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Merely having active Wii games isn’t enough to increase fitness levels, and new study shows. The study selected children ages 9 – 12 who had a body mass index above the median and who did not already own a Wii. Each household was given a Wii, with half of them assigned to a group that could choose
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What was your favorite toy when you were a child? A survey of children fifteen years ago probably wouldn’t have included computers as toys. But these days, “toy” and “electronic gadget” are sharing a lot of territory. Both girls and boys prefer virtual toys and games to physical ones. Adrian Voce O
Review
Gravity Rush, a new game for the PlayStation Vita in which you control the direction of gravity, reads like a Murakami novel. But beneath its steampunk architecture and magic tricks, it plays in an all-too-familiar way.
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Let’s get realistic about post-apocalypse survival, Jericho and Battlestar Galactica style. We’re going to have to work with our neighbors and compete against other towns to survive by gathering food and maybe shooting zombies. Dead State is a Kickstarter game that considers all these aspects of sur
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At any institution of higher learning there will be a teacher whose lectures are boring. It’s not hard to tell when students are bored—they’re usually staring off into space, texting, or sleeping. But some teachers may have lost this ability, having become habituated to a lack of eye contact, and Bi
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New research on death days shows that we’re 14 percent more likely to die on our birthdays. The researchers analysed 2.4 million deaths over a 40-year period. Results show there were 13.8 per cent more deaths on birthdays than might be expected compared with any other day of the year. The risk incr
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If you’re willing to shell out $20 a month, you can encrypt your phone calls and instant messages with a new app called Silent Circle. The app’s creator, Phil Zimmermann, thinks it’s a service worth paying for. “I’m not going to apologize for the cost,” Zimmermann told CNET, adding that the final p
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You’ve probably heard of the videogame that treats depression; now there’s a videogame that teaches scientific reasoning. It’s called Operation ARA and the initial research looks promising. Students learn the skills of scientific reasoning by engaging in interactive dialogs with avatars. They are tu
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This vision of Japanese Ronald McDonald as the final boss in Earthbound is even more surreal than the original game. The not-so-subtle commentary on fast food may make its way into your nightmares. video
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In early Zelda games, Link had little personality, but he did have a role to fulfill, whether it was as an adventuring son or a fairyless boy. His silence let players more readily identify with him… or so the Art of Gaming 101 puts it. Over at PopMatters, Kevin Dickinson argues that “silent” protag
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A hospital brain bank recently accidentally thawed over fifty brains. Luckily, some of the DNA is still intact. The NY Daily News reports that all is not lost: An initial review indicates that the DNA in the samples is intact and can still be used for genetic research. It’s unclear, however, whether
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Imagine you’re a game designer obsessed with recreating your games in your apartment, and that you’re looking for a roommate. Beth Newell imagines just such a situation: Future roommates are responsible for buying their own food and should NOT eat anything from the refrigerators in the biohazard con