see the impact of their decisions to the bottom line.

Serious Games: You As The Boss Of A Global Business

Serious Games: You As The Boss Of A Global Business - Update

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Serious Games For Dental Implant Training

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:43:00 PDT

Serious Games for dentists-to-be

Following my prior posting Dental Serious Games with 3D Touch, here is another serious game giving dentists-to-be practice time on virtual teeth.

Research shows that healthcare providers who practice clinical skills via simulation have better patient outcomes than those who don't. The Virtual Dental Implant Training Simulation is designed to help students in diagnostics, decision making and treatment protocols.

The implant simulation game uses multiple patients and clinical scenarios that can be randomly selected, letting students interact with virtual patients by asking about their medical history, examining them and arriving at a diagnosis. Like humans, the virtual patients have different personalities, and students must tailor treatment based on the mental, physical and emotional needs of the individual.

If the virtual patient is a candidate for implant therapy, the simulation then ventures into a virtual clinical treatment area, where students decide the type, location and orientation of the implants, type and location of anesthesia and tools for surgery.

Read more…

Via: POPSCI.com

Virtual-Reality Dental Training Is as Gory as You'd Expect
by Laura Silver

Video games may be good for your dental health. Not for the jaw-clenching or tooth-grinding action -- discuss these conditions with a professional if they persist in conjunction with gaming -- but because dentists will soon have access to virtual mouths before they get their hands on your chompers.

The Virtual Dental Implant Training (VDIT) Simulation is now in beta testing, and set for rollout next fall, when it will reach about 15,000 dental students in 25 universities around the globe that partner with Nobel Biocare of Sweden, the project's funder. Developed by Maryland-based game developer BreakAway in concert with the Medical College of Georgia, VDIT uses entertainment technology to simulate real-world scenarios. Dr. Roman Cibirka, Vice President for Instruction and Enrollment Management Associate Provost for Academic Affairs, put the wheels in motion 18 months ago, after he attended a Games for Health conference.

This year he presented VDIT at the gathering in Boston.

The digital interface lets dental students put classroom lessons into action and build on the training they've done with medical mannequins. Cibirka said increased opportunities to exercise hands-on-mouth skills lead to better outcomes, on both sides of the dental chair. Speaking from Breakaway's high-security offices (the company has top-level security clearance because of its contracts with the military), producer Isaac Jeppsen said he situated the action in the dental office -- and in the patient's mouth -- to make it less complicated for first-time gamers. "You don't need to navigate down the hall and move into an office, you start the game where you need to be," said Jeppse: looking at a patient ensconced in a dental chair. He created a mouth, brought drills to life and input a series of questions that allow players to assess their patients' conditions before setting drills in motion.

Dentists-in-training start each round of the simulation game with a question-and-answer intake session to figure out if the person in the chair is well suited for an implant. Neglecting to ask a pixelated patient what brought her to the dentist will cause a player to fail.

"There's a very solid body of evidence that there are basically four patient profiles," said Cibirka. Those four profiles were starting points for the patients who appear in VDIT: two women and two men of different ages, backgrounds, personalities and implant considerations. A prosthodontist -- specializing in bridges, crowns, implants, and dentures -- by training, Cibirka is familiar with the pitfalls that can trip up both new dentists and experienced practitioners (the latter have also exhibited an interest in the simulation). He worked with Jeppsen and his team to build complexity into the virtual patients: each one appears in two to four scenarios that showcase different clinical problems and states of mind.

Before taking on the dental simulation game, Jeppson worked on Command and Conquer, a futuristic battle betweens humans and aliens. It's the same type of work, he said, just for a different audience. Jeppsen likens the dental simulation to choose-your-own-adventure games, "not totally cutting edge, but close enough that you get a feel for the person that you're interviewing."

Of course, there's a technical component to the work. VDIT players choose the sequence of the drills for the implant procedure and then watch it happen according to their instructions. Using the wrong drill in the incorrect order will make the virtual gums explode in blood.

Have a taste of it: Clip 1 and Clip 2

Jeppsen wants more of that in the next iteration. Not for the gore factor, but to illustrate margins of error. "You could break the jaw if you over-torque it," said Jeppsen, "but it's not necessarily shown in the game."

Which goes back to a credo he picked up from Cibirka: "It's not the carpentry we're trying to teach, it's the decision-making process."

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Back From Hawaii To Serious Games Biz

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 05:03:00 PDT

Serious Games challenging us to play a better future

Myself enjoying Oahu North Shore

Aloha!

After a 30-day Sabbatical , most of which spent in Hawaii, I'm now back to the Serious Games business.

My deep apologies to all whose emails remained unanswered during this period - time to catch-up!

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ARGuing: Serious Games in Education

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Fri, 15 May 2009 14:24:00 PDT

Serious Games challenging us to play a better education

Via: ARGuing – Alternate Reality Game for Education

ARGuing is an innovative project that addresses two fundamental needs in European education in a totally new manner:

How to bridge the widening technological gap between educators and their students
How to motivate students to understand the benefits of learning languages at a level that impacts on their existing personal and social lives.

Over the last couple of years Internet has developed in new directions, with people becoming much more involved in creating content and communicating online (Web 2.0). Studies clearly show how teens are now using technology as a natural and accepted part of their lives.

Meanwhile their teachers and educators are still looking to use either pre-Internet or the Web in ways that are already dated and bear no relation to the technology level of their students.

Existing motivators used in language learning, utilize situations to develop oral or written skills such as role-play situations within the classroom, but these situations do not generally relate to students’ real world and in particular do not attempt to use the power of technology.

The ARGuing Project

The ARGuing project tries to respond to these needs by building a methodology for educators that includes Web 2.0 technology.

The project consists of an Alternate Reality Game (ARG), which works as a communication context for international, multilingual, peer student communities that have to solve the puzzle by working as a massively, multiplayer, collaborative group, in multiple languages.

ARGuing for Multilingual Motivation in Web 2.0 is funded by the European Union under the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP).

Project Results

They have now completed the ARGuing project pilot with the ARG “The Tower of Babel” and have made available a video on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd4rKnRSZY8, which includes some statistics and comments from teachers.

The project team will be presenting the academic papers on the project at the forthcoming European Association for Games in Education Conference in October in Graz, Austria.

Please visit their website for further documentation.

About the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) - A Single Umbrella For Education And Training Programs

The European Commission has integrated its various educational and training initiatives under a single umbrella, the Lifelong Learning Programme. With a significant budget of nearly €7 billion for 2007 to 2013, the program replaces previous education, vocational training and e-Learning programs, which ended in 2006.

The LLP provides funding for all stages of lifelong learning; for activities at school, at college, at university, in the workplace and in the community.

The LLP is made up of several different programs offering a variety of opportunities. There are four sub-programs focusing on different stages of education and training and continuing previous programs:

Comenius for schools
Erasmus for higher education
Leonardo da Vinci for vocational education and training
Grundtvig for adult education

A transversal program aims to ensure that they achieve the best results possible. Four key activities focus on policy co-operation, languages, information and communication technologies, effective dissemination and exploitation of project results.

Aiming for a geographical reach beyond Europe's borders, the Jean Monnet program stimulates teaching, reflection and debate on the European integration process at higher education institutions worldwide.

Targets

Quantified targets have been set for the four sub programs:

Comenius should involve at least three million pupils in joint educational activities, over the period of the program
Erasmus should reach the total of three million individual participants in student mobility actions since the program began.
Leonardo da Vinci should increase placements in enterprises to 80,000 per year by the end of the program
Grundtvig should support the mobility of 7,000 individuals involved in adult education per year by 2013

In the UK the LLP programs are managed by the British Council and ECOTEC. This joint website www.lifelonglearningprogramme.org.uk serves as a portal for information on all the programs and funding opportunities.

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Forterra Accelerates Serious Games Distribution

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Fri, 15 May 2009 07:29:00 PDT

Serious Games for collaborative training

Via: Forterra Systems

PRESS RELEASE

SELEX SYSTEMS INTEGRATION LOOKS TO EXPAND INNOVATIVE TRAINING SOLUTIONS USING VIRTUAL WORLD TECHNOLOGY FROM FORTERRA SYSTEMS AND AMBIENT PERFORMANCE

SAN MATEO, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — Ambient Performance, the European distributor and service provider for Forterra Systems, has today announced that The Finmeccanica Company, SELEX Systems Integration will expanded its use of Forterra’s On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment (OLIVE™) virtual world platform to provide innovative training solutions for a broad range of customers.

SELEX Systems Integration is a Prime Contracting and Systems Integration business that now incorporates the long-established training capability of VEGA, VEGA Deutschland and VEGA France. The company plans to explore the many potential applications of emerging distributed virtual world technologies to help transform training for armed forces being rapidly deployed across multiple theatres of operation.

“We are working with Ambient Performance and the Forterra Systems OLIVE virtual world platform to support the increased requirement for collaborative training across distributed locations.” said Ian Govier, SELEX Systems Integration’s Head of Future Solutions.

“OLIVE provides us with a secure and reliable tool that enables us to rapidly prototype new training solutions that can be provided to distributed users.

“We’re working to develop Experiential Learning Solutions by integrating existing simulations with which the users can interact with each other in an immersive environment. We’re also reusing our own models and terrain to rapidly update a specific training environment to represent the contemporary operating environment. We’re also using the OLIVE platform as a collaboration environment to work across SELEX sites, providing secure virtual meetings across our secure network.”

“SELEX Systems Integration aims to leverage the most effective and innovative technologies available to ensure our training solutions deliver the specific training requirements for our clients. Our work with Ambient, Forterra and the OLIVE virtual world platform shows our continued dedication to this commitment.”

Ron Edwards, Ambient Performance CEO commented, "We're excited to support SELEX System Integration's further progress with OLIVE to integrate their existing valuable simulation technologies, models, terrain and experimentation into the OLIVE platform to best meet their client needs. They're a great team to work with given their highly capable personnel — they're the fastest we've seen in terms of developing fully-operational solutions with OLIVE."

About SELEX Systems Integration

SELEX Systems Integration is a Prime Contracting and Systems Integration business that now incorporates the long-established training capability of VEGA, VEGA Deutschland and VEGA France.

Operating as SELEX Systems Integration outside of Germany and France, our dedicated Training Solutions team represents nearly two decades’ experience defining, developing, and managing through-life military training solutions to improve organizational performance.

SELEX Systems Integration brings together best-of-breed capability offered by independent commercial partners with the latest technological developments from across the Finmeccanica group, enabling clients to transform their training and achieve their operational objectives.

About Forterra Systems

Forterra Systems is a leader in providing enterprise grade virtual world technology for the corporate, healthcare, government, education, and entertainment industries. Forterra's software and services enable organizations to collaborate, train, rehearse, and hold events using existing media technologies integrated into a compelling 3D virtual world. Using the OLIVE platform and industry standard PC hardware, customers can rapidly generate realistic, collaborative, 3D Internet solutions that scale from small team applications to large scale simulated environments supporting many thousands of concurrent users for public and private use cases.

About Ambient Performance

Ambient Performance specializes in enterprise virtual world applications with deep experience implementing and supporting emerging online training and collaboration tools. Ambient is the European distributor and service provider for Forterra Systems OLIVE virtual world platform with clients in the Government, Corporate and Higher Education sectors.

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Upcoming Games For Change Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:18:00 PDT

Serious Games challenging us to play a better future

Via: Games For Change

Hosted in New York City by Parsons The New School for Design, the 6th annual Games for Change Festival will take place May 27 – 29, 2009.

From May 27th-29th, this unique event celebrates the power of video games to motivate social change in areas from the environment to public health

Called "the Sundance of video games" for "socially-responsible game-makers", this unique event, that celebrates the power of video games to motivate social change in areas from the environment to public health, will explore real-world impact, latest games, and funding strategies.

The Annual Games for Change Festival brings together the world’s leading foundations, NGOs, game-makers, academics, and journalists to explore how best to harness this incredibly powerful medium to help address the most critical issues of our day, from poverty, climate change, global conﬂicts, to human rights.
Festival highlights include opening keynote by Pulitzer-Prize winning author and world-changing New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof; fireside chat with preeminent games and learning scholars Jim Gee and Henry Jenkins; an interactive game design session by leading game designer Eric Zimmerman; and a closing keynote by Lucy Bradshaw, Executive Producer of Spore, and one of the 10 Most Influential Women In Games (find the finalized program here).

This year it will also be featuring the first-ever Newsgame Award at the Expo Night on May 28th, sponsored by the Knight Foundation, an evening games Expo and reception where attendees can play these new games ﬁrst-hand and watch the awards ceremony, where the best news games from the past several years will be recognized.

Back by popular demand "Let the Games Begin: 101 Workshop on Making Social Issue Games", the pre-festival day-long workshop for newbies on May 27th! (2008 MacArthur Foundation's DML Competition award-winner). This workshop is a tutorial on the fundamentals of social issue games. Vital to those who are new to designing learning games but passionate about social issues, the workshop features leading experts on game design, fundraising, evaluation, youth participation, distribution, and press strategies.

About Games For Change (G4C)

Games for Change (G4C) provides support, visibility and shared resources to individuals and organizations using digital games for social change.They provide special assistance to foundations and non-profits entering the field. Today, G4C acts as a national hub to help organizations network and develop videogame projects beyond their traditional expertise. G4C members represent hundreds of organizations and include partners in the games industry, academia, nonprofits, local and state governments, foundations, the UN and artists.

Games for Change operates under the fiscal auspices of Digital Innovations Group, Inc., a New York-based 501(c)3 think tank that encourages and supports innovation on the Web, with a special emphasis on developing the potential of the medium to bring people together to explore both personal and public issues in powerful and transforming ways.

Previous on Games For Change:

Serious Games Toolkit By Games 4 Change
AMD Changing The Game With Serious Games
Imagine Cup Winners: Serious Games For A Greener World
Environmentally Themed Serious Games via Xbox Live
Serious Games To Foster National Dialogue About Judiciary System
2007 G4C: Serious Games For Social Change
Serious Games For Global Problem-Solving

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Serious Games For Responsive Healing

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:14:00 PDT

Serious Games delivering better patient care

Via: Apple iPhone in Enterprise - Doylestown Hospital Always on Call: iPhone 3G

A community medical center near Philadelphia, Doylestown Hospital relies on a mobile workforce of 360 independent physicians to provide a highly responsive healing environment for thousands of patients.

Those physicians stay connected 24/7 to colleagues and hospital staff with their first responder: Apple iPhone 3G. With iPhone, doctors get access to patients' vital stats, medical reference applications, and breaking health alerts to provide collaborative and efficient patient care.

Like most healthcare providers, Doylestown Hospital has an inherently mobile workforce. And for years, the hospital's IT team searched for the right portable communications tool: a multi-function, indispensable device that provides real-time information to community physicians.

"Physicians need something that is a beeper and cell phone, and that allows them to get messages and information about patients," explains Dr. Scott Levy, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer. Physicians also need on-the-fly access to patient and clinical data stored in the hospital's databases.

To meet these requirements, Doylestown prescribed iPhone for its doctors and staff. Moving to iPhone offers Doylestown doctors immediate time-savings benefits and productivity gains. Physicians no longer have to rely solely on patient charts or hospital computers to access information; instead, they can use iPhone to retrieve the data wherever they are. "iPhone offers a major workflow improvement for our physicians," says Rick Lang, Doylestown's Vice President and Chief Information Officer.

Finger on the Pulse

iPhone became an instant favorite among Doylestown physicians, in part due to its ease of use. The IT department can activate each physician's iPhone in less than five minutes, and doctors have no trouble learning to use their new phones. "iPhone is so intuitive that we have never trained doctors how to get information," Lang says.

Doylestown physicians rely on iPhone features like push email, calendar, and contacts from Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. In fact, a vital part of their workflow is using push email on iPhone to receive the hospital's time-sensitive email alerts.

The Doylestown team appreciates iPhone's crystal-clear voice capabilities as well. With some smart phones, voice clarity is an issue, and entering phone numbers can be time-consuming for busy doctors, Levy says. "But iPhone is just the opposite. It's a really good phone."

And with the help of repeaters, mobile users have consistent cellular service on iPhone anywhere in the hospital, including ICU, so they can be on call and available around the clock.

Secure Links to Vital

One reason for the enthusiastic adoption of iPhone at Doylestown is its ability to give doctors secure mobile access to the hospital's electronic medical records system, MEDITECH Client/Server 6.0. "Literally anywhere a physician is in the world, as long as that doctor has secure access to the Safari browser on iPhone, they can access patient information," says Levy.

Using iPhone and MEDITECH, doctors can see everything needed for patient care, including vital signs, medications, lab results, allergies, nurses' notes, therapy results, and even information about patient diet. "Every dictated report from every specialist, or any radiographic image the patient has ever had, is available on iPhone," says Levy. "The iPhone has been remarkable in a lot of ways. The capability to download clinical information in real time has been very powerful."

Since physicians access MEDITECH only through Safari, Doylestown IT can set the same high level of secure authentication and audit-trail security on iPhone that they maintain with all Web-based medical records applications. Information is stored on the server, so confidential information stays secure.

Point-of-Care Assistant

iPhone also makes a positive impact at patient point-of-care, helping physicians quickly answer questions and make a well-informed diagnosis. Doylestown doctors access iPhone medical reference applications such as Epocrates Essentials to help explain diseases, interpret lab results, and provide drug information right at the patient's bedside. If a patient is concerned about interactions between multiple drugs, the doctor can quickly double-check the medications with the Epocrates app.

"Anything that improves healthcare ultimately helps patients," Levy says. "With more applications and more iPhone use, we've seen clear, noticeable improvements in patient care."

The superior image and wide screen of iPhone help Doylestown doctors explain surgical procedures to patients, enhancing overall doctor-patient communication. Patients appreciate seeing a visual indicator of what the doctor plans to do. "The question used to be, 'How do you have something that fits in your pocket, but is large enough to view the information you need?'" says Levy. "With iPhone, doctors can magnify and get a virtual screen of any size."

At bedside and beyond, iPhone helps the Doylestown medical team work more efficiently, improving communications not only between doctors, but throughout the local healthcare community. Above all, iPhone enables Doylestown physicians to deliver better patient care.

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Serious Gaming With Geocaching @ School

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Sun, 10 May 2009 19:53:00 PDT

Serious Games creating meaningful learning activities

Via: GPS-Receivers – Geocaching and Educational Applications

A GPS device and a hunger for adventure are all you need for high tech treasure hunting.

At www.geocaching.com, you will find the latest treasures, or “caches,” in your area, how to hide your own cache, and information on how to get started in this fun and exciting sport.

Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for Global Positioning Systems (GPS) users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of GPS receivers. Educators could hide geocaches with their students right on the school grounds!

Individuals and organizations have set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the Internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they take something from the cache, they should try to leave something for the cache.

The word “Geocaching” represents geo for geography, and caching for the process of hiding a cache. A cache is used in hiking, exploring, and camping as a hiding place for concealing and preserving provisions.

GPS is all around us: Archaeologists use GPS to mark dig sites and specific artifacts within them, historians use GPS to map historic sites, military historians use GPS to mark troop movements on battlefields, genealogists use GPS to mark gravesites and abandoned cemeteries, cartographers use GPS for mapmaking, E-911 crews use GPS to find accidents and residences, utilities personnel use GPS to map and plan gas and electric lines, and thousands more applications exist.

What better way to have students conduct field investigations than by using the same tool that these scientists, engineers, and other professionals use everyday on the job?

As of early 2006, there were 250,000 active caches in 221 countries. During a recent week, over 172,000 new logs were written by 27,000 account holders.

Educational Applications

Students can learn about the following through Geocaching:

Geography - coordinate systems (latitude and longitude, and other coordinate systems such as UTM and state plane), maps, and become familiar with the school grounds, local area, or region.

Mathematics -angles, distances, triangulation, and direction.

Field Work - How to work in the field and collect meaningful data.

The NYGPS mail group, created in 2001, was originally intended for New York State educators who are exploring the use of GPS and the Internet for math, science, and social studies instruction

They later expanded to include all teachers, college faculty, and professional GPS users who are interested in this topic. Their goal is to create meaningful learning activities for students. They work to build a community of educators who are integrating the use of GPS and mapping technology into their state curricula for math, science and social studies. The learning activities that result will inherently address many national and NYS learning standards.

They intend that through the use of GPS and mapping technology, students will practice the vital language arts and communication skills they will need to complete hands-on, inquiry-based, collaborative projects involving higher order thinking skills.

Via: Environment Canada - Geocache Your Watershed – A Guide for High-Schools

“Geocache Your Watershed” is an innovative pilot project from Environment Canada (EC) that involves the use of an existing adventure game for Global Positioning System (GPS) users known as “Geocaching” as a tool for promoting the discovery of local watersheds and exploring the importance of fresh, clean, safe water

A watershed is an area of land that water flows across or through on its way to a particular water body, such as a stream, river, wetland or coast. Think of it as the land upon which precipitation (such as rain) falls and flows to a common, watery place. No matter where you live, work or play, you are in a watershed!
Canada has five main watersheds: the Arctic, the Atlantic (which includes the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River), Hudson Bay, the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico. Each of these massive landscapes contains a network of subwatersheds, most of which are connected through configurations of tributaries (streams and rivers) that channel water to an ocean. Canada is subdivided into 594 subwatersheds.

With this project, high school students and teachers and the public in general are encouraged to research their local watersheds and develop information pamphlets that will be made available through existing or new caches registered with www.geocaching.com.

“Geocache Your Watershed” began as a pilot project in the fall of 2006 with four schools across Canada participating. Since then, the project has expanded to include one high school in every province in Canada.
The ultimate goal would be to have a participating high school in every watershed in Canada.

Using GPS devices, they will create geocaches in their area and include the information pamphlets they have created. This knowledge will then be transferred, by way of geocaching, to the public who visit this watershed location.

Find more about the project at Guide for Schools (pdf 1MB).

About Geocaching

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, and outdoors.

In fact, Geocaching is a game of hiding and seeking treasure. A geocacher can place a geocache in the world, pinpoint its location using GPS technology and then share the geocache's existence and location online. Anyone with a GPS device can then try to locate the geocache.

Easy Steps to Geocaching

Register for a free membership.
Click "Hide & Seek a Cache."
Enter your postal code and click "search."
Choose any geocache from the list and click on its name.
Enter the coordinates of the geocache into your GPS Device.
Use your GPS device to assist you in finding the hidden geocache.
Sign the logbook and return the geocache to its original location.
Share your geocaching stories and photos online.

Sharing Your Experience

If you new to geocaching, here are steps to help you get started with logging your finds and uploading photos from your geocaching adventures.

Visit geocaching.com and log in using your username and password.
Visit the geocache detail page for the geocache you found.
On the top-right corner of the page, click 'log your visit'.
From the 'Type of log' drop-down menu, select 'Found it'.
Enter the date of your geocache find.
Enter any comments you wish to share with the owner and/or community regarding your find.
Select any trackable items (from the inventory box) that you dropped off in the geocache with your find.
Click 'Submit log entry'
After you hit 'submit log entry' on your geocache find, click 'upload a photo.'

Groundspeak's Geocaching iPhone Application

Recently, GroundSpeak, the organization behind the Geocaching.com site has released a Geocaching iPhone app.

The iPhone 3G uses a combination of GPS, Wi-Fi positioning and cell towers to determine your approximate location. Groundspeak's iPhone Application then queries the Geocaching.com database in real-time and provides a list of geocaches near you. The application can also geocode addresses, search using a location from your address book, or look up a geocache by its GC code.

Geocaching Application Screenshots

Find Caches ------------- Search Results

Result Map ------------- Cache Info Map

Geocache Details --------- Map Navigation

Compass Navigation ------ Trackable Items

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LEEF09: Serious Games For Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:01:00 PDT

Serious Games changing the way we work and play

Via: Learning and Entertainment Evolution Forum - 2009

LEEF 2009 will be held on June 18-19 at Harrisburg University, PA.

This is an interactive professional development event that will showcase the convergence of learning and entertainment technologies and explore the benefits of, and business case for, Games and Simulations for learning and performance.

Keynotes address will be delivered on June 18th by renowned author and simulation guru Clark Aldrich on "The Business and Learning Results of Games and Simulations" and on June 19th by Rick Van Sant and Julie Dirksen on "Playing with the Brain -The Impact of Brain Research on Game and Simulation Design".

Analysis and discussion of cutting-edge industry case studies, demonstrations of emerging, high-tech applications, and networking among diverse peers, this cross-industry event is designed to inspire innovation and introduce new knowledge and techniques.

LEEF brings together learning leaders, entertainment developers, designers of leading-edge technologies, business decision makers, creative entrepreneurs and researchers who are focused on using emerging tools and solutions to improve performance and enhance learning.

The program includes 2-hour case study sessions providing a high-level overview of the project, hands-on engagement , and group analysis of how to apply the project's best practices and lessons learned to other scenarios. Specifically they shall cover measures to identify evidence of changed behavior and outcomes, and the project's return on investment.

Featured Case Studies announced:

ACS Learning Services - Consultative Sales in a Virtual World

Center for Advanced Transportation Technology (CATT Laboratory),University of Maryland and Forterra Systems, IncI-95 Corridor Coalition - Virtual Incident Management Training

Deep End Interactive- Winds of Orbis: An Active-Adventure

Enspire Learning - Celebrity Calamity: Teaching Personal Finance through Games
ExperiencePoint -Lakeview Change Management Simulation

Humentum - US Sales and Marketing Policy Simulation

NexLearn, LLC - Essential Leadership Simulation Series

University of Maryland University College - Criminal Justice Simulations

US Army War College- Military Global Distribution Game

ViaVivo, Inc.- Developing Entrepreneurship with Serious Games

Visual Purple, LLC - Winning in Wireless, CEO Simulation in a Virtual World

Fees and Registration Form can be found at http://www.leef2009.net/

Sign up for e-mail updates to receive more information as the program is finalized.

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Dental Serious Games with 3D Touch

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Fri, 08 May 2009 10:54:00 PDT

Serious Games bring sense of touch to medical training

Via: Novint Technologies and UIC Computer Vision & Robotics Lab

A Vision Of Dental Education In The Third Millennium

The sense of touch is crucial for medical and dental training. Many diagnostic, surgical and interventional procedures require that physicians train and utilize their sense of touch.

Simulation of a dental procedure is not new, but the pace of development of haptic devices has not always been matched by research into the educational effectiveness of these devices.

An evaluated approach comes from the PHANTOM project - Personalized Haptics when Teaching with Online Media, which aims to develop and evaluate haptic and synthetic online devices that will be used by a range of dental students and professionals to transform the quality of their learning.

A multidisciplinary team drawn from cybernetics, technology innovation, education, sociology and dentistry are investigating the impact of using such devices.

PHANTOM prototype using a Novint Falcon haptic device with 3D visualisation through a stereoscopic planar screen

Novint’s Haptic Technology – Teaching With Touch

Novint develops 3D haptic technology and products that enable people to experience a realistic sense of touch using their computer.

Using the 3D haptic interface device, the Novint Falcon, and patented 3D haptic software, computer users may feel 3D objects, feel their shapes and textures, feel the dynamic properties of objects, and feel many other effects.

Novint’s Advanced Products Group is building on Novint’s early success in the games market to build applications involving user interaction with 3D computer data, models or environments in other markets including medical and dental training.

Although haptic devices have been available for commercial applications for many years, these devices have historically cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Novint Falcon, which is designed as an affordable consumer controller, represents a significant advancement in the field of haptics, making high-fidelity 3D touch accessible to the consumer market for the first time.

The Novint Falcon is a first-of-a-kind game controller that lets you experience realistic 3D touch and force feedback when playing touch-enabled games

Virtual Reality Dental Training System (VRDTS)

Novint worked with the Harvard School of Dental Medicine to develop VRDTS (Virtual Reality Dental Training System) - the dental training simulator that utilizes a 3 dimensional haptic interface, enabling students to practice a variety of procedures on the computer.

Cavity Preparation Trainer

During training, a dental student must learn to control surgical instruments very precisely, and develop a sophisticated feel for the interaction of these instruments with patient anatomy. Yet today, most dental students learn basic procedures with plastic teeth, hardly the best way to learn how to operate on live patients. Furthermore, with these traditional training methods, it is nearly impossible to quantify a student's proficiency.

To address these shortcomings, Novint is developing a family of e-Touch Dental Simulators which incorporate a very life-like sense of touch, as well as 3D graphics and sound, to provide dental schools with realistic and quantifiable training systems.

Using VRDTS dental students work with a virtual decayed tooth and learn to probe it for diagnosis, use a drill to prepare a tooth for cavity repair, fill the prepared cavity with amalgam and carve the amalgam to match the original tooth contour. Unlike plastic teeth, VRDTS enables the student to feel the difference between enamel, dentin, caries, amalgam and pulp throughout the procedure.

The student's operation can be tracked precisely in real time, providing quantifiable feedback to both student and teacher.

Lastly, since the entire process is virtual, the student has the ability to zoom, rotate and even cut the tooth in cross section to better understand the process. VRDTS offers the student the opportunity to practice procedures as often as needed, with no additional cost for materials.

PerioSim Force Feedback Dental Simulator

A group of dental and dental hygiene students at the University of Illinois at Chicago pick up instruments and prepare to begin a procedure. In their hands, their tools gently rub against the teeth and underneath the gums, feeling for calculi on the tooth root, measuring pocket depth, and searching for periodontal abnormalities.

These students, however, are not practicing on patients. They're using a computer equipped with a 3-D training system to improve their skills.

Researchers at UIC's colleges of dentistry and engineering are collaborating to develop a life-like training simulator called PerioSim, which uses haptic virtual reality technology.

Over the past several years, dentistry has begun using simulators to train students, but the programs traditionally use tracker technology, not haptics, said Dr. Arnold Steinberg, professor of periodontics at UIC and project leader.

With the PerioSim, students guide a stylus on-screen that resembles an explorer -- a sharp, pointed instrument used by dentists during an examination. They can feel life-like tactile sensations as they navigate through various procedures.

The device also provides a way for professionals and students to further refine their skills even after having experience with patients, he said.

Students can access PerioSim via the Internet. A realistic 3-D human mouth is shown in real-time, and the user can adjust the model position, viewpoint and transparency level.

The haptic device allows the student to feel the sensations in the virtual mouth, and a control panel lets the user choose different procedures to practice and instruments to use, Steinberg said.

The system allows instructors to create short scenarios of periodontal procedures, which can be saved and replayed at any time. The 3-D component permits students to replay from any angle, so the user can observe different views of the placement of the instrument and gingival relationships during a procedure, Steinberg said.

The recorded file can be viewed on any personal computer, and while not in 3-D, it is an actual representation of the original scenario, which offers great training potential, Steinberg said.

The program also allows for a second playback mode, where an instructor leads the trainee through the program. By simply holding onto the haptic stylus, the trainee receives the same sensations felt by the instructor.

About Novint

Novint Technologies, Inc. (NVNT) is the pioneer of 3D touch for consumer computing.

Novint is developing a new category of products that add high-fidelity interactive three-dimensional touch to computing, beginning with its introduction of the award-winning Novint Falcon.

Novint’s sense of touch connects us to the world around us and is an integral part of how we experience things, both physically and emotionally.

Games have incorporated increasingly sophisticated graphics and sound design, but none have added realistic touch. In the past, the expense of 3D touch (haptic) hardware made the technology cost-prohibitive, but the Novint Falcon, which is, in essence, a small robot is designed to be an affordable consumer device. The Falcon allows players to feel weight, shape, texture, dimension, dynamics and force feedback. Using the Falcon, players feel a character’s actions instead of controlling a game through mouse clicks or meters. Players feel the weight of a basketball as they shoot it towards a hoop – the momentum and impact as they swing a virtual golf club and strike a ball – the recoil of a weapon – or the characteristics of virtual objects and environments, making gameplay more natural and realistic.

Novint is uniquely qualified to bring this revolutionary technology to market. As a leading developer of commercial touch applications, Novint has worked with clients including Lockheed Martin, Chrysler, Chevron, Mobil, Aramco, and Harvard University.

Based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Novint has an exclusive worldwide license to over five years of pioneering research from Sandia National Laboratories, which developed some of the first 3D touch software in the world, and has developed the only low-cost (sub $1000) high-fidelity hardware solution available for consumer or commercial applications.

For the complete Falcon development background please visit The Falcon Has Landed article, from Business Week.

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Farmers Insurance Embraces IBM's Serious Game

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Mon, 04 May 2009 21:13:00 PDT

Serious Games changing the way we work and play

IBM is announcing that Farmers Insurance will be piloting its newest Serious Game - Innov8 2.0 - to train 11,500 employees on call center management themes.

Here is the today's press release:

Farmers Insurance Embraces IBM's Newest "Serious Game" Innov8 2.0 for Employee Training to Optimize Call Centers and Customer Service

LAS VEGAS, Nev., May 5, 2009 – IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that the University of Farmers, Claims – which serves some 11,500 Farmers Insurance Exchange claims employees nationwide – is piloting the IBM "Serious Game" Innov8 2.0 for students at its corporate university and employees at the Farmers HelpPoint call centers. As part of a comprehensive training program, Innov8 2.0 will be used to give employees a hands-on experience in processing claims and managing customer calls to streamline the company's business process and deliver top-notch customer service.

“We see serious gaming as an ideal delivery system for a number of learning opportunities, so these are just the first two areas in which we plan to deploy this technology,” said Mike Cuffe, vice president of learning at the UofF, Claims. In the initial phases of piloting Innov8 2.0 Farmers is testing Innov8 2.0 for its effectiveness as a learning tool with Farmers HelpPoint call center employees, and as a consumer education tool on Farmers.com website.

IBM's Innov8 2.0 is a 3D simulation game based on real-world business scenarios presented in a compelling game format that challenge players to come up solutions that drive results for both the company and the customers they serve. Among others, the challenges include those involving call center management and answering customer issues, optimizing a company's supply chain and addressing a variety of issues such as eliminating congestion on roadways.

The UofF, Claims, will be using the Innov8 2.0 call center simulation for training on automotive, home and specialty lines insurance claims processing as part of its award-winning curriculum.

Based in Agoura Hills, Calif., the University of Farmers is a 120,000-square-foot facility that includes a two-story mock home, a 20,000-square-foot auto bay, and eight Claims classrooms, including a live branch claims office environment. The facility delivers an immersive learning experience that helps Farmers claims representatives, both new-hire and incumbent, develop and refine their skills at customer-centric policy coverage determination, claims investigation and estimating.

The UofF, Claims, supports the development of every new claims representative from across the country in regularly scheduled, two-week-long, onsite line-of-business training sessions, and delivers additional learning via field instruction and online learning. It also hosts a wide range of intermediate and advanced courses for its 9,000-person Claims field force, both onsite and online. And it offers a comprehensive three-level Leadership Development program, designed to prepare Claims employees for advancement opportunities enterprise-wide.

As the nation’s third largest personal insurer, Farmers receives more than 3.75 million claims a year – which equates to 10,274 claims a day, 428 an hour, or 7 per minute. Its Claims employees log more than 95 million miles in some 6,000 company vehicles, and its 3,000 Farmers HelpPoint call center employees respond to more than 5.5 million customer calls each year.

“Customer-focused, accurate and timely claims processing is critical to our company’s bottom line,” Cuffe said. “Since my team redesigned Farmers Claims’ curriculum to give it a learn-by-doing focus, our employees now achieve competence more quickly, serve our customers more effectively and compassionately, and are better prepared for advancement opportunities.”

Using its advanced training model, Farmers has reduced the new-hire training period from three months to two, and the on-campus component of that process from three weeks to two. Claims representatives’ file quality and customer satisfaction scores have increased steadily year over year. The immersive training fully prepares employees for both required certification processes and promotional opportunities.

“As a leader in SOA & BPM, we are committed to developing skills in these critical areas. We are seeing exponential growth in the serious games market. These games are being used to introduce new skills, evaluate business performance and develop leadership capabilities,” said Sandy Carter, vice president of SOA, BPM and WebSphere at IBM. “The UofF, Claims, is at the forefront of developing a highly-effective training model within a compelling game format leveraging Innov8 2.0.”

Based on the success of the original version of Innov8 and its widespread adoption at university business schools worldwide, the new version of the game has been re-designed for corporate environments, including new scenarios and a global collaboration feature with virtual teammates.

The online version of Innov8 2.0 is fully available today on for free download by IBM business partners and customers. The new version of the game now features scoring, web-based play and three new scenarios. First introduced in November 2007, the original version of Innov8 is being used as a teaching tool delivered in a one-hour session to supplement courses like Business Process Management, Corporate Strategies, Operations and IT management. Available through the IBM Academic Initiative more than 1,000 universities including USC, Manchester School of Business (United Kingdom) and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh are using Innov8.

Farmers Insurance Exchange is part of Zurich Financial Services, an insurance-based financial services provider with a global network of subsidiaries and offices in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and other markets. Farmers(R) is the third-largest personal lines property and casualty insurance group in America.

For more information about Innov8 2.0 please visit www.ibm.com/innov

Previous on INNOV8:

IBM’s New Version Of BPM Serious Game

IBM Introduces Serious Game To Develop Business Skills

Serious Games For Improving Business Process Management

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Serious Games & The Future Of Learning

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Fri, 01 May 2009 17:26:00 PDT

Serious Games as rule-based learning systems

Via: RC/A Digital Media - The Future of Learning

Richard Carrey reports on his latest post that, beginning this September, New York City will be home to Quest to Learn, one of the most innovative 6-12th grade public schools in the country.

Future Learning Now

Created in collaboration with New Visions for Public Schools and the Institute of Play, Quest is a translation of the underlying form of games into a powerful pedagogical model for its 6-12th graders.

Games work as rule-based learning systems, creating worlds in which players actively participate, use strategic thinking to make choices, solve complex problems, seek content knowledge, receive constant feedback, and consider the point of view of others.

As is the case with many of the games played by young people today, Quest is designed to enable students to “take on” the identities and behaviors of explorers, mathematicians, historians, writers, and evolutionary biologists as they work through a dynamic, challenge-based curriculum with content-rich questing to learn at its core.

Quest fosters the type of learning that is possible today—learning based on access to online resources and tools from around the globe, learning that supports customized content for every student on demand, learning that is game-like in its ability to inspire and motivate.

It’s important to note that Quest is not a school whose curriculum is made up of the play of commercial videogames, but rather a school that uses the underlying design principles of games to create highly immersive, game-like learning experiences for students. Games and other forms of digital media also model the complexity and promise of “systems.” Understanding and accounting for this complexity is a fundamental literacy of the 21st century.

The school’s learning model is carefully designed to enable all students, regardless of any academic challenges they bring, to contribute to the design and innovation necessary to meet the needs and demands of a global society. At Quest, a curiosity for learning paired with a commitment to social responsibility and respect for others defines the school culture. "Learn how, learn now," is their motto.

Design and innovation are at the heart of Quest to Learn (Q2L), a school committed to helping every student to achieve excellence in the skills and literacies necessary for college and career readiness. They believe that students today can and do learn in different ways, often through interaction with digital media and games. Q2L builds on this belief to create a nurturing and vibrant 6th-12th grade school environment that supports all students in the pursuit of academic excellence, social responsibility, respect for others, and a passion for lifelong learning.

Via: New York Post – School Is All Play

By REBECCA ROSENBERG and YOAV GONEN

Don't forget to play your homework!

A first-of-its-kind Manhattan public school will use video games to engage kids in learning the basics of math, reading and science.

Quest to Learn opens this fall with a class of 81 sixth-graders and will expand to become a high school. It's a place where programming will be taught as a foreign language and role playing will be a technique for exploring history.

Students will also regularly use digital media like blogs, the video-link program Skype and a custom-made social networking site to create projects and share their ideas with their classmates. "This is the first school that philosophically is looking at the structure of games as a kind of learning model," said Katie Salen, 41, director of the nonprofit Institute of Play and a founder of the school.

Salen was quick to dismiss the notion that kids would be sitting around with laptops playing video games, but added that "there are a set of games we think are interesting for kids to play in relation to what's happening in the classroom."

One of those games is "Civilization," a computer-based strategy game where students build an empire. Teachers would weave in history lessons about Mesopotamia or ancient Greece to help guide kids' strategies, Salen said.

As the school grows through the 12th grade, its founders hope to begin using cellphones for lessons on mapping and to turn the Nintendo DS into a learning tool. "They're building content and curriculum around the kinds of devices that kids use in their everyday life anyway," said Steve Dowling, a vice president of the educational-publishing firm Pearson, which is supporting the school.

Still without a site, Quest to Learn - nicknamed Q2L - is expected to open near the New School University in Greenwich Village.

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Serious Games Address Binge Drinking Danger

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:40:00 PDT

Serious Gaming for behavioral change

Via: JeuxSerieux.fr - L’actualité du Serious Games

Founded in 2002, Succubus Interactive is specialized in Serious Games, Advergames and 3D animation. The company also acts as a video game technology supplier.

Their latest Serious Game, Secret Happy Night, was developed in partnership with the communication agency Double Mixte, on behalf of Nantes Health Department.

The game is part of a major campaign to fight against hyper alcoholization among 16-25 year olds that was launched in Loire-Atlantique in 2007. “Drinking yes, but not too much!” is the message sent to young people.

Happy Night is a point & click adventure game which is being used to convey awareness messages about the danger of binge drinking.

“In order to pursue and enforce the prevention program settled by the Health Department, the commissioning of a Serious Game became an obvious option considering the complexity of the subject and the average age of the target audience” reported Nadya Jahan, Head of Business Development at Succubus Interactive.

The Storyline

You name is Jacques Baveur, one of the most efficient agents for ASPE - the Pan-European Security Agency. You are tailing a dangerous smuggler who seems to be involved in a large scale conspiracy. It’s nearly 22:00 PM, on the 3rd of April 2028, when your tracking brings you to the Happy Night club. The smuggler just gets inside and it’s now up to you to expose all his dark secrets.

Leading a real police investigation, the player must control his/her and others’ alcohol over consumption. The risks of hyper alcoholization and the need for responsible behavior appear as recurring themes during gameplay.

About Succubus Interactive

Based in Nantes and Lyon, the company is composed of experts in Flash animation, game design and real-time 3D technologies.

Originated from the demanding videogame industry, Succubus Interactive masters the latest tools and technologies and has heavily invested in the development of its own 3D engine called "Rubytech".

Detaining many key accounts (DCNS, Ferrero, Elmex-Colgate, Saunier Duval) and providing services to prestigious communication agencies (G & A, by IC'COM, Artiss, Efferv&Sens), Succubus Interactive has positioned itself in the Serious Games Market by producing "Virtual Kitchen" in 2004, commissioned by the Institute for Visually Impaired People (I.P.H.V.).

Their website http://www.jeuxserieux.fr/, launched in March 2009, provides an opportunity for Internet users to test some of the games produced by the company.

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G4H 2009: Serious Gaming With HumanSim

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:52:00 PDT

Serious Games for medical education

Via: Games For Health - Sessions at Games For Health 2009

Games for Health Session - HumanSim: A Platform For Virtual Patients For Games And Simulations

Speaker: Randy Brown, Virtual Heroes

Session Description

HumanSim is a platform for medical training and education that is under development at Cary, NC based Virtual Heroes.

During this session, Virtual Heroes will provide a complete breakdown of their system and how it can be used to power games that are about human physiology and virtual patients. Attendees to this session will not only learn about HumanSim itself but the challenges of creating games that have simulative virtual patients. Furthermore, attendees to the session will have the opportunity to provide guidance and feedback to how Virtual Heroes might best make this technology available to other game developers and medical simulation specialists who wish to build their own applications utilizing the APIs and algorithms that power HumanSim.

HumanSim Background

HumanSim™ is a software simulation PLATFORM that provides enhanced initial, refresher and sustained medical education and training.

HumanSim™ enables health care professionals to sharpen their assessment and decision-making skills without risk to patients in realistic, challenging, immersive environments.

Virtual Heroes has created HumanSim by taking a most advanced game technology and integrating it with a high-fidelity physiologic- pharmacologic model for an unprecedented immersive learning experience. HumanSim provides training-to-proficiency in rare, complicated or otherwise error-prone tasks. Target users include: Physicians, Nurses, Emergency medical personnel, Clinical students/residents, Emergency services organizations, and Healthcare education institutions

HumanSim addresses the following healthcare education needs:

Initial patient assessment
Measurement of clinical competence
Cognitive and clinical performance under stress
Immediate feedback using digital after-action-review (AAR) system
Statistics tracking system linked through AAR to Learning Management System (LMS)
Team Training and Cross Training (e.g. pediatric and adult care staff)
Practice of new or complicated skills or technologies without endangering patient health or safety
Dynamic Virtual Human Technology™ using embedded physiologic-pharmacologic model provides real-time, patient state transitions based on user inputs
Learning modules include defined learning objectives and instructor notes for self paced individual instruction or team training
Response to rare conditions or events
Management of emergency situation

Latest On Virtual Heroes and HumanSim

DURHAM, Apr 17, 2009

Virtual Heroes, a Durham-based game development company specializing in educational simulation programs, has been acquired by privately held Applied Research Associates (ARA) for an undisclosed amount, the companies announced mid April.

Headquartered in Albuquerque, N.M., and with its Southeast division based in North Raleigh, ARA has more than 1,200 people worldwide and provides research and engineering services for commercial clients and federal agencies.

ARA said in its announcement of the acquisition that it plans on further investing in Virtual Heroes' Advanced Learning Technology platform, in particular its HumanSim technology.

"This investment will enable us to provide a broader array of solutions and services to our expanding customer base in the rapidly growing training and simulation market," said ARA CEO Neil Higgins in a statement.

Virtual Heroes, founded in 2004 by CEO Jerry Heneghan, has worked with Nortel Networks Corp., Duke Medical Center and federal agencies to deliver sophisticated, often photo-realistic training simulations using its ALT platform, which in turn is based on the Unreal Engine by another Triangle gaming company, Cary-based Epic Games.

The company had a net income of $5 million in 2008, according to Heneghan.

Virtual Heroes will retain its name and stay in its offices in southern Durham. The company also will keep its 41 employees while moving ahead with plans to hire five more game designers, programmers and project managers.

Allen York, Southeast division manager and vice president of ARA, said there is a natural fit between the core capabilities of the two companies, in particular when it comes to Virtual Heroes' experience in producing Serious Games.

"We had tried to get into Serious Games in various times in the past five years and haven't really been successfully organically, within the constraints of other business development initiatives," he said. "Since Virtual Heroes is local, we developed relationships with these folks years ago and ultimately started talking about merging."

ARA's Raleigh office employs about 130 people. The rest of ARA's Southeast division includes employees in Virginia and Santa Barbara, Calif. ARA has industrial certifications and a larger roster of clients that will benefit the rollout of Virtual Heroes products.

As a result of the acquisition, York said ARA will contribute more financial resources to HumanSim and ultimately play a role in marketing and distributing the product.

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Serious Games To Solve Crimes

noreply@blogger.com (Eliane Alhadeff) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 13:36:00 PDT

Solving crimes with forensic biology Serious Games

Via: Red Hill Studios – Have Fun Learning About DNA Analysis While Solving Real-World Cases

BioInvestigators is an online forensic biology game that challenges you to solve a series of mysteries using DNA analysis.

Each game simulates a real-world case that involves collecting and examining evidence and making conclusions about your findings - all within a 360° virtual lab environment.

Fun and educational, these games were originally designed as an online supplement for high school biology students. Now, popular appeal has broadened the audience of BioInvestigators to kids and adults outside of the classroom.

BioInvestigators consists of five online forensic science games. Each game is a simulated real-world case that challenges players on many levels as they solve crimes by gathering evidence and analyzing it in a virtual CSI lab.

Customized expert advisor characters are built into each case to guide students through the critical processes of sample preparation and genetic analysis. Students must also support their conclusions with relevant evidence. This web-delivered experience is designed to supplement high school biology and to attract students to a possible career within the forensic sciences.

These educational games, funded by the National Institutes of Health, employ the latest in Flash technology and will support an unlimited number of unique cases for students to solve. Each case is designed to be completed within one class period (or within approximately 35-40 minutes).

Get your first game code for free at the store!

Murder in the Desert

Check the Free Demo box, register, receive your code via email and start playing!

“The Phoenix police department found the body of a woman near the intersection of Grant’s Pass and Windy Road. No identification was found on the victim, who appeared to have been strangled. A beeper was found at the scene, but the owner of the beeper denies having been there. Phoenix PD has seized the suspect’s truck.”

“You will need to analyze evidence from the suspect’s truck and the location where the body was found to definitively place the suspect at the scene of the crime”.

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