GFH 2008 Motus Games DarwinTM

Imagine playing Tiger Woods Golf with two Wii like devices (more rounded controller) that actually link together for a more realistic golf swing. The USB controller DarwinTM that Satyender Mahajan demo'ed was white (also available in black) can be found at their website. Six degrees of freedom transmitted over an unspecified frequency allows the user to play without having to point the device at a LED/IR source like the Wii or XaviX. I actually pointed the Darwin away from the screen and was still able to hit the ball. Hopefully it will be in stores in less that a year.

GFH 2008 (live) Second Life health care

John Miller, RN Tacoma Community College is presenting on how they're using SL for teaching, team building and critical thinking in nurse education. We are watching how students react and learn about physiological principles.

GFH 2008 (live) Play 2 Train

Ramesh Ramioll from Play 2 Train is demo'ing their Second Life virtual world created for a hospital in Boise, Idaho. Like Forterra, they use it for accident and emergency response training.

GFH 2008 (live) Fortera Systems

Bart Bartlett is presenting and demo'ing at a booth this week. Forterra Systems developed OLIVE which is not a Second Life make belief virtual enviro, but a to-scale virtual world (VW) that can help companies/hospitals prepare for major events (gas attack). Stanford Medical Hospital uses it Virtual Hospital for orientations, evacuations, and scenarios of all sorts. How about walking through a hospital before it's even built?

GFH 2008 (live) Hacking for accessibility

Ben Heckerdon introduced his new game controller that allows users to move the input pieces to any of the five spots for each finger. It was built to be used for either hand. It was very light and easy to move the components around and he thinks it will retail under $100.

GFH 2008 (live) Whyville

I'm in the Virtual Worlds & Health session watching James Bower present on Whyville and how many partnerships they have with organizations (CDC) and schools. Even a project working with children with hearing loss from iPod use. Amazingly, there are over 12 million US children and teenagers in Virtual Worlds (VW) like Second Life and Whyville.