Wired has posted an article called “Games Tackle Disaster Training” (Link). It’s a bit short though, as I’m sure there are some amazing details in these simulations (I’m wondering at what point does a simulation become a game, and vice versa?). Now, being aware that an immersive simulation can get some pretty real reactions out of participants, this part caught my attention:

The new approach is expected to save money — but it can also prepare many professionals and volunteers quickly in the event of a health emergency, like the potential bird-flu pandemic.

I can’t help but wonder if there’s an in-game psychiatrist to “power-up” the players’ mental health. Seriously.

Bruce Nussbaum over on BusinessWeek got it recently after a report on teenager mash-ups and content repurposing. And now the MIT Advertising Lab is apparently catching on (Link). I’ve been harping on the issue of pirated 3D product design for about the last 9 years. Maybe soon people’s eyes won’t glaze over when I raise the issue in the future (like some did when I posted one entry on it and CNC-wielding goobers jumped on the “make it yerself” bandwagon). Hard to believe that so many inside of Industrial Design are still oblivious to this.

Well, after my rocket launcher example the subject of functional, rapid-prototyped weapons came up on several blogs that linked to my entry. It also came up again after a more recent entry of mine updating that earlier effort. The issue also came up when the RepRap project was first announced; and I expect it will be raised repeatedly until at some point it reaches the evening news. And now it might make the MSM. Via this entry on We Make Money Not Art, comes word of one working example of an rp’d weapon. While I have no doubt that there have existed previous examples somewhere, this is the first one I’ve seen. Took long enough.

You can see the full photostream of images from the Royal College of Art project that spawned this thing at this Link.

{Image Copyright © 2005 Sascha Pohflepp}

In an earlier post I commented on how virtual objects could be coded to do things you don’t expect an object to do in real life. Well, here’s a great example (with some corrected punctuation and spelling) from the Second Life forum:

A girl came onto my land and offered to give me a blackjack table. I took it and put it out the table. It asked for permission to take money like all the other games do. I said “yes” to it and we played a few hands. She won then I won etc. Then the table paid her 10,000 lindens. I grabbed the table real quick.

Imagine going into a Las Vegas casino and literally having a conversation with the blackjack table. And during that conversation, you tell the table all your personal information – from your name to your bank account number and password. Then imagine the table wipes your account and wires the money to its creator. That’s what happened here; costing the unsuspecting owner of the turncoat object about US$40 – real money. This could become a classic example.

Reuters has added another article to the increasing pile of news(?) discussing ads in videogames. You can read it at this Link or over on this Yahoo webpage. Nothing really worth quoting; it’s mostly the same old “billboard” discussion with a dash of “visit our website to get the cheat code to unlock this special content” thrown in for good measure. Oh, and it’ll have the brand plastered all over it. I guess subtlety isn’t a strength in the advertising community.