Feds get into gaming!

2-11-10: Check this out! Feds are getting into gaming for kid's health! Also announced: a contest for game ideas using the USDA food database. Stay tuned for more on that as it beomes available!









http://www.bisnow.com/washington_dc_tech_news_story.php?p=7047

Feds get into gaming for tween health!

2-5-10: Federal CTO Aneesh Chopra hosted a workshop with 31 experts (including Digitalmill's Ben Sawyer and Beth Bryant, and UCSB's Debra Lieberman) to gather insight from leading experts in the fields of gaming and technology to inform the development of a nutrition game-design challenge. The Feds will be launching a challenge to come up with videogames that can get "tweens" (ages 9-12) eating better and moving more! Wow!!!

I wonder if Duke's Dr. David Katz and Nuval will be involved with this challenge. That is a great metric for nutrition games. Also, Dr. Roy Vartabedian's Nutripoints would also work as a great metric for a nutrition game. Both consist of databases of food ratings.

You can read more about it at Office of Science and Technology blog. Stay tuned for the official announcement of the challenge, said to be coming out in a couple of weeks!

ACE's 2010 health predictions!

12-31-09 Check out ACE's Cedric Bryant's health predictions for 2010. Two of them are things I've been promoting all along! Can you guess which two they are??? It was in today's San Bernardino Sun newspaper. Here's the link:

http://www.sbsun.com/health/ci_14095829

Happy New Year to all and looking forward to a great 2010 in Games for Health!

Ernie

Brainbike now available!

12-20-09: Exergame Fitness is now shipping the Brainbike. This is the latest in exergaming designed not only to give you a cardio workout, but stimulate brain development as well.

Read more about it and the science behind it at Exergame Fitness's Brain Bike.

Cool presentation on exergaming - exposed!

12-20-09: Check out this cool "prezi" presentation created by the tech guru herself, Biray Alsac!



Find out more about this at The Exergame Network (TEN):

http://exergaming.pbworks.com/THE-EXERGAME-NETWORK-%28TEN%29-PAGE

New study on Wii...

11-17-09: This study on the effectiveness of Wii to provide exercise came out at the recent American Heart Assoc. conf. You can read all about it at the link below. It seems that we still need to keep convincing regular healthcare the exergaming can meet the federal recommendations for physical activity. If they just tried it out for themselves, they would realize that fact!

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE5AF3AR20091116

APHA Day 2, Mon

11-9-09: Presentation day! The day finally arrived. Our topic was on the use of exergaming in our pediatric obesity program called Family Fit Zone. I also covered some of the challenges encountered so far with utilizing exergaming, and some possible solutions. Robin gave an update on the latest research. Even though she was so wired, hyped, and tired after not sleeping a wink the entire night, she did fine! 

The other two presentations showed very innovative technologies being developed. Dr. Carol Boushey (Purdue University) presented work on their automated food assessment software for pictures taken with a cell phone while Dr. Stephen Intille (MIT) presented work on mobile phones and sensors to identify physical activity type in real time. 

I can see how these technologies can be incorporated into a cool game!

The rest of the day was a blur, ending in our Physical Activity Special Interest Group's social. 

And so ended Day 2!