Festival of Games IX will take place on the 24th and 25th of April, 2013 at Amsterdam. The 2012 event attracted over 1.500 visitors from 650 companies and 24 countries.

Festival of Games aims to facilitate matchmaking between games industry professionals in an effort to help grow the industry as a whole. It combines tracks for business executives, upcoming talent and a conference.

With speakers and companies participating from all over the world and an explicit focus on business, Festival of Games has established itself as Europe’s number one destination for the games industry.

The Festival of Games powered by iQU is organized by the NLGD and powered by iQU.

The Creative Spirit Game Conference is organized by NLGD and powered by Creative Spirit.  http://www.festivalofgames.nl/site/

Tablets are getting popular. Tablets can watch movies, play basic games and connect to the internet on the go. So why not play more demanding games? The hardware designer Razor has released the Razor Edge gaming system which is a tablet designed for PC gaming .

Razer claims that Razer Edge  is "the most powerful tablet in the world." The Edge features a 10.1-inch multitouch screen, Bluetooth 4.0, one USB 3.0 port and a full Windows 8 operating system.

The gaming tablet will be in two configurations, the standard Razer Edge and Razer Edge Pro. The base model is equipped with an Intel Core i5 processor, Nvidia GT640M LE GPU, 4 GB DDR3 RAM and a 64 GB solid state drive. The Razer Edge Pro comes with an Intel Core i7 processor, Nvidia GT640M LE GPU, 8 GB DDR3 RAM and the option for a 128 GB or 256 GB solid state drive. 

Evolving from a tablet with fixed side panel controllers to a  tablet with 3 separate peripherals: Keyboard, Stand, and Gaming Case, the Razor Edge looks to be everything gamers were hoping for and even more. The device will come in two flavors that are sure to appeal to the hardcore gaming crowd as well as the causal gamer who just wants a nice Windows tablet.

Virtual Reality/environment has been defined by several researchers in the literature for decades, many of them introducing slightly different definition to the term. A common definition is that VR should be regarded as an environment/system where a person was immersed into a computer generated 3D environment that bears quite similarities with reality. The difficulties involved in finding a widely accepted definition of VR  has produced a host of alternative terms that some researchers prefer, e.g. synthetic environments, cyberspace, artificial reality, simulator technology.  

There are basically three different kinds of VR, categorized by the degree of the immersion that is being provided [Cronin, 1997].  

1. The first is desktop VR, which is by far the most common and least expensive form of VR there are, which typically consists of a standard desktop computer with stereoscopic capability. This form of VR completely lacks any feelings of immersion on the part of the user.
2. Second, a semi-immersive VR system attempts to give the users a feeling of being at least slightly immersed by a virtual environment, which is often achieved by different types of so called workbenches and reach-in displays.
3. The third form of VR is usually referred to as being fully immersed. It typically consists of head mounted visual display units that allow users to be completely isolated from the physical world outside. Another form of VR is so-called Cave. A Cave is a room in which the walls surrounding the user produce the images, and thus deliver a sense of immersion.

Not surprisingly, fully immersive VR is generally considered the best choice for several reasons, including the ability to almost completely filter out interference from the outside world and thus allowing user to focus entirely on the virtual environment.  However, even reasonable VR hardware and software designed to support full immersion is quite expensive and application development in this area is generally more difficult and time-consuming.

There are several reasons why VR can be useful to deal with aspects that are important in education and knowledge construction. Winn [1993] lists several possible experiences that immersive VR allow. These may all prove to be valuable and important for learning.

1. Firstly, VR technology enables changes in the relative sizes of the user and the objects in the virtual environment. On one hand, the user could interact with and even step into atoms and electrons, while on the other hand acquire a sense of distance in the universe by visualizing planets and moons.
2. Secondly, the designer of the virtual environment is able to use interface devices to present information that is not available to human senses in a direct and clear manner with the help of multisensory cues presented by immersive VR. For instance, the current level of radiation can be indicated by variations in the intensity of sound, and different places could be given different colors that correspond to the current temperature in that area.
3. Thirdly, objects and events that have no physical form in the real world may be visualized by combining aspects of the first and second category.

The skill to work with abstract and multidimensional information is a crucial in today’s society [West, 1991], not only in the academic world but also for large parts of the workforce as a whole.  Traditional methods of displaying and visualizing models, data and information, e.g. on computer screens or in books, are two-dimensional even though they describe a reality that is often three-dimensional.  VR allows students not only to visualize models and data in a more appropriate three-dimensional context, but also to interact with the models and take on several different points of view. So far, much work within the VR community has focused on applications designed to meet the needs of training and simulation for educational purposes. This field of application includes a vast number of vehicle simulators, such as space shuttles, airplanes, cars etc.; medical training such as surgery and telemedicine; as well as a host of military utilization within combat simulation and group communication and training. 

For educational purposes in general, VR has been widely proposed as an important technical tool that possesses an immense potential to facilitate Learning.  The arguments are that VR allows students to visualize abstract concepts, to participate in and interact with events that would not be conceivable because of distance, time, scale, safety or money. A further question has been raised as to what extent it is possible to combine a constructivist learning methodology with VR techniques in the traditional paradigm of instructional teaching.

Reference

1. Cronin, P. (1997) “Report on the Applications of Virtual Reality Technology to Education”, HCRC, University of Edinburgh
2. West, T. G. (1991) “In the Mind’s Eye: Visual Thinkers, Gifted People with Learning Difficulties, Computer Images and the Ironies of Creativity”, Prometheus Books: Buffalo
3. Winn, W. (1993) “A Conceptual Basis for Educational Applications of Virtual Reality”, University of Washington, Human Interface Technology Laboratory, Washington Technology Center, Seattle, Washington, Technical Publication R-93-9

It wasn’t that long ago that Nintendo’s Game Boy and Sega’s Game Gear were teenager’s favorites. Portable video gaming on tiny screens become even more popular as Sony introduced PlayStation Portable. Then along came the mobile phone. Geekaphone has taken an in depth look at the numbers and statistics behind the industry and have put together this informative infographic. 

Android and iOS games now generate more revenue than all of Nintendo and Sony’s portable games combined; and games are the most popular mobile app category in the U.S now. As mobile phones get ever more powerful, the games become more attractive in terms of complexity and graphics. Some phones even have dedicated gaming keys and even look like portable mini gaming consoles, such as Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. Some of the latest phones, for example iPhone, have a built-in accelerometer sensor, which can be utilized by games to provide more interactive gameplay. In those so-called motion-based games, you can steer, for instance, by tilting your phone in the respective direction. 

Usually for mobile games, some are preinstalled.  More often they can be downloaded over the air using the phone's built-in web browser. Or they can be downloaded onto a desktop computer and then transferred to the mobile phone via a data cable.  Several different technologies are available for downloadable games for feature phones, including Java, BREW, Mophun, and WGE. The technologies are incompatible between each other, although some phones support more than one of them.  In addition, native mobile games for smartphones with their respective mobile Operating Systems also represent a large share of the mobile game market.

In the charts provided, Flurry shows how the age and gender demographics are divided up between the various platforms. On mobile phones, the average gamer age is 28, compared with 34 on consoles. Mobile gamers are also more heavily female (53%) than traditional gamers (only 40% female). More important fact is that there's a greater density in the 18-49 demographic on mobile than on traditional platforms. 

Mobile gaming is big and getting bigger. According to the New York Times, quoting Gartner, game-related spending is on pace to reach $112 billion by 2015, and mobile gaming is expected to increase to a 20 percent share of gaming platforms by 2015. Mobile is expected to hold the largest growth of all platforms over that time.

"Serious games," or games that are meant for purposes outside of pure entertainment, can cover areas from military simulators to education about climate change. These games are often found on the PC. Mobile platforms, with their wide adoption and increasingly powerful technology, also offer a viable opportunity for serious games. Mobile phones are mobile sensor platforms embedded with various sensors. Accelerometers and gyroscopes are already seeing wide adoption in mobile phone for game design. Mobile game designers also recognize the potential of global positioning systems and compasses as good design tools.  Building serious games for mobile is the art of creating an application that takes advantage of the mobility of a platform. Educational games may work better on mobile devices than stationary hardware. Education that seamlessly integrates with students' existing familiarity with mobile devices can be very effective. Mobile learning isn't a heightened, amazing new form of pedagogy that's been invented, but is a form of behavior change applied to learning. The potential for mobile devices to support serious games for very young children specifically is interesting to explore.

Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is a new and fast evolving research field that investigates technology that enables direct interaction between the human brain and machines, systems or computers. BCI can enhance human capabilities by enabling people to communicate and control devices by mere “thinking” or expressing intent.

The increasing success of BCI systems is partially due to a better understanding of the dynamics of brain activities that can be collected as EEG signals. In the brain, networks of neurons form feedback loops that are responsible for the oscillatory activity recorded in the EEG. The EEG is recorded between electrodes placed in standard positions on the scalp. EEG signals have typical amplitude of 2-100 microvolts and a frequency spectrum from 0.1 to 60 Hz. Most of brain activities occur within the following frequency bands: delta (0.5 - 4 Hz), theta (4-8 Hz), alpha (8-13 Hz), beta (13-22 Hz) and gamma (30-40 Hz). EEG signals in particular frequency bands are often correlated with particular cognitive states. Signals in the alpha band, for example, are associated with relaxation. Therefore, an electrode placed over the visual cortex that detects alpha band signals is detecting visual relaxation. An electrode over the motor cortex picking up alpha band signals is detecting motor relaxation (the mu rhythm).

Another reason for the rising interest in BCI is the improved resolution of EEG signals and further development of lower-cost recording device. There are many research activities that aim at developing systems that can use dry electrodes instead of the golden or Ag/AgCl electrodes. The golden or Ag/AgCl electrodes often need gel, glue and skin preparation, which is uncomfortable. Dry electrodes, together with wireless communication module, will allow BCI systems to become mobile which is viable for certain applications like gaming.   The Emotiv device, recently announced is a good example.  

However, current BCI systems still come with a couple of issues, which poses difficulties to widen the acceptance of such new interaction style.  Major issues include the following:

• Delays;
• Bad recognition rate of brain signal patterns ;
• Long training times;

Among these issues, the recognition quality of a BCI system relies on progress on the development of signal processing and feature extraction algorithms. It is crucial to create more effective classification algorithm in order to build robust real-time BCI systems. There are various possibilities in providing a gamer with ways to control game, using BCI and other input modalities. Games can be designed in such a way that game control by thought is feasible and game environment is able to adapt to cognitive skills of the player.