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Brain Age 2 boxart is BLUUUUUUUUUE
We don't necessarily make a post about the box design for every new game, but we pretty much had to for Brain Age 2, for the following reasons: It's a huge game We are too weak to resist the obvious joke (see title) hahahaha bluuuuuuuue We don't know if it's possible to be as excited about the return of Brain Age as the Japanese public continues to be, but we eagerly await the return of our teacher, friend and constant source of Photoshop inspiration, Dr. Ryuta Kawashima's Disembodied Polygonal Head.[Via GoNintendo]
Toys R Us summer toys list contains up to one video game
Toys R Us has put out their list of the top 24 hottest toys for this summer, and, surprisingly, there is only one video game on the list-- and even that one's kind of a non-game, according to some people's definitions. Nintendo's brain-teasin' hit Brain Age represents the entirety of our hobby in Toys R Us's summer marketing campaign, despite being a game about math problems, and despite being over a year old. Technically, they also advertise the Leapster, but ... don't worry about the Leapster..Are we seeing early signs of a Japan-style Brain Age phenomenon? Should we start hoarding DS Lites? [Via Game|Life]
'Living' cyborg chip stores rudimentary memories
The journey to pack more (proverbial) internal storage into the human brain has been going on for years, but a recent development at Tel-Aviv University could actually bring us one step closer to storing rudimentary memories on a manmade device. Reportedly, a new experiment has shown that it is indeed possible to store said memories "in an artificial culture of live neurons," which is a fairly significant step towards the "cyborg-like integration of living material into memory chips." Essentially, Itay Baruchi and Eshel Ben-Jacob carefully examined the firing patterns of a sea of electrodes and found that they could "deliberately create additional firing patterns that coexist with the spontaneous patterns." These forced patterns could theoretically represent simple memories stored in the neuron network, and after giving it a go on their own, they were able to see "memory patterns" persist for over forty hours in a homegrown concoction. Of course, the duo isn't likely to stop before producing "the first chemically operated neuro-memory chip," and while we could all use a longer train of thought every now and then, the studies could also "help neurologists to understand how our brains learn and store information."[Via TGDaily]
Artificial cerebellum could improve robot motor skills
Sure, modern robots can clean up after you, keep watch on the kids, and chase away unwanted intruders, but there's no denying that an unexpected gust or stray stack of Lego blocks can bring even the most sophisticated humanoid to its knees. To cure such clumsiness, researchers at the University of Granada are reportedly working with electronic engineers, physicists, and neuroscientists from a range of universities including Edinburgh, Israel and Paris as a part of the Sensopac project which aims at "reproducing an artificial cerebellum." The application of the cerebellum would allow androids to purportedly "carry out similar tasks as mammals and might help to treat cognitive diseases such as Parkinson's or Alzheimer's." Apparently, the team is hoping to create an implantable device to "make movements and interaction with humans more natural" within two years, and while it's probably obvious, one of its primary uses would be in home-help robots who need to be agile whilst aiding the elderly.[Via BBC, image courtesy of Sensopac]
Brain Machine legally induces mind trip
We know, returning to work after an all-too-short long weekend leaves you just wanting more time off, but rather than skimming through those pictures you snapped and refusing to get back in the groove, why not force your brain to meditate and release those negative vibes? In an admittedly bizarre how-to guide, the folks over at MAKE have detailed Mitch Altman's Brain Machine, which reportedly enables you to slip into deep thought, sleep, or peaceful nirvana by syncing up your brain waves with pulsing lights and sounds. Odd as it may sound, the homegrown trip inducer purportedly utilizes an SLM (Sound and Light Machine) to "phase in new brain states by switching frequencies back and forth." Of course, we're still a bit hesitant to put our retinas at risk in order to legally experience hallucinations, but be sure to hit the read link for the step-by-step guide, and tap the via if you're interested in catching a video before subjecting yourself. [Warning: PDF read link][Via MAKE]
DS Daily: Did it work?
So we've all had a while to mess with Brain Age. We've Stroop tested and memorized lists of words and been yelled at by a floating head. Did it work? Do you feel smarter ... more aggressive ... like you could take on the world? Or can you at least do division a little more quickly? That's pretty good too.
Wii Warm Up: NMS excitement
Fresh from the Nintendo Media Summit, we've quite a few impressions of games coming out in the immediate future. Among them: Mario Party 8 Super Mario Strikers: Charged Big Brain Academy Pokemon Battle Revolution The Bigs Boogie My Word Coach Rayman: Raving Rabbids 2 We're most jazzed for Strikers, especially after reading such effulgent impressions from Penny Arcade. But which game shown at NMS excited you the most? If you were stuck on an island and could only have one game ... you know, assuming you had a Wii and a couple Wiimotes, and a nice TV ... maybe some nunchuks, oh, and the sensor bar, and I guess you'd need a standard 120 W outlet somewhere in the sand ... and a decent supply of food and water, or you wouldn't spend your time playing the Wii ... you know what, never mind.
Japanese hardware sales, May 14 - May 20: Satisfactory edition
Having issues with performance? Can't seem to keep those sales numbers up? Disappointed in your ability to satisfy Japanese schoolchildren? It's okay, Mr. Miyamoto. It's not you, it's just ... you know ... they've seen it all before. They want something new. They need something big, and yours just isn't big enough. But boy, do we have a product for you! Trust us. With regular use comes a guaranteed increase in size, or your money back! Girls will flock to you, women will be putty in your hands! After all, we've seen the results firsthand. Yes, that's right, we've sunk quite a bit of our own money and time into this product, and we're just absolutely 100% positive you'll start seeing results within a few weeks. And hey, it's not your fault nature didn't give you a little more to work with! So go ahead and start Training Your Brain, Miyamoto-san, and give those women what they really want: your astronomically high IQ. - DS Lite: 111,213 52,572 (32.10%) - Wii: 52,193 351 (0.67%) - PSP: 27,505 6,928 (20.12%) - PS2: 10,881 467 (4.48%) - PS3: 8,659 180 (2.04%) - Xbox 360: 2,026 79 (3.75%) - Game Boy Micro: 428 20 (4.90%) - GBA SP: 330 13 (3.79%) - Gamecube: 276 39 (12.38%) - GBA: 33 15 (83.33%) - DS Phat: 26 13 (33.33%)[Source: Media Create]
NMS: Big Brain Academy hands-on
Our friends over at Joystiq have already started enacting nefarious plans against us, planned with their newly enlarged brains. The tiny-brains at Wii Fanboy don't stand a chance against the bigness of their horrible brains. How did Joystiq get such big old brains? They got a hands-on preview of Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree. And even with their freakishly enlarged brains, they were positive about the game. It contains a series of minigames, each designed to improve one mental ability (Identify, Memorize, Analyze, Compute and Visualize) as well as presumably being fun. In addition to 8-player games at home, you can trade student profiles online to compete with your friends. Check out the screenshots in our People on the Couch Gallery! %Gallery-3434%
Non-games selling non-poorly in Japan
It's no secret that Japan has got Brain Age on the brain. Brain Age and its sequel, which was just now (kind of) announced for the US, have broken all kinds of sales records and been pretty much the sole motivator for the insane success of the DS. But what is less well-known is that, in addition to driving the creation of a ton of copycat software, training fever is pervasive enough to drive sales of that stuff. In other words, Brain Age has created a market for non-games, just like Nintendo hoped it would.Gpara compiled a list of 95 DS non-games ordered by Media Create sales numbers, and NeoGAFfer Jonnyram has translated the first ten. These things don't cost much to make, and they are bringing in stacks of money. That's Economics Training at work. Or it would be if that existed. Give it a couple of weeks. Brain Age 2: 4,266,000 Brain Age: 3,403,000 Eigo Zuke (English Training): 1,937,000 Big Brain Academy 1,519,000 General Knowledge Training/Common Sense Training:1,381,000 Cooking Navi: 815,000 Kanji Test: 523,000 Tokoton Kanji Brain: 406, 000 IQ Suppli DS: 219,000 [Via NeoGAF]
My Word Coach lets you be like us (plus DS-to-Wii connectivity!) [update 1]
[Update: Fixed broken link.]Surely you've thought at some point, hunched over your keyboard because that damned essay is due tomorrow morning, that words could flow glibly and beautifully from your fingertips, as they do so often at Nintendo Wii Fanboy.All right, that was a little arrogant. We're sorry.Anyway. As you very well may know, Brain Age focused fairly heavily on the numerical side of things. Equations = sadness. Did it teach you how to express, or to inspire? Hell no. And so Ubisoft jumps into the brain training genre, with both Wii and DS versions of their literary inculcator, My Word Coach.There's an in-depth preview over at IGN, and we highly encourage you to peruse their hands-on experience. We'd also like to point out that this game features a simple and effective DS-to-Wii communication feature, in which handwriting performed via stylus is instantly translated into the Wii title, which coincidentally happens to have a far more robust handwriting recognition system than did Brain Age. Is your brain tingling in excitement? We certainly hope so.
Brain Age for $14: a smart move
If you're not one of the approximately 12 million people training their brains in minutes a day, then you aren't truly participating in the DS cultural phenomenon. We won't put a value judgment on that decision-- some people just aren't interested in brain training, or non-traditional gaming, or math. But if you have yet to get into Brain Age for financial reasons, we may be able to help you. Circuit City is offering the game this week for $13.99, which, as anyone who has played it will tell you, is less than $19.99. Also available: Zoo Tycoon and, uh, some unknown media for other devices.Now is a great time to pick up Brain Age and see what all the fuss is about (it's about short, brain-teasing minigames!) It would make Satoru Iwata happy, and isn't that what it's really all about-- the smile on one absurdly rich man's face?
Iwata reminds Nintendo of America who's boss
(Hint: it's Iwata. Iwata is boss.) Nintendo just released their financial results briefing, which contains a transcript of a question-and-answer session with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. Ever wondered what it would be like to work for Iwata? This quote should replace that wonder with terror: "When I received a report from the U.S. that they sold 1 million Pokémon Diamond & Pearl already, I asked them, 'why did you sell only 10,000 Brain Age last week, when Europe sold through 30,000?' This is a typical example of how I communicate with our people in the U.S."Why would Iwata be so mean in the face of ostensibly great news? Because he's a huge jerk? Probably not. For one thing, Pokémon selling a million copies doesn't mean that anyone at Nintendo of America did anything particularly well. All they had to do was release it, making sure that the word "Pokémon" was clearly visible on the box.But more importantly, Iwata isn't looking just to sell a bunch of games. He wants to expand the gaming market in the US like the DS has in Japan, and for that, Brain Age needs to get into non-gamers' hands. Then Nintendo can sell a bunch of games to them as well as to Nintendo fans. As Iwata notes in the report, 500,000 DS systems were sold in the US in March, which is a large number, but not as large as the 600,000 to 700,000 sold in Japan each month.[Via NeoGAF]
Magnetic signals could cure chronic insomnia
Make no mistake, there's a plethora of devices out there aimed squarely at rudely disrupting your nap, but a technique that utilizes a gaudy head wrap and magnetic pulses could make the process of conking out a whole lot easier. Apparently, scientists can use relatively standard medical equipment in order to "stimulate the brain with harmless magnetic pulses," which essentially penetrate the nerves that control a type of deep sleep called "slow-wave activity." By forcing the brain to conjure these waves, it helps trigger deep sleep in even the "most chronic insomniac," and researchers are hoping that these methods could be used to create a machine that lets weary individuals get one fabulous power nap. Until then, however, may we suggest wading through every last Intel roadmap presentation you can find without ever losing focus, as this little trick seems to work quite well in corporate settings.[Via Spluch]
Get a degree in knowing how to play Big Brain Academy
We haven't read any research on the particular brain-embiggening properties of Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree, and we're also quite certain that playing it won't result in an actual degree conferral (which is too bad, because we could use some more of those!) Whatever health or brain-bigness benefits it may have, the game certainly looks cute and fun. Siliconera has posted some impressions of the Japanese version, with plenty of screenshots and explanation of the various minigames involved. We suggest you check it out and dramatically increase the size of the area of your brain that holds Big Brain Academy gameplay details!
Brain-reading biofeedback caps on the rise, NeuroSky returns
Pushing the envelope is what it's all about, and for companies cranking out Wiimote-like devices to make gaming and PC experiences more eventful, even that's not enough to satisfy a bevy of outfits with their eyes set on getting biofeedback into games. Companies such as Emotiv Systems, CyberLearning, and our old friend NeuroSky are all looking to take advantage of the public's current curiosity about thought-controlled (and influenced) gaming by offering up electrode-laced headsets that read a variety of brain impulses to effect gameplay. Essentially, these gel-free caps rely on technology such as electromyography (EMG), which records twitches and other muscular movements, and electrooculography (EOG), which measures changes in the retina, in order to change the way games are experienced. For instance, a nervous, uneasy GTA player would barely be able to aim at his / her enemies, while a daydreamer would have a hard time staying on course and reaching full speed while playing Gran Turismo. Unsurprisingly, said companies have noted that "finding their target markets" have been the most difficult aspect, and certain analysts rightfully question whether gamers would actually enjoy such "mentally taxing restrictions" on their games, but if all goes as planned, we should start seeing a few more options in the commercial brain-interface market before too long.
IBM's BlueGene L supercomputer simulates half a mouse brain
Efforts to model the human brain (on IBM's Blue Gene, ironically) haven't reached the point of finality just yet, but it looks like the supercomputer has already tackled a smaller, albeit similar task at the University of Nevada. The research team, which collaborated with gurus from the IBM Almaden Research Lab, have ran a "cortical simulator that was as big and as complex as half of a mouse's brain on the BlueGene L," and considering that it took about 8,000 neurons and 6,3000 synapses into consideration without totally crashing, it remains a fairly impressive achievement. Notably, the process was so intensive that it was only ran for ten seconds at a speed "ten times slower than real-time," and while the team is already looking forward to speeding things up and taking the whole mind into account, it was noted that the simulation (expectedly) "lacked some structures seen in an actual brain." Now, if only these guys could figure out how to mimic the brain and offer up external storage to aid our failing memories.[Thanks, Richard L.]
neuroArm gives surgeons extra dexterity, sense of touch
Considering that a BSOD within the robotic surgeon that's halfway through a critical operation on your innards is far from ideal, we're certainly in agreement with companies looking to make actual human doctors even better at their work. A team of Canadian scientists and engineers have concocted the neuroArm robot to allow doctors to perform microscopic operations on the brain in a more precise manner. Essentially, the uber-steady bot "will let doctors use surgical techniques on afflictions such as brain tumors that human surgeons are simply not dexterous enough to do," and when combined with a touchscreen stereoscopic viewer, it enables MDs to better visualize the area they're working with through advanced depth perception and "3D-like" imagery. The neuroArm system should hit clinical testing sometime within the next month or so, and if all goes smoothly (ahem), the long-term goal involves "manufacturing different versions" and selling them to a variety of hospitals.
Infrascanner: the handheld NIR hematoma detector
As technology continues to make doctors' lives a bit easier (not to mention saving a few in the process), we've got yet another device that can detect a potentially fatal problem long before mere humans can figure it out. The Indian-based Infrascanner is a "handheld, non-invasive, near-infrared (NIR) based mobile imaging device used to detect brain hematoma at the site of injury" within the most important stage of pre-analysis. The device could also aid in the decision to proceed with "other tests such as head Computed Tomography (CT) scans" when not "facilitating surgical intervention decisions." While the methods behind the scanning are quite sophisticated, the unit uses diffused optical tomography to convert the light differential data seen in the local concentrations of hemoglobin into "interpretative scientific results." Potentially best of all, however, is just how close this thing is to actually hitting hospital wards, as it's simply missing the oh-so-coveted FDA stamp of approval before it can see commercial use.[Via MedGadget]
Am our gaming learning?
Seed Magazine has an interesting article that talks about the effects of Brain Age on your own grey matter, and calls it "entertainment masquerading as neurology." However, there might be more to it than that.The same article talks about a company called PositScience that sells brain training sessions for a mere $395 a pop, and it might actually be doing something. According to program developer Michael Merzenich, "We've demonstrated that you can take the brain of a 75-year-old and make it function like the brain of a 35- or 40-year-old. It takes training, and some hard work, but it's possible."It involves big words like "neuroplasticity," but it's a brain-fitness workout, which Brain Age is as well. So you can pay almost four hundred smackers for the big words, or try your hand at the sub-$20 version. Either way, something's gotta be happening to your neurons. Right?[Thanks, Cam]
