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.
|
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]
|
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.
|
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
|
|
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.
|
|
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.
|
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
|
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.
|
|
|
