Serious Games bringing the Kinect technology into the operating room Da Vinci Surgical Robot--Soon to Be Kinectified January 18, 2011 A group of graduate engineering students have adapted Microsoft’s new Kinect technology for surgical robotics. The method involves using the Kinect — an array of cameras and sensors that allow videogame users to control their Xbox 360s with their bodies — to give surgeons force feedback when using tools to perform robotic surgery. “For robotics-assisted surgeries, the surgeon has no sense of touch right now,” said Howard Chizeck, UW professor of electrical engineering. “What we’re doing is using that sense of touch to give information to the surgeon, like ‘You don’t want to go here." Currently, surgeons commonly use robotic tools for minimally invasive surgeries. Tubes with remotely controlled surgical instruments on the ends are inserted into the patient in order to minimize scarring. Surgeons control the instruments with input devices that resemble complex joysticks, and use tiny cameras in the tubes to see inside the patient. The problem is, however, that surgeons have no realistic way to feel what they are doing. If they move a surgical instrument into something solid, the instrument will stop but the joystick will keep moving. Electrical engineering graduate student Fredrik Ryden solved this problem by writing code that allowed the Kinect to map and react to environments in three dimensions, and send spatial information about that environment back to the user. This places electronic restrictions on where the tool can be moved; if the actual instrument hits a bone, the joystick that controls it stops moving. If the instrument moves along a bone, the joystick follows the same path. It is even possible to define off-limits areas to protect vital organs. Howard’s group came up with the idea of using a “depth camera,” a sensor that detects movement in three dimensions by measuring reflecting infrared radiation to automatically define those regions. At a meeting on a Friday afternoon in December, a team member suggested using the newly released Kinect. Before the idea to use a Kinect, a similar system would have cost around $50,000, Chizeck said. The project is part of a larger research effort at the electrical engineering department’s BioRobotics Lab to improve surgical robotic methods. The team hopes to integrate its feedback system into a collaboration of different systems. The team hopes to make surgical robotics reliable and practical enough for long-distance use, allowing doctors in major cities to easily perform surgeries on patients in small, isolated towns. Ryden said that a paper will soon be published about the research. In the meantime, the sensors will need to be scaled down to a size deemed appropriate for surgical use, and the resolution of the video will need to be increased before it is usable. Reach reporter Ryan Dunn at news at dailyuw.com. ## Serious Games Bringing The Kinect Technology Into The Operating Room Via: Winnipeg Free Press - Video Games in the OR? Doctors Say New Technology Makes Surgery More Efficient At the same time, doctors at a Toronto hospital are banking on video game technology to save time and prevent contamination in the operating room. A team at Sunnybrook Hospital has started using the Xbox Kinect to virtually manipulate key medical images during surgery. The doctors use hand gestures to zoom in and out of the images or freeze a particular shot without leaving the operating table. Surgeons typically have to leave the sterile field around the patient to pull up images such as MRI or CT scans on a nearby computer. They then have to go through a meticulous cleanup before returning to the area to make sure they don't bring in any bacteria that could harm the patient. It can take up to 20 minutes to clean up each time a doctor consults an image, said Dr. Calvin Law, who helped integrate the technology into the operating room. Those interruptions sometimes cause more than an hour's delay over the course of a surgery, said Law, a surgical oncologist with the hospital's gastrointestinal cancer team. By eliminating those delays, the hospital could save enough time to operate on more patients. What's more, it would help surgeons stay focused and decrease the risk of contamination by keeping everyone within the sterile field, he said. With better control over the images, surgeons can be more precise, Law said. For a cancer surgeon, that could mean saving more healthy tissue when removing a tumor, he said. The idea to bring the Kinect into the operating room came from three engineers — Jamie Tremaine, Greg Brigley and Matt Strickland. The console is a depth camera, meaning it sees in 3-D. It then creates a digital skeleton of the person captured on camera and tracks how the skeleton moves. Those motions are translated into commands. The engineers worked closely with surgeons at Sunnybrook to find command gestures that could be used in the operating room without compromising surgery procedures, Law said. The system underwent extensive testing and has been used in surgery six times, Law said. There are plans to roll it out in other parts of the hospital. They're also looking into ways to use the technology for physiotherapy.
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 Enlarge Image MICROSOFT You can go to Disneyland... sort of, with Xbox 360's Kinnect. LOS ANGELES -- Gamers, start saving your shekels. If this week's preview of upcoming video games is any indication, there's plenty to get excited about in the months and years to come. Roughly 45,000 members of the interactive entertainment industry made the annual pilgrimage to Los Angeles this week to attend E3 -- a.k.a. the Electronic Entertainment Expo -- to catch a glimpse at tomorrow's titles today. And so, after three exhausting days of traipsing through the world's biggest video game trade show, the following are some of the key highlights: Hot hardware Nintendo unveiled its next-generation video game console, Wii U, slated for a late 2012 launch. Gamers will use a 6.2-inch wireless touch screen to control the action -- be it swiping or tapping fingers, using the buttons and analog sticks or taking advantage of the built-in gyroscope to tilt the controller around. Think of it as an iPad meets a Nintendo Wii (but with high-definition graphics, too). For example, in a football game you can draw a play on the tablet, so that your opponent beside you doesn't see what you're planning. Or in an adventure game, you'll move your character around the virtual world on the television screen but have important info displayed on the Wii U screen, such as character stats, a mini-map, mission objectives, and so on. Or the tablet can show a different perspective of the same game. If someone in the family wants to watch TV, you can keep playing your Wii U game on the tablet. The console will also play older Nintendo Wii games. The tablet -- which also includes a camera, microphone and speaker -- is lightweight and comfortable, and the half-dozen games and other demos were a blast. No price or launch date has been announced yet. -- -- -- Sony also unveiled new hardware at the show. The PlayStation Vita will soon replace the Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP), bringing console-like graphics to a hand-held system for the first time. Be sure to check out Uncharted: Golden Abyss on YouTube. You can play games in one of four ways: via the 5-inch OLED touch screen, the back touch panel, various buttons and dual analog sticks, and a built-in gyroscope. The PSVita also boasts dual cameras, Internet connectivity, customizable apps, and the ability to chat with friends while playing online. The impressive new hand-held will go on sale in time for Christmas for $249.99 for the Wi-Fi version and $299.99 for the Wi-Fi + 3G version. Shoot now, ask questions later Action games were all the rage at this year's E3, including a number of first- and third-person shooters. Amassing much of the buzz at the show were sequels with a "3" in their name: Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Electronic Arts' Battlefield 3, Ubisoft's Far Cry 3, EA/BioWare's Mass Effect 3, Sony's Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception and Microsoft Game Studios' Gears of War 3. One of the most impressive shooters was 2K Games' BioShock Infinite, which is also the third game in the popular franchise. The wildly strange and imaginative action sequel takes place on a floating air city in an alternate 1912, as you attempt to rescue a mysterious young woman with uncontrollable powers. The stunningly detailed world, memorable characters and intense action sequences all adds to the immersive experience. The single-player adventure is slated for a 2012 launch on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. While not shooters, per se, other impressive action games at E3 include Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, Crystal Dynamics' reinvented Tomb Raider, Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Warner Bros.' Batman: Arkham City and EA/BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic. For the kiddies Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 might get all the press, but the California-based publisher likely has another monster hit on their hands -- for younger gamers. Out this holiday season for all major consoles and the PC, Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure is part toy, part video game. Players get three small action figures that, when placed on the "Portal of Power" -- a small disc that plugs into the video game machine's USB port -- unlocks that character inside the action role-playing game. There are roughly 30 action figures to collect in total, each with their own unique skills and abilities, and you can "level up" the in-game character over time. When you take your Skylanders figurine to someone else's Portal of Power -- even if it's on another console -- your character and all of its powers are teleported into the game. Microsoft also wowed attendees with the next batch of games that utilize the popular Kinect for Xbox 360 peripheral. Young kids will no doubt fall for the charm of Kinect Disneyland Adventures, where you can walk around the amusement park, take virtual photos with the Disney characters and engage in more than a dozen motion-sensing games (with a friend beside you, if you like). Also coming this fall for Kinect is Warner Bros.' Sesame Street: Once Upon A Monster, that uses the Kinect camera to allow kids to play around with Sesame Street characters. Winnipeg Free Press By: Marc Saltzman
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By: Derrik J. Lang, The Associated Press 
The new Nintendo Wii U gaming console is displayed on a video screen during a news conference at the E3 Gaming Convention in Los Angeles, Tuesday, June 7, 2011. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello) LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Nintendo has introduced the world to the Wii's touchy new big brother: the Wii U. The Japanese gaming giant on Tuesday unveiled the Wii video game console's successor, which will broadcast high-definition video and feature a touchscreen controller that can detect motion and interact with what appears on a television display. "Up until now, home console games had to occupy the TV screen in order to be played," said Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. "The new controller for Wii U, with its 6.2-inch screen built in, means you won't need to give up your gameplay when someone else comes in the room and wants to watch a TV program." The white touchscreen controller, reminiscent of Apple Inc.'s iPad and other tablet computers, can broadcast standard-definition video but also features a directional pad, microphone, dual analog sticks, speakers, two pairs of shoulder buttons and a front-facing camera, which can be used to make video calls. The console itself will use proprietary high-definition optical discs, 1080p HDMI output and internal memory that can be upgraded with USB and SD technology. No other technical specifications were provided. The prototype controller was demonstrated during the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the gaming industry's annual convention, in several ways: displaying a player's inventory in a "Legend of Zelda" game, offering an alternative way to play a chasing game, being used as a shield from incoming attacks in a first-person shooter game and showing the image of a teed-up golf ball on the ground before it was struck to a putting green depicted on a TV. The controller was also shown being used to browse the Internet both on a TV and the controller. Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America president, noted that the touchscreen controller is not meant to be a portable gaming device and that the system is dubbed the Wii U because its "unique, unifying and maybe even utopian." Nintendo said the Wii U will be released between April and December next year and will be backward-compatible with Wii games and controllers. "Smash Brothers," ''Darksiders II," ''Batman: Arkham City," ''Tekken," ''Assassin's Creed" and "Metro: Last Light" were among the titles announced that would be released for the system. The price for Wii U was not revealed. The unveiling of the Wii U comes after two years of slumping sales for Nintendo's Wii, which remains the overall top-selling home video game console against Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 and Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3. Those consoles already feature high-definition graphics and added motion-sensing capabilities similar to the Wii last year with their respective Kinect and Move camera systems.
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Musician and inventor Onyx Ashanti demonstrates "beatjazz" -- his music created with two handheld controllers, an iPhone and a mouthpiece, and played with the entire body. At TED's Full Spectrum Auditions, after locking in his beats and loops, he plays a 3-minute song that shares his vision for the future of music. Musician and inventor Onyx Ashanti demonstrates "beatjazz" -- his music created with two handheld controllers, an iPhone and a mouthpiece, and played with the entire body. At TED's Full Spectrum Auditions, after locking in his beats and loops, he plays a 3-minute song that shares his vision for the future of music. Original Article
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Attractors is a simple puzzle game developed by The Game Kitchen with AccessAble Games as accessibility advisor. The game have a special accessibility options: no time limit, ability to restart a level at any time, change game speed, one switch mode, microphone control mode, high contrast ...
You can play for free at: http://www.thegamekitchen.com/attractor/
Also, you can download it for place on our own web site. Iredia, Atram's Secret AccessAble Games sponsors and participates in "Video Game Conference on Translation and Virtual Worlds and Accessiblity" My Green City, an accessible and ecological video gameMy Green City is a game developed by The Game Kitchen, who has enjoyed the cooperation of Accessible Games to get a special design and accessibility options such a on button control mode high contrast, game speed settings... The game is based on Star Salmah's universe, you can play for free on the web: www.salmahstar.com (by clicking on an icon on the bottom of the page.) Switch Glove In Accessible Games we also work to create new solutions to make video games more accessible, either working with game developers and creating new accommodations for players, as is the case presented here. This is a glove with two small mesh, each in a finger, when you do contact equivalent to pressing a button. This glove is just one example of what can be done, because the mesh can be placed where you want, according to user needs.
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Promotional Games Promote your product from the best: making the audience have fun! Can you imagine your future customers spellbound for hours with your ad? Educational Video Games Video games are the ultimate learning tool, an efficient way of transmitting knowledge, and even to train certain skills. Social Games Maximize the dissemination of its message by taking advantage of social networks, through a video game. "Thousands of players at the same time? No problem for our infrastructure based on "the cloud." Any platform We work with all platforms so you can better reach their audience. Whether web, mobile and video game consoles, get it from reaching your goals.  
Site in Spanish
Site in English
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The 7th Annual Games for Health Conference in Boston, MA is May 17-19, now just over one week away!
Over three days we have scheduled over 100 talks covering a complete gamut of opportunities for videogames and videogame technologies in health and healthcare.
Registration fees will be rising soon. Register today and receive 10% off the current ticket price using the discount code BOST11.
To see schedules and register visit: http://bit.ly/gfh2011
FREE PASS OFFER
To see if you qualify for our free pass for sensor-based developers and researchers visit: http://bit.ly/mLR3De
CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS
Three days featuring 120+ speakers and over 80 talks, two networking receptions, contests, group activities, and more.
Day 1 Keynote
Positive Psychology -> Positive Computing -> Positive Videogames
Dr. Martin Seligman, The Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania
Day 2 Keynote
"The Last Mile Doesn't Have to be the Hardest: Solving Problems Between Games and Health"
Dr. Roni Zeiger, Google
Featured Talk
"Gaming Your Way to a Healthier Lifestyle" by Shellie Pfohl, Executive Director, The President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition
A games for health briefing by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
A panel on gamification ideas applied to various issues in health, including exercise, and healthy living
GameShare - A special project and presentation developed with Ben Heckendorn of BenHeck.com
To see the latest scheduled sessions please visit:
http://www.gamesforhealth.org/index.php/conferences/gfh-2011/sched201-block/
For up-to-date conference information please visit:
http://www.gamesforhealth.org/index.php/conferences/gfh-2011/
GAMES FOR HEALTH FEATURES THREE DAYS OF EVENTS...
May 17: Pre-conference Events & Workshops
May 18-19: 7th Annual Games for Health ConferenceMultiple tracks of great content including... - Open Content Tracks
- Exergaming & Active Gaming
- Cognitive & Emotional Health
- Sensorimotor Rehab
- Nutrition & Games
- Social Games & Virtual Worlds
- Sensor Games for Health
The 7th Annual Games for Health Conference is just over two weeks away. Registration fees will be rising soon. Register today and receive 10% off the current ticket price using the discount code BOS11. To see schedules and register visit: http://bit.ly/gfh2011 ABOUT GAMES FOR HEALTHFounded in 2004, the Games for Health Project supports community, knowledge, and business development effortsto use cutting-edge games and game technologies to improve health and health care. The Pioneer Portfolio of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundationis the lead conference sponsor and a major supporter of the Games for Health Project. To date, the project has brought together researchers, medical professionals, and game developersto share information about the impact games and game technologies can have on health, health care, and policy. A major effort of the Games for Health Project is the annual Games for Health Conference. Over three days, more than 400 attendees will participate in over 60 sessions provided by an international array of 80+ speakers, cutting across a wide range of activities in health and health care. Topics include exergaming, physical therapy, disease management, health behavior change, biofeedback, rehab, epidemiology, training, cognitive health, nutrition, and health education. The Games for Health Project is produced by the Serious GamesInitiative, a Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholarseffort that applies cutting-edge games and game technologies to a range of public and private policy, leadership, and management issues.
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posted Apr 13th 2011 2:01pm by Mike Nathan at hackaday.com 
The world can be a pretty difficult place to navigate when you lack the ability to see it. There are many visually impaired people across the globe, with some figures claiming up to 40 million individuals affected. While walking canes and seeing-eye dogs can be a huge help, [Anirudh] of Multimodal Interactions Group, HP Labs India, and some students at the College of Engineering in Pune, India (COEP) have been hard at work constructing a haptic navigation system for the blind. [Anirudh Sharma and Dushyant Mehta] debuted their haptic feedback shoe design during an MIT Media Lab Workshop hosted at COEP. In its current form, Google Maps and GPS data is sourced from an Android device, which is fed to an Arduino via Bluetooth. The Arduino then activates one of four LEDs mounted on a shoe insert that are used to indicate which direction the individual should travel in order to safely reach their destination. While the current iteration uses LEDs, they will be swapped out for small vibrating motors in the final build. We’re always fans of assistive technology hacks, and we think this one is great. The concept works well, as we have seen before, so it’s just a matter of getting this project refined and in the hands shoes of those who need it. Stick around for a quick video about the project filmed at the MIT/COEP event.
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Posted by Stephen Yang - www.exergamelab.org
 BLAZE and Fitness First have unveiled the U-Move nunchuk peripheral that has a pedometer built in that shows the number of steps you take while playing and it can also act as a Speed-Mediated ExerGaming - (SMEG) peripheral. According to the press release, the faster you move (jog in place), the faster your character goes. Now this concept is not new as we've seen Gamercize (MMEG), jOG [formerly New Concept Gaming and now currently Sciatech] (MMEG), Expresso Bike (SMEG) and slew of other examples in the ExerGaming Bike Bonanza Round-Up.
It would appear (until we have a teardown) that U-Move essentially uses the triaxial accelerometer in the nunchuk to activate the thumbstick on the Wii Mote. Now this looks to be the same mechanism as jOG has, and for some games I think it would be fun, but for FPS games I'm not so sure it works as well. I guess most serious FPS gamers aren't using a Wii ...but you never know.
Points 2 Ponder (P2P)
• In the video (embedded) they say that if you stop moving you lose your energy, but did they mean to say that your character stops moving?
• One big difference between Gamercize and U-Move is that the game (with U-Move) continues even if you cannot move your character. Gamercize's mechanism puts the game into pause so nothing can happen to your character if you stop moving.
ExerGame Lab's ExerGaming Categories
MMEG - Movement-Mediated ExerGaming (minimum threshold of movement required, no connection to on-screen play)
NMEG - Non-Mediated ExerGaming (no connection to your on-screen play)
SMEG - Speed-Mediated ExerGaming (the faster you move = the faster your character/vehicle moves)
[Via Engadget:Blaze's U-Move controls your Wii, makes you jog to play effectively]
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Original article By Sean Hollister posted Apr 17th 2011 Nintendo's kid-tested, researcher-approved Wii Balance Board has struck at the heart of the medical supply industry yet again -- this time, the Bluetooth-connected scale is being used to help physically challenged children at Shriners Hospital in Houston. Seniors at Rice University hand-machined a set of force-sensitive parallel bars and programmed a monster-shooting game called Equilibrium to get kids excited about improving their walking gait, where they can play and score points with each proper step they take. The game automatically ratchets up the difficulty as patients improve, and handrails will play a part too, with a custom three-axis sensor box able to detect how much patients rely on the parallel bars (and dock points accordingly) in an effort to improve their posture. Yep, that sounds just a wee bit more useful than the Balance Board lie detector or the Wii Fit Roomba. Video after the break.
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Original article from Human-Computer Interaction written by Mathias Heilig, posted on March 15, 2011 at 11:19 am In our course “Blended Interaction”, Master’s students Michael Zöllner and Stephan Huber have been working on a very different approach to use the Microsoft Kinect. Since we liked their project so much and their helmet-mounted Kinect is such an eye-catcher (check out the video! J), we asked them to write about it for our blog. Here is what they wrote: NAVI (Navigational Aids for the Visually Impaired) is a student project aiming at improving indoor navigation for visually impaired by leveraging the Microsoft Kinect camera, a vibrotactile waistbelt and markers from the AR-Toolkit.While the “white cane” is a good tool to improve navigation for visually impaired, it has certain drawbacks such as a small radius or that it just detects objects that are on the ground (during typical use).We wanted to augment the visually impaired person’s impression of a room or building by providing vibro-tactile feedback that reproduces the room’s layout.  picture above - The vibrotactile waistbelt For this, depth information from the Kinect is mapped by our software onto three pairs of Arduino LilyPad vibration motors located at the left, center and right of the waist. These pairs of vibration motors are hot glued into a fabric waist belt and connected to an Arduino 2009 board. To increase the impact of the vibration motor they were put into the cap of a plastic bottle. The Arduino in the waist belt is connected via usb to a laptop that was mounted onto a special backpack-construction, which has holes for cables and fan.  picture above - The special backpack-construction to hold the laptop To support point-to-point navigation usually a seeing-eye dog is used. This dog however must be trained for certain routes, costs a lot of money and gets tired soon. In certain research projects GPS is used to provide this point-to-point navigation, however GPS is not applicable for indoor scenarios.  pictures above - The kinect camera mounted on a socket built with Sugru (http://sugru.com) and fixed with duct tape We wanted to utilize the rgb camera of the Kinect, so we put several markers of the AR-Toolkit on the walls and doors of our building thereby modeling a certain route from one room to another. The markers are tracked continuously all along the way and our software provides synthesized auditory navigation instructions for the person. These navigation instructions vary based on the distance of the person to the marker (which we get from Kinect’s depth camera). So for example, if you walk towards a door the output will be “Door ahead in 3”, “2”, “1”, “pull the door” where each part of the information depends on the distance to the marker on the door.  pictures above - The battery pack to power our mobile kinect camera  picture above - The debug view of the software helped us tune the parameters for depth processing
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Category:
Researchers Group
Posted by Kyle on Monday, March 7th Original article from gamefreaks365.com
 Students at the University of Notre Dame have taken the Wii system and applied it to rehab for stroke patients. Highlighting the growing use of video games in untraditional ways, they have teamed with Memorial Hospital in South Bend, Indiana to create a program that uses the Wii console, Wii Fit balance board, and a custom built program to monitor the balance of patients.
"I can tell them all day long, they're not putting enough weight on a leg," said Sarah Kuzmicz, a Memorial Hospital physical therapist. "But they don't understand because they can't really see it or feel it. With the Wii system, it gives them the feedback. It shows them on the screen, 'Wow! I'm really not putting very much weight on my leg.'"  The Notre Dame students, in coordination with the hospital, have developed the software to monitor the balance of patients and work with them to help regain it. Michael Kennedy, a Notre Dame grad student involved in the project, said that, "When I come here and see patients working with it, it makes me happy that my work can make a difference and help these patients to improve."
The professor in charge of the project, Aaron Striegel, would eventually like to see it expand nationwide. One reason for choosing the Wii is that it is a cost-effective machine and could easily be purchased by rehab centers across the country or even for home use. In the future, the program could be developed for amputees learning to use a prosthetic limb. The real story here, though, is that video games are being used to make a difference in the lives of people.
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Category:
Researchers Group
Posted by Kyle on Monday, March 7th Original article from gamefreaks365.com
Students at the University of Notre Dame have taken the Wii system and applied it to rehab for stroke patients. Highlighting the growing use of video games in untraditional ways, they have teamed with Memorial Hospital in South Bend, Indiana to create a program that uses the Wii console, Wii Fit balance board, and a custom built program to monitor the balance of patients. "I can tell them all day long, they're not putting enough weight on a leg," said Sarah Kuzmicz, a Memorial Hospital physical therapist. "But they don't understand because they can't really see it or feel it. With the Wii system, it gives them the feedback. It shows them on the screen, 'Wow! I'm really not putting very much weight on my leg.'" The Notre Dame students, in coordination with the hospital, have developed the software to monitor the balance of patients and work with them to help regain it. Michael Kennedy, a Notre Dame grad student involved in the project, said that, "When I come here and see patients working with it, it makes me happy that my work can make a difference and help these patients to improve." The professor in charge of the project, Aaron Striegel, would eventually like to see it expand nationwide. One reason for choosing the Wii is that it is a cost-effective machine and could easily be purchased by rehab centers across the country or even for home use. In the future, the program could be developed for amputees learning to use a prosthetic limb. The real story here, though, is that video games are being used to make a difference in the lives of people.
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simple question, yes or no? i've searched for an answer to this question multiple times with no success will there be the option to asign where the buttons[brakes, gas, clutch] are located on the controller? i already posted this but you don't seem to want to answer it, should i take my unanswered question as a NO, SCREW THE HANICAP? i'm disabled, C - 3,4 quadriplegic, no movement below my shoulders, and yes a dirt bike injury, i've played all the mx vs atv games with modified controllers as you can see in my picture and video, reflex gave very little control over modifing controller options and because of that i only have gas and steering, i play GRID and Dirt 2 made by Codemasters and in their controller options i'm able to change any button i want to be placed where i want on my controller, that allows me and many others out there to play the game the way it should be played, a better chance at being competitive with other, and most of all have fun will ALIVE have more controller options? this would be a great benifit to many people that i alone know. hope that the answer is yes happy st. patrick's day - sean kelley xbox 360 user name: themxlab 
MX vs ATV Alive "ask a question" forum
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On May 18-19 join hundreds of game developers, health professionals, and leading researchers to discover, brainstorm, and debate how videogame and videogames technologies can work to improve health & healthcare. 
This is the largest Games for Health to date with a great opening keynote from Dr. Martin Seligman, Director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. His opening talk “Positive Psychology>Positive Computing>Positive Videogames” is one of over 60 talks planned for the three day event. REGISTER TODAY!
http://www.regonline.com/gbew2011
Enter BOST11 and get 10% off any registration! For up-to-date conference information please visit:
http://www.gamesforhealth.org/index.php/conferences/gfh-2011/ THREE DAYS OF EVENTS... May 17 Pre-conference Events & Workshops
* Out & About II : Mobile Serious Games
* Ludica Medica I : Game-based Medical Modeling, Simulation & Education
* Enabled Play : 4th Annual Games Accessibility Day May 18-19 7th Annual Games for Health Conference
Five Tracks of Content:
* Open Content Tracks
* Exergaming & Active Gaming
* Congitive & Emotional Health
* Sensorimotor Rehab
* Nutrition & Games
* Social Games & Virtual Worlds To see the latest scheduled sessions please visit:
http://www.gamesforhealth.org/index.php/conferences/gfh-2011/sched201-block/ 
ABOUT GAMES FOR HEALTH
Founded in 2004, the Games for Health Project supports community, knowledge, and business development efforts to use cutting-edge games and game technologies to improve health and health care. The Pioneer Portfolio of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the lead conference sponsor and a major supporter of the Games for Health Project. To date, the project has brought together researchers, medical professionals, and game developers to share information about the impact games and game technologies can have on health, health care, and policy. A major effort of the Games for Health Project is the annual Games for Health Conference. Over three days, more than 400 attendees will participate in over 60 sessions provided by an international array of 80+ speakers, cutting across a wide range of activities in health and health care. Topics include exergaming, physical therapy, disease management, health behavior change, biofeedback, rehab, epidemiology, training, cognitive health, nutrition, and health education. The Games for Health Project is produced by the Serious Games Initiative, a Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars effort that applies cutting-edge games and game technologies to a range of public and private policy, leadership, and management issues.
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A bipartisan group of 74 lawmakers issued a letter Friday demanding that the Pentagon's health plan cover a treatment for brain injured soldiers known as cognitive rehabilitation therapy. Rep. Bill Pascrell, (D-NJ), and Rep. Todd Platts (R-PA), the leaders of the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force, cited an investigation by ProPublica and NPR, which found that Tricare, an insurance-style plan covering soldiers and many veterans, had relied on a controversial study to avoid paying for the intensive and often expensive treatment. "We hope that you share our concern that service members returning from the battlefield cannot wait to receive treatment for their injuries," the letter said. "It is our hope that there exists some contingency plan to provide cognitive rehabilitation for service members who are returning home today." Official Pentagon figures show that nearly 200,000 troops have suffered traumatic brain injuries since 2001, though our investigation found evidence suggesting the true toll is far higher. Although the majority of soldiers recover from the most common form of head trauma, known as mild traumatic brain injury or concussion, some suffer lifelong mental difficulties, with trouble remembering words or following directions. Pascrell and Platts first wrote a letter demanding that Tricare provide cognitive rehabilitation more than two years ago. In response, Tricare contracted a study which found insufficient evidence to justify providing the treatment. In confidential reviews obtained by ProPublica and NPR, however, leading brain specialists blasted the study for ignoring evidence that the therapy helped, calling it "deeply flawed." Top Pentagon health officials have also expressed concern about the high cost of the treatment, our reporting found. Tricare has said that it will cover many aspects of cognitive rehabilitation, which typically includes physical and speech therapy. But soldiers, families and civilian clinics told us they have had trouble convincing Tricare to pick up the tab. Tricare's stance stands in contrast to some major private insurance companies and some state Medicaid programs, which cover the treatment. Expert panels convened by the Pentagon and the Institutes of Medicine have also endorsed the therapy, which can cost more than $50,000 per soldier. Tricare has since commissioned the Institutes of Medicine to carry out yet another review of cognitive rehabilitation. The review kicks off on Monday, but is not expected to be complete until the end of this year. Pascrell urged the Pentagon to react more quickly to Congressional concerns. "Clearly, the Pentagon is overdue in responding to our nation's wounded warriors," Pascrell said in a statement. "It's time to act." Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who signed Friday's letter, also has begun an investigation into the contract between Tricare and ECRI, a nonprofit firm that reviews medical treatments. ECRI has defended its study as scientifically sound and pledged to cooperate with the inquiry. McCaskill chairs a Senate subcommittee on contracting oversight. (T. Christian Miller, of ProPublica, and NPR's Daniel Zwerdling have been reporting this year on troops returning home with traumatic brain injuries. Click here for the NPR News investigation Brain Wars: How The Military Is Failing Its Wounded.)
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January 1, 2011 article found here by Andrew Dyce A team of programmers at USC have been busy with Microsoft’s device. Not trying to beat high scores, but playing PC games without a keyboard, and designing applications for physical rehabilitation. 
While many of us have been using our Microsoft Kinects for nothing more than some sport simulations and dance titles, it seems that there are some people who are actually trying to push the device’s boundaries. One such group is a team of programmers at the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California. Many gamers may be making their New Year’s Resolution to leave time-consuming MMOs behind in favor of exercise, but these programmers are shown that you can do both, using the Kinect as an input device for World of Warcraft. According to videos posted by the team, that’s just the beginning. The technology being used to turn the Kinect into a means of capturing 3D images may be a bit over the head of the average gamer, but the concepts at work for ICT’s interface is actually quite simple. They’ve designed a system that will allow the Kinect’s motion and depth sensors to transfer body movements into computer commands, called the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit (FAAST). While previous Kinect videos have shown that hand movements can interact with a Windows operating system, FAAST takes movements made by the entire body and converts them into keyboard inputs, meaning that nearly any program could be operated with motion controls. If the Kinect has any chance of being taken seriously by the hardcore community, then high-profile games will have to back the tech up. What game is more high-profile among the hardcore than World of Warcraft? These programmers have shown no fear, creating an input system based on the Kinect that will allow users to interact in a firsthand way with the world of Azeroth: The Kinect is clearly not going away anytime soon, even if the initial reaction by the fan community is to dismiss this idea. The Kinect’s sales have taken off since launch, and since the developing company also happens to make an OS, it’s not crazy to think that they have big plans for expanding the Kinect’s use. World of Warcraft may be a game for the hardcore, but the influx of players that have embraced Cataclysm in record numbers show that the community isn’t afraid of change if the end result offers something new. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick may have problems with the Kinect, but perhaps his opinions might change if he saw the device being used to offer WoW to a new audience. Sure, the community of WoW fans will almost certainly never make the shift away from mouse and keyboard, but anyone knows that playing Kinect for a few minutes is sure to get your heart rate up. Exercise is exercise, so is it a stupid idea to offer players a chance to get a bit of a workout doing something that they love? Absolutely not. Dance Central is based on the idea, and it succeeds in a big way. The potential to bring an emphasis on health and wellness into games with Kinect-based motion control is not lost on the team at ICT, and is just as important a demonstration as gaming. Aside from cardiovascular exercise, the team is using the camera built into the Kinect to design games that will aid in physical rehabilitation. Rehabilitating people who have lost motor functions, or providing physical therapy certainly wasn’t available at the device’s launch, but the programmers at ICT have no doubts that physical therapy is a very real application of Kinect: Fable creator Peter Molyneux spoke about just how much the Kinect would reinvent game genres, and perhaps this is one of the first signs of just how open-ended the development possibilities are with the device. Sony had voiced their opinion that the Kinect’s camera was a limitation rather than a chance to expand the sphere of gaming, but videos like these seem to suggest that the public doesn’t have the slightest idea what the Kinect will be able to do until it does it. Using the Kinect for games like WoW or other hardcore titles may not be for the hardcore, but neither is the device itself. It was clear before launch that Microsoft’s plan was to use the Kinect to expand the definition of gaming, and how people interact with video games through motion controls. In that sense, it would seem that Microsoft has already accomplished the feat, at least in principle, while opening up doors that many never realized. Whether any one of these single ideas turns out to be a successful use of the device, the fact that people keep trying to change the status quo means that, for the moment, the future is looking bright for the Microsoft Kinect. January 1, 2011 article found here by Andrew Dyce
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Virtual Reality Tele-rehab Improves Hand Function: Playing Games for Real Recovery Article found here January 12, 2010  INDIANAPOLIS -- Remotely monitored in-home virtual reality videogames improved hand function and forearm bone health in teens with hemiplegic cerebral palsy, helping them perform activities of daily living such as eating, dressing, cooking, and other tasks for which two hands are needed.
“While these initial encouraging results were in teens with limited hand and arm function due to perinatal brain injury, we suspect using these games could similarly benefit individuals with other illness that affect movement, such as multiple sclerosis, stroke, arthritis and even those with orthopedic injuries affecting the arm or hand,” said Meredith R. Golomb, M.D, M.Sc., Indiana University School of Medicine associate professor of neurology. A pediatric neurologist at Riley Hospital for Children, she is the first author of a pilot study which reported on the rehabilitative benefits of these custom videogames. This project was done in collaboration with the Rutgers University Tele-Rehabilitation Institute, headed by Grigore Burdea, Ph.D., professor of electrical and computer engineering. The study appears in the January 2010 issue of Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. The researchers also reported that improved hand function appears to be reflected in brain activity changes as seen on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. The three study participants were asked to exercise the affected hand about 30 minutes a day, five days a week using a specially fitted sensor glove linked to a remotely monitored videogame console installed in their home. Games, such as one making images appear (“sliders”) were custom developed at Rutgers, calibrated to the individual teen’s hand functionality, included a screen avatar of the hand, and focused on improvement of whole hand function. “Popular off-the-shelf games are targeted to people with normal hand and arm function and coordination. These games don’t work for or benefit those with moderate-severe hemiplegic cerebral palsy and many other disorders that affect movement. They just aren’t made to be used by or improve hands that can’t pinch or grasp” said Dr. Golomb. In the future, physical therapists could remotely monitor patients’ progress and make adjustments to the intensity of game play to allow progressive work on affected muscles. In addition to meeting an unfulfilled need, this could potentially also save healthcare dollars and time. Typically, insurance or government program coverage for rehabilitation therapy for cerebral palsy does not cover teens. Long term physical rehabilitation is costly. And even if cost is not an issue, taking an adolescent out of school and transporting him or her to the hospital or rehab center puts stress on both the patient and their parents. These specially developed games motivated rehabilitation exercises in the home at a time convenient for the teens, broadening access to rehabilitation. The research was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (part of the National Institutes of Health) and by the Clarian Values Fund. In addition to Dr. Golomb and Dr. Burdea, co-authors of the study are Brenna C. McDonald, PsyD; Stuart J. Warden, PT, Ph.D.; Janell Yonkman, MS, OTR; Andrew J. Saykin, PsyD; Bridget Shirley, OTR Michelle E. Nwosu, MBBS; and Monica Barkat-Masih, MBBS, M.D of Indiana University and Meghan Huber, B.S.; Bryan Rabin, B.S.; Moustafa AbdelBaky, B.S., of Rutgers University. The IU School of Medicine and Riley Hospital are located on the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. The Tele-Rehabilitation Institute is located on the Busch Campus of Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J. See the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation article and an accompanying video demonstration. Article found here
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This device, should it be mass produced, could offer an interesting therapeutic setting for working on table top activities and quickly and easily moving to reach activities. This device could be used to practice many activities of daily living, such as getting items from a cupboard, retrieving books off a shelf, replacing items, sorting, reading, and obviously simply playing games while working your arms. I'm excited to see where this device leads. View pictures and video below 
 
 
BendDesk is a curved interactive surface that combines a horizontal and vertical multi-touch surface seamlessly with a curve.
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For the launch of Xbox Kinect in Germany, seeper created an interactive projection mapping.
Set at the highly visible Stachus in central Munich, this project attracted hoards of participants. Immersed in the experience, users took part in epic particle ball games, sending fluids shooting three stories high. Together with guests, including Sylvie van der Vaart, we explored the limits of controller free gaming!
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