Video

Mind over matter? A team of researchers have demonstrated that humans with severe brain injuries can operate machines. 

Cathy Hutchinson has been unable to move her own arms or legs for 15 years. But using the most advanced brain-machine interface ever developed, she can steer a robotic arm towards a bottle, pick it up, and drink her morning coffee. The interface includes a sensor implanted in Cathy's brain, which 'reads' her thoughts, and a decoder, which turns her thoughts into instructions for the robotic arm. In this video, watch Cathy control the arm and hear from the team behind the pioneering study.

A scientist quoted in the NYT had this to add: "This is the kind of work that has to be done, and it’s further confirmation of the feasibility of using this kind of approach to give paralyzed people some degree of autonomy." The idea that games could again be part of the waking life of the those disabled is profound.

(Related, of course, is this Radiolab clip about a couple, separated by tragedy, that were able to high-five for the first time through a machine. Go to the 14:40 mark)

[via NYT]

As Joystiq has reported, Rhode Island's government has taken a special interest in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning developer 38 Studios. After the state's 75 million dollar loan about a year and a half ago, hopes were high that the developer would create new jobs. But others, like the state trasururer Frank Caprio, were concerned that such a big investment might backfire and mean that taxpayers would have to foot the bill if the studio went under.

Well, here we are. Despite the game's successful launch, it seems that the studio may not have made much money in revenue from the project. The Rhode Island goverment is scrambling to try to keep the studio afloat for the good of their citizens who would be forced to pay the 112 million now owed. 

This story is obviously upsetting for members of that studio and fans of their game, but it also reflects poorly on the industry and may have further repurcussions. The reason the studio moved to Rhode Island from Massachusetts was  to secure the loan and develop more jobs and thus bigger and better games. Now that they're on what seems like the brink of collapse, other states may be more hesitant about supporting developers. Hopefully, the studio's work with the goverment will keep it operational and help it bounce back. 

For videogames, space is essentially a given. The shipping lanes of Eve Online, the intergalactic machinations of Commander Shepard in Mass Effect -- these are all rooted in the assumption that in the future, mankind's destiny will be in the stars. In fact, we rarely reflect on what it would take to get us there, especially with the shuttering of the Space Shuttle program last year. In fact, a bit of historical analysis, as Matt Novak in Slate writes, shows that getting us into the outer space was hardly a given even when during the "heady" days of the Apollo program:

Erik Conway, historian at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., explains: “The Apollo program only had a majority public support—over 51 percent—for the few months around the 1969 moon landing. That’s it. Otherwise, it was less than 50 percent.” In a 1969 opinion poll taken after the lunar landing, just 53 percent of American adults believed that the moon excursion was worth the expense. In fact, during the nine years of the Apollo program, American support pretty much fluctuated between 35 percent and 45 percent. In a 2005 paper, Roger Launius, chief historian at NASA, wrote, “While there may be many myths about Apollo and spaceflight, the principal one is the story of a resolute nation moving outward into the unknown beyond Earth.” Nostalgia for the Space Age is rooted more in The Jetsons than in reality.

Novak goes on to argue that revisionist undestandings of the controversy around manned spaceflight hobbles our understanding of what we should be doing for the future. "How might we live up to the greatness of an era when everyone got along and the nation stood united in a single goal? ," he writes. There's a bit of success fatigue in those words, that the past could never be greater than the future.

But what then for space games? They build on this legacy -- that space is world of excitement and wonder and capture that imaginative element for the digital set. Perhaps we need more games casting doubt on whether we should be there at all?

[via Slate] [img]

A new 3D project has turned the Great Pyramids into digital artifacts. A new project engineered by software design firm Dassault Systèmes, in collaboration with Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, has recreated the wonder of the world. You can even use 3D glasses to view the entire thing.

"Many 3-D models of ancient sites have more to do with fantasy and video games than with archaeology. The colors, surfaces and textures are not researched and appear quite flat or unrealistic," Peter Der Manuelian, Philip J. King professor of Egyptology at Harvard University and director of the MFA's Giza Archives, told Discovery News

The project stems from George Andrew Reisner's work (1867-1942). Reisner was an American Egyptologist who directed the work of the Harvard University—Museum of Fine Arts Boston Expedition at the Giza Plateau more than a century ago. Because of his ground-breaking use of photography during the excavation, he is the chief reason that MFA is home to one of the finest Egyptian collections outside Egypt.

You can visit the project here.

Forgive us for two social games harping in a day, but news from Japan caught our eye as they attempt to regulate gambling-style "compugacha" games. Players pay a small fee to receive a random in-game item and then attempt to collect all items to unlock an even bigger item. It's basically the Price is Right as a sales tax. Kyle Orland at Ars Technica explains:

Regulators say the compugacha schemes run afoul of the country's law on unjustifiable premiums, which outlaws similar "card combination" lotteries in the real world. Consumers are taking note of the games' addictive nature as well; the Consumer Affairs Agency reportedly received 58 complaints about the practice in the last fiscal year, and some players have reportedly spent tens of thousands of dollars in a single month trying to complete their sets.

Orland then points out that in the U.S. gambling-style games are more likely, not less, noting Zynga's interest in the space. Casino games are outstripping farming games -- surprise, surprise.

My question is less a legal one than it is a cultural one. Gambling is not only regulated in the U.S., but carries a particular stigma as an object of vice and graft. While the prospect of illegal Chinatown FarmVille circuits may provide lovely fodder for C.S.I.,  the larger worry is that games after finally earning free speech protection are headed towards the same sorts of persecutions that led to pinball bans in NYC earlier this century.  Yannick LeJacq looked closely at the distinction between games of chance and games of skill for us earlier this year:

The allure of gambling is how far it swings in the direction of chance—the idea of “winning” is so statistically irrelevant, so highly improbable, that you can only chalk it up to God taking your hand, or the claw itself, and steering it toward victory. Still, this leaves alone the question of fairness—the sense that any game you play should make its rules clear enough for you to figure out how to master them.

Cue poet George Santayana aka "Mr. I-Told-You So" who quipped those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

[via Ars Technica]

The Associated Press reports that the frenzied anticipation for the midnight release of Diablo III was insane, because of course it was. Take it away, AP!

A crowd of more than 1,500 gathered Monday night around a stage built underneath the Ferris wheel at the Irvine Spectrum Center, located about a mile from developer Blizzard Entertainment’s headquarters, for the launch of the gritty sequel set in the fantastical world of Sanctuary.

Anticipation for Diablo III from publisher Activision Blizzard Inc. has bubbled over because the previous entry in the series was released 12 years ago.

Intrepid Kill Screen reporter Yannick LeJacq was on the (digital) scene for us, and downloaded the game on his computer and has been playing it since 6am. (Look for his review early next week.) Over gchat, I asked him what he thought of it so far. Here is his report "from the front," as it were.

[via Salon/AP]