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DARPA is giving war vets first access to LUKE bionic arms
DARPA's sophisticated LUKE bionic arm is ready for production, eight years after its development began and a couple of years after it was approved by the FDA. Before the bionic limb makes the transition into a commercial product, though, the military division is giving war veterans access to its initial production run. DARPA's Biological Technologies Office director Justin Sanchez has recently delivered two LUKE arms to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for use by a couple of vets in need of a prosthetic limb.
On-demand veterinary service gives advice on poorly pets
Getting a last-minute appointment at your local GP surgery can be nigh-on impossible. It's no surprise, then, that online services like Babylon Health and Dr Now have sprung up to meet the demand for instant consultations. But pets get poorly too, which is why PawSquad wants to make speaking to a veterinarian just as convenient. Launched today, PawSquad is said to be the "UK's first national vet video consultation service" that puts on-demand advice just a few clicks away. After filling in a few details about what appears to be wrong with your furry, scaly or feathered friend, PawSquad will match you with a suitable, fully qualified vet. A 15-minute consultation will set you back £15, and though you can only access the service through your browser at the moment, Android and iOS apps will be available in the near future.
Wings Over Atreia: F2P and vet rewards and bears, oh my!
OK, so maybe there aren't really any bears. Wait, I take that back -- there are maybe sorta bears... at least alluded to! Polar bears, to be exact. No really, work with me here: What Winter Festival, Atreian or otherwise, doesn't conjure up images of polar bears? We just won't get into the whole dancing bears thing. What we will get into this week in Wings Over Atreia, however, are musings about a few topics of interest that are swirling around lately, most notably Aion's upcoming conversion to free-to-play in Europe, the changes to the veteran reward system, and the aforementioned Winter Festival (sans dancing bears). Quick quiz now: Other than involving Aion, what else do these three subjects have in common? Give up? Time. While this column usually delves into single topics at a time, the fact that two of these are time-sensitive necessitates that they share face-time, else the news most relevant to Daevas would become obsolete. The third is less time-sensitive but more time-relevant.
EA staff leaves for Ngmoco Sweden
A few more Electronic Arts employees have jumped ship for Ngmoco's newest studio, in Sweden. After Ben Cousins (who formerly worked at EA's "EAsy" division) left to form Ngmoco Sweden, he's apparently been building a wishlist of various developers, and now he's grabbed three more, this time from EA's DICE studio (creators of the Battlefield series). Torbjørn Lædre and Malte Hildigsson are joining as senior programmers, while Wille Wintertidh is on as a senior artist. Cousins has also previously grabbed some staff from Crytek, so he's building a formidable group over there at Ngmoco's studio. It's hard to say what this will mean for iOS games specifically -- Ngmoco has said in the past that it definitely wants to expand away from just the Apple platform, and recently we've seen a pretty big push towards Android and even social games from the growing company (that originally started, you'll remember, as simply an iOS publisher founded by EA vet Neil Young). All of these acquisitions definitely point towards some sort of first-person shooter title (as most of these vets have experience on Battlefield and Medal of Honor games), but whether that's a free-to-play browser based game or something more mobile, we have no idea. But it is interesting to see that a company basically started under the iOS banner is growing so quickly. We can't wait to see what Ngmoco Sweden is working on.
U.S. Army urges vets to get outta their dreams and into the virtual world
You've heard of power walking, but "power dreaming?" That practice's usually the stuff of Buddhism, and now, could go a long way towards mending the psychic wounds of our nation's bravest. With about 52% of PTSD-affected veterans reported as having disturbing nightmares, the U.S. Army's working towards a virtual solution that'd marry the design of Second Life with laptop-displayed or 3D head-mounted, physio-emotional healing. The project, a form of biofeedback therapy which would create custom, stress-alleviating imagery for traumatized vets, is currently in the planning stage with Washington State's Naval Hospital serving as its experimental base. Over half a million in funding's already been put towards the effort which is expected to launch in full next year. And when it does, we're hoping the tech resembles a certain Strange Days SQUID recorder -- with happy thoughts, o'course.
"I Hate You, E3," declares Escapist writer
Okay, so maybe not hate completely.The eye-catching title of an essay from the latest installment of The Escapist puts the emphasis on the negative aspect of the love-hate relationship many industry vets have with E3, but there's surprisingly a lot of love for the trade show here, even if you don't subscribe to the hardened "I hate E3 because I love it" theory of convention devotion.While the Joystiq staff hasn't been to quite as many E3s as the founder of the International Game Journalists Association (IGJA), we can certainly empathize with the world-weariness that might accumulate after years of weeklong death- press-marches and working in overcrowded, sensory-overloaded spaces. We just hope our love of the game(s) will stay with us as it has for Mr. Thomas, whether we're watching from home or working the show floor in person in post-apocalyptic L.A. The parties will be sure to be awesome.See also: Joystiq at E3 2006 mega-site The Escapist's big E3 issue this week, with references within to Joystiq's Paris Hilton story and some E3 party pics orig. from Joystiq The Game of Journalism -- the IGJA's official web site
Engineering the DS Lite: 2 Nintendo hardware vets speak
Ever wonder what decisions go into a hardware redesign? Thanks to the latest edition of Nintendo's Japanese online mag, we finally get a portable peek into the DS Lite.Two Nintendo engineers who worked on the cuter DS sibling reveal how they pulled off the svelte new look while maintaining things like usability, battery life, and cost.Who knew that the new stylus was made "longer and wider to accommodate older users" (the Brain Age demographic who'd taken such a shine to the now shinier little system)? Durable, reliable hardware: it's what Nintendo does best. Let's hope they continue that trend with the Lite, as well as whatever other slicker iterations of the handheld that we're tempted to purchase -- or repurchase -- in the future.[Thanks, Princess Zelda; also via DS Fanboy]See also: Nintendo DS proven toilet-safe Playstation 2 goes silver (redux)
