E.O. Wilson Hypes Games to Sims Gamebuilder

In a tone of what what can only be called mutual admiration, the sociobiologist and the gamebuilder met. The friendly exchange was predictable, even familial, but their conversation on NPR is likely to please only the already persuaded.

Will Wright (of Sims fame) first asked Wilson for an opinion on the standing of games in Wilson's world. The response was ""I'll go to an even more radical position. I think games are the future in education. We're going through a rapid transition now. We're about to leave print and textbooks behind."

This may be so, but there are many questions those more steeped in the intersection of virtual worlds and eLearning would like to have asked. Admittedly, those with more experience generally do not have the standing of either the interviewer nor the interviewer in this case, and it is perhaps doubtful that an above-average NPR journalist would have probed further. Yet it might have been enlightening to hear Wilson consider the "edutainment" conundum, or consider mixed effectiveness outcomes from virtual world learning experiments. And then there is the troubling drift away from written and toward video narratives; today's young person may not be exposed to National Geographic -- even through its online presence, the journal which inspired a young Wilson. [While we're on the subject, for a recent National Geographic Digital Media project, check out the "Infinite Photograph"].

That said, Wilson's belief that virtual worlds are potential "steppingstones" to science's real worlds for young persons seems unassailable. His thoughts on uniting the humanities and the sciences are also worth hearing again, even in this slight form.

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E.O. Wilson Hypes Games to Sims Gamebuilder

Bohemia VBS Plays Role in First Army Battle Command Training Center's Press Release

A video press release from DoD announced the opening of the Ft. Riley Battle Command Training Center. The clip featured a brief scene from Bohemia's VBS serious game platform running in the background.

According to one reporter with the Ft. Scott Tribune, "the new Battle Command Training Center will allow units to coordinate training through computer-based systems anywhere in the world. Similar facilities are under construction or will be built at all U.S. Army posts with a division or corps headquarters in the coming years, including Fort Bliss in Texas and Fort Campbell in Kentucky."

This facility represents a DoD investment of $29M and is housed in a 160,000 square foot facility. More importantly, the game-based resource can connect with trainees elsewhere, thus creating value beyond Kansas. The facility's training director Bill Raymann said "the center can link brigade commanders with units doing training elsewhere at Fort Riley or other Army posts to improve command and control. . . It will be of particular use to National Guard units that otherwise couldn't do this level of training on their own."

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Bohemia VBS Plays Role in First Army Battle Command Training Center's Press Release

Coolest G-Man Gamer Job Title

Last May, a press release described the work of the US Naval Undersea Warfare Center using Qwak forums and Second Life. One among the lucky military-industrial crew has a job title designed to vault any resume to the head of the pack.

Theoretically all the pieces are easily and efficiently falling together," said Steve Aguiar, Metaverse Exploration Project lead, at the NUWC. "If we were going to conduct the same experiment physically and assemble all the pieces, it would be quite expensive in resources and cost. To do this virtually, specifically with the Qwaq product, has been quite straightforward.

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Coolest G-Man Gamer Job Title

DARPA's RealWorld Winner: Not Accounting Anymore, Mildred

In the 80's, "Realworld" meant an entry-to-midlevel accounting package that was itself a derivative of MCBA software. Realworld was one of the earliest semi-cross-platform packages which made several appearances on Unix-based systems otherwise only used for scientific or engineering applications (thanks to some terrific porting by the forerunner of Acucorp). But DARPA has co-opted the term and given it a serious combat connotation. DARPA's version unites a laptop with a 3D game-based environment that is intended to make real time simulations easier to design and deploy.

That's the stated goal of a $12M contract mod to Total Immersion Software, who supplies DARPA with the core technology. According to Defense Industry Daily, the original contract was heavily competed, with over 100 proposals received for DARPA's 2005 solicitation. Total Immersion has also developed ACE, an air Combat Environment system used as a mission rehearsal system. TI claims this system allows for import of a realistic order of battle and interoperability with existing mission planning software.

This "RealWorld" sounds like a lot more fun, and the UI is, on the surface, light years ahead of the green screen era. But underneath I suspect the software challenges are more the same than different.

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DARPA's RealWorld Winner: Not Accounting Anymore, Mildred

IBM Tivoli Promotion uses Game-based Portlet

IBM's Service Management Simulator is a Tivoli campaign, as is made clear by the URL. What is less obvious is how IBM hopes to lure new business to its legacy network management package by teaching web visitors about service management and what is in North America a lesser-known set of service practice standards-- ITIL.

Here's IBM's value proposition for taking the time to register to play the simulator:

Through the virtual simulation experience, you will gain a better understanding of the challenges facing different people in a company from the CEO to technical support, the value of processes and tools, and how various parts of the company positively and negatively impacted the hypothetical company’s performance.

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IBM Tivoli Promotion uses Game-based Portlet

Home eLearning The Microsoft Way: The Zune - XBox - Sharepoint Nexus

I agree with Lance Ulanoff in his recent story in PC magazine on Microsoft's Zune announcements. Ulanoff's assessment was that Microsoft has shown some serious savvy with its latest Zune enhancements. The Xbox has always been a strong contender in the home entertainment server category; the technology's been there, though it's been weakly marketed. At some point, Microsoft realized the Xbox had a secondary (some would say primary) niche as a "media extender," the significance of which is possibly more important now that it's dawning on many consumers how clumsily the cable companies are providing for home entertainment HD options (a story for another day).

As elsewhere reported by PC magazine, the new Zune due out later this year for U.S. markets is to include HD audio and video, Wi-Fi and a touch screen.

It's not the Zune alone that has my attention, but rather the power of the Zune - XBox - Sharepoint Learning SDK suite that has potential for eLearning / distant learning applications. Learning content can be acquired wirelessly, played either remotely, or in high performance 3D at home for virtual spaces like Second Life or game engine-enabled content. With Sharepoint's learning SDK, SCORM compliant metrics can be aggregated and tracked, either within subcommunities or for academic/industry institutions.

There are other eLearning "stacks," to be sure, but Microsoft's has the potential to raise the bar for what is possible without leaving home.

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Home eLearning The Microsoft Way: The Zune - XBox - Sharepoint Nexus

StudioDaily fx pointed to a report in Blend Games that suggests in-game advertising will reach $1 billion dollars by 2014. This estimate was made by Screen Digest, described as "a research and marketing analytics firm."

The estimate isn't accepted in all circles. According to EL33T Online, reported in the same Blend Games story, April 2009 gaming took a 17% drop in sales. Most agree with Blend Games that "the gamer demograph has been the toughest to crack," but the appeal of in-game advertising may overcome some of these limitations. According to Screen Digest Analyst Vincent Letang, quoted in the story:

Like online video pre-rolls, in-game advertising fills a gap in online branding, bringing familiar formats such as virtual billboards and TV ads into the gaming experience.

In-game advertising is a hoped-for revenue source for the edutainment market. Product/service promotions -- even public service announcements -- can be more meaningfully integrated with games when the gamer's expectations evolve within a learning framework. The long-running relationship between journalism and product reviews in audio (think Stereo Review) demonstrates that an appetite for learning about commercial offerings isn't just a pipe dream.

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