Slashdot Mirror

I spent a few minutes Googling, and here are some links showing the kinds of things I am thinking about:

• Wild Divine (which has been reviewed on Slashdot)
• Mindgames (From the website: Our focus on demonstration is designed to challenge organisations to not only think of how they might use our ideas in their products but also to imagine how their products can reach out and change the lives of everyone in a positive way. We believe that technology should be designed to facilitate us building a more constructive humanity.) They seem like a cool group, and like they're doing some really neat research. I'm not saying they are bad, I'm just saying that these things could easily be combined with new age philosophy.
• Tranquility This is pretty close to the game that I was thinking of, but I'm not sure if it's it. Similar note to the above item.

Please note that I'm not saying that "meditation is bad" or things like that -- I'm definately not saying that. Relaxation is a very good thing, however I've just seen a lot of this stuff combined with pantheistic theology as a way to "transcend to higher consciousness". I'm just calling it as I see it, and I'm just saying that there are video games with a lot of new-age theology underneath them out there.

Oh yeah, almost forgot about Rag Doll Kung Fu. *VERY* cool looking game, definately "religious", definately *not* "Christian". :) Not all games need to be Christian -- the grandparent was asking for non-Christian religious games, and I'm pointing him in that direction.

Is this really destined for common usage?

Thank you for informing me of this revolutionary development in communication technology!

For the past several years, I've relied on H20/IP to provide a network solution for streaming media. I heard about it on this weird web site called Slashdot awhile back. I've always felt hampered by the need to rely on gravity and physics (I'm afraid Congress may pass a constitutional amendment repealing these laws), and it is somewhat irritating to have to establish a 1-10m line-of-sight vertical link between nodes.

As I am working with video, I'll need a decent amount of bandwidth. Also, how do you address the problems of attenuation and cross-talk? Have you hired repeaters? Further, are there "translators" available to provide communication with other protocols such as my favorite, NetBEUI? And finally, but most importantly, is there a stack available for SCO/UNIX? I really don't want to rely upon an operating system filled with unreliable code under dispute (again, fear of Congress).

Again, thanks a million!! I'm running to the hardware store on my Segway right now to pick up supplies! Can't wait to try it out.

The article is from CBBC (Children's BBC), which naturally will be quite dumbed-down and lacking in information.

For more information, pictures and tech specs from one of the developers, check out Robert Burke's web page.

Oh, okay. How do you want me to do that? Use smoke signals over TCP/IP?
No, H20-IP

As far as Relax to Win goes, the use of biofeedback to encourage relaxation in a competitive environment is, AFAWK, unique. There are also a couple of key differences in recent work: first, in projects like BrainChild (see this link, the use of multi-modal input (i.e. multiple biological and other signals); second, the goal of 'affective feedback,' wherein the system actually learns to predict its effects on a participant, and adapt its responses to accomplish goals like relaxing a participant by determining an optimal technique from among multiple techniques.

We're not claiming that we invented biofeedback, but are trying to demonstrate how a compelling video game combined with biofeedback could be used to teach skills in the virtual world that are actually useful in the real world. Like the ability to relax under stress -- sure you could quaff a pint or eight (and since we're based in Ireland, that sometimes happens...), but in this information-overloaded world, wouldn't it be great to be able to chill at will? (Lots more info at http://mindgames.mle.ie or feel free to send mail...)

As far as Relax to Win goes, the use of biofeedback to encourage relaxation in a competitive environment is, AFAWK, unique. There are also a couple of key differences in recent work: first, in projects like BrainChild (see this link, the use of multi-modal input (i.e. multiple biological and other signals); second, the goal of 'affective feedback,' wherein the system actually learns to predict its effects on a participant, and adapt its responses to accomplish goals like relaxing a participant by determining an optimal technique from among multiple techniques.

We're not claiming that we invented biofeedback, but are trying to demonstrate how a compelling video game combined with biofeedback could be used to teach skills in the virtual world that are actually useful in the real world. Like the ability to relax under stress -- sure you could quaff a pint or eight (and since we're based in Ireland, that sometimes happens...), but in this information-overloaded world, wouldn't it be great to be able to chill at will? (Lots more info at http://mindgames.mle.ie or feel free to send mail...)