Addiction, research, health in a virtual world
I’ve covered the Imperial College London’s work before on this site, and I’ve cited them extensively in my upcoming book chapter. Last December, Designing Worlds spent some time getting the full tour. Have a look for yourself:
Thanks to Pauline Woolley on the SL Health list for the heads-up.
A story over at New Scientist caught my eye today. It describes a new approach to developing textured 3D objects that provides much greater realism for relatively less work, particularly for amateur content creators:
The potential of this in clinical simulation is fairly obvious. Whether it be surgery or anatomical exploration, expect to see some of those expected evolutionary improvements in quality just a little bit sooner. Developments like this also illustrate the importance of graphical accuracy in simulation – the more easy it becomes to manipulate objects in a realistic way, the better the outcomes garnered.
Second used as a demonstrative medium for real-world software:
Not the most innovative way to use an immersive environment but I suppose it gets the message across.
Over the weekend I familiarised myself with Scoop.it, thanks to the kindness of Jo Kay who provided me an invite. Basically what Scoop.it does is take a lot of the hard work out of trawling the web and social media for information on a topic of interest. Once you spend some time setting up your [...]
The individual ex-addict’s perspective has always held power, no matter the source of the addiction. In the MMO gaming sphere, a recent addition to the blogosphere is ExGamer.net. Run by a 40-year old Canadian guy and 44-year old Dutch woman, it’s a blog in its early stages but it does give some interesting personal insights [...]
Via Dusan Writer, here’s an interesting piece on the use of Second Life to train pharmacists in using pharmacy clean rooms. I’ve had the opportunity to use pharmacy clean rooms myself , and I can see how a virtual walk through can be of use before doing the real thing.
As mentioned last month, I had the pleasure of attending a conference on e-health as well as an evening discussion on the formation of a Games for Health special interest group as part of HISA. Aside from the very exciting outcomes from both those events, which I’ll discuss further in the future, it forced me [...]
A collaboration between Griffith University (Australia), Otago Polytechnic (New Zealand) and the University of Canberra (Australia), the Virtual International Day of the Midwife is in its third year (2009 and 2010 proceedings links). For more information or to express interest in presenting, check out the VIDM Wiki. The call for expressions of interest is as [...]
SmartGoggles is a tech demonstrator, not a product you or I can buy, but it’s an interesting look at a potential future of entertainment devices. In the demo I saw on its stereo goggles, you have the first-person perspective of a giant, towering over skyscrapers. With a game controller, you can punch them and they [...]
The latest issue of the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research has been released, and as usual it’s full of peer-reviewed research papers, plus some discussion pieces and other features. Pedagogy is a key consideration for any educator, and this issue goes some way to establishing a pedagological framework for virtual worlds. Major kudos to the [...]
The University of Arkansas have their hospital well underway in Second Life. Dubbed ‘Razorback Hospital’, it’s purpose isn’t clinical in nature, more a prototype of how technologies like motion sensors and RFID can assist the functioning of a hospital. It’s all about health logistics. The goals of the project are: 1. Explore the future of [...]
Thanks to New World Notes, I’ve found out about a great resource for those interested in science and virtual environments. This list has a solid cohort of health-related sites – some I’ve covered previously and some others I’m now keen to investigate further. Obviously Second Life isn’t the only environment where interesting science is going [...]
Jon-Paul Cacioli is a Doctor of Clinical Psychology student at Deakin University, and he’s currently conducting a study on body image in virtual worlds. In his words: “I am looking for participants, male and 18+ to complete a survey regarding both their real world and virtual world body images and psychological states.” He needs 300 [...]
This article in the Canadian publication, the London Free Press, describes in detail a couple of case studies of gaming addicts. The case studies themselves paint a fairly standard picture of someone with a compulsion for intensive gaming, though some effort has been made to provide balanced coverage of the issue. The premise of the [...]
Although not directly health-related, I was struck by the power of the machinima below ( thanks to Mal Burns for the heads-up). It’s produced by Lainy Voom and you can read more about it here. Have a look for yourself then read on below for some further thoughts: Fall (Mini Project 3) from Lainy Voom [...]