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Trauma Center supply resuscitated
Addictive cut-and-preserve hospital sim news now, with Atlus announcing that they'll be sending out enormous crates filled with copies of Trauma Center: Under the Knife to stores everywhere at the end of July. This should come as most excellent news to those who have experienced difficulty in getting their gloved hands on one of the best DS titles available, as well as to those who simply enjoy slashing a stranger's spleen into tiny, unrecognizable pieces. Jim Ireton, the VP of Sales and Marketing for Atlus USA, notes that the "continued demand for Trauma Center: Under the Knife is both gratifying and overwhelming. We apologize to Nintendo fans who've had a tough time finding the game, and we hope this scratches their surgical itch until we ship Trauma Center: Second Opinion for the Wii later this year." Apology accepted, Mr. Ireton. Rejected titles for this post: "Trauma Center stock receives transfusion" "Atlus bypasses Trauma Center shortage" "Anemic Trauma Center supply cured" "More copies of Trauma Center discharged" "Trauma Center is a really good game" [Thanks to everyone that sent this in!]
Trauma Center 2 for Wii launch window
Encouraging gamers to slice people open with a scalpel and prod at their various internal organs, Trauma Center: Second Opinion (cool title!) clearly fits in well with Nintendo's all-inclusive family strategy for the Wii. Okay, so it's a sequel to last year's DS doctor sim, Trauma Center: Under the Knife, meaning that you're generally gutting people for their own good. I managed to track down Tomm Hulett of Atlus USA and, after threatening him sufficiently, managed to extract the following information: The game should be released within the Wii's "launch window" (i.e. before the end of the year). Two playable characters will be available, each one following a different path in the story. Unlike Derek (the original game's main character), the new doctor will not possess the "Healing Touch", instead boasting some other, sure to be wacky power. The game was almost called Trauma Center: Relapse. Thanks to the wiimote, Second Opinion will be much more intricate than the DS version and allow you to use more surgical tools. The nunchuck analog stick is used for selecting tools. The game will not be fully voice-acted. Only a couple of voice samples will be matched to on-screen text, much like the Legend of Zelda titles. Tomm hinted that you'd be able to use the wiimote and nunchuck as a defibrilator. Speaking of which, the Atlus meeting rooms just happened to be situated right next to the wall mounted defibrilator pictured to the right. Must be one for the fanboys.
Hospital server crashes under weight of music downloads
Don't look now, but the same folks that brought us the evils of podslurping, bluesnarfing and cellphone ID theft are at it again. The culprit this time: devious iPod users who stuff their workplace servers with downloaded music and videos. According to the Sun, a paragon of journalistic expertise, a UK hospital's server was brought to its knees by employees who filled it with so much music that there was no room left for crucial patient data. As one patient told the paper: "It’s a disgrace. How can they sit around downloading music when they should be looking after patients?" We couldn't agree more. We suggest that, in the future, hospital staff should only download music while looking after patients. And share the files with them as well. Nothing like a bit of Gnarls Barkley to brighten up the ward.[Via Network Endpoint Security News]
UC Berkeley's disease-detecting E-Nose
The last time we checked in on electronic nose technology, hospitals were using the still-boutique devices for very specialized institutional work such as monitoring nasty bacteria outbreaks. Recent breakthroughs by a company called Nanomix, however, could make E-Noses a standard tool in every patient examination room, with UC Berkeley researchers using the company's tech to design cheap devices that can "sniff out" disease-laden molecules in samples a person's breath. Nanomix's "Sensation" detection platform uses multiple, configurable carbon nanotube-based sensors to instantly provide a reading from a puff or air, although the exact diseases that the battery-powered devices will be programmed to detect have not been announced. We do know that the first application of this tech will probably be for carbon dioxide detection, allowing emergency personnel to immediately determine the efficacy of breathing tubes used to stabilize patients on board an ambulance.
