[From Gizmag] Power Gig game uses real guitar controller By Paul Ridden March 11, 2010 There’s a Battle of the Bands scenario brewing now that a new contender has arrived on the “play along to your favorite tunes with a game controller instrument” scene. Seven45 Studios has just released details of its new gaming system called PowerGig where the buttoned and plunger interface of the familiar Guitar Hero and Rock Band gaming interface has been tossed out in favor of a real six-string guitar. Seven45 Studios has taken a more hands-on approach to its game and interface development than most…

[From The New York Review of Books] Volume 57, Number 5 · March 25, 2010 The Wizard By Daniel Mendelsohn Avatar a film directed by James Cameron [snip] What’s striking is that so many critiques of Avatar ‘s political shortcomings often go out of their way to elide or belittle the movie’s overwhelming successes as a work of cinema—its enormous visual power, the thrilling imaginative originality, the excitingly effective use of the 3-D technology that seems bound to change permanently the nature of cinematic experience henceforth—as if to acknowledge how dazzling it is would be an admission of critical weakness.[2]…

[From the News Center of the University of Texas at Dallas] Game Trains Soldiers in a Virtual Iraq or Afghanistan ATEC Wins National Modeling and Simulation Award for 3D Interactive Program Feb. 23, 2010 A training tool being developed by a research team from the Arts and Technology (ATEC) program may soon make it easier for military service men and women to perform their missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. “The work we’re doing has to do with the facilitation of cultural training,” said Dr. Marjorie Zielke, an assistant professor in the ATEC program and the principal investigator on the project.…

[From www.army.mil (“The Official Homepage of the United States Army”); more information about the finalists is available here] Image: VADER Island, a virtual world where developers submitted entries to the competition Army announces virtual worlds challenge finalists Mar 9, 2010 By Michelle Milliner ORLANDO, Fla. – This week, the U.S. Army announced finalists in a competition designed to uncover new potentials in virtual worlds. The Research, Development and Engineering Command’s simulation and training center launched the Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge in August 2009 to reach a global development community and explore innovative, interactive training and analysis solutions in virtual worlds. The contest…

[From The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Book Patrol reader blog] Ghost Army Haunts Michigan Library Posted by Nancy Mattoon at March 12, 2010 1:44 a.m. An invisible army, operating in obscurity, mastering the arts of illusion, deception, and disinformation to defeat the Nazis in World War II. This could be a description of the French Resistance fighters, the band of brothers who operated in utmost secrecy under the noses of the German occupation forces, and have been called “The Army of Shadows.” But it also describes an amazing division of American troops stationed in the European Theatre: the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops,…

[From IEEE Spectrum] OPINION Reflections: Driven to Distraction Engineers created the problem of cellphones in cars, but they may not be able to solve it BY Robert W. Lucky // January 2010 I used to feel that the ultimate aim of communications research was telepresence—creating the perfect illusion of being where you’re not. However, now I’m thinking that we did too good a job of creating this illusion and that the law of unintended consequences is taking hold. Sometimes you need instead to enforce the perfect sense of being exactly where you are at the moment—like when you’re behind the…