Mozilla: Opera's Web 5.0 talk 'hyperbolic'??WEB 98.32/0??

Mozilla's Vice President of Engineering Mike Shaver has laughed off claims by Opera that its Opera Unite tool is Web 5.0, but praised the company for continuing to push the boundaries.
Shaver, talking to TechRadar ahead of the forthcoming Firefox 3.5 launch, admitted he'd had little time to play with Opera Unite, but despite his suggestion that talk of web 5.0 was hyperbole, he reserved praise for the rival browser maker
"I'd be surprised about that it being Web 5.0," said Shaver. "If you look back five years and see where we were then…but if it's five years ahead then that's a lab that I need to have a subscription to!
Experimental
"We've certainly had experiments with making people's data and extensions easier to share," Shaver added.
"There is certainly value in improving some of these things in the browser and I'm glad that Opera did the experiment.
"I don't at this point share their optimism that it has reinvented the web. Opera has a long history of doing very creative technical ideas – some of them work out well but some of them don't.
"Obviously we're certainly glad to see that people still see there is value in trying to do new things in the browser."
Web Standard
Shaver was keen to know if Opera were looking to standardise Unite, saying: "I don't know if their intention is to standardise it – they certainly developed it very quietly.
"They were very excited and they were looking to make a splash as much as make a difference initially.
"[Web 5.0 talk] is obviously hyperbolic but it's okay to be enthusiastic about your product. You should believe these things are great but you also need to adapt when these things don't work and be prepared to go in another direction.
"Our approaches to user data and hosted services are very different. We have a project called Weave in Mozilla Labs and that's something that's really biased towards privacy and the protection of that data."

Health video games become serious business

Videogames were once blamed for rising obesity rates but are now being championed by the medical industry and for use by government departments for their health benefits.
Games like Electronic Arts' "EA Sports Active" and Nintendo's "Wii Fit" have got players of all ages moving — and game developers and investors looking for hot new titles to cash in on this booming segment of the market.
Big John Games' upcoming "Butt Kicker" Nintendo DSi game will provide an action-based environment in which players fight against cigarettes and "Karate Bears" for Wii teaches players real karate routines using the Wii's motion-sensor controllers.

With interest in health games rising, the fifth annual Games for Health Conference in Boston expanded to 390 people this year from 100, including developers, investors and medical experts, while numbers at many other conferences are down up to 40 percent.
"Healthcare is 18 percent of the GDP of the United States and so games for health is probably the largest sector of activity in the serious games field long-term," said Ben Sawyer, co-founder of The Games for Health Project.
"If you add up the 18 month sales of "Wii Fit" and the sales of "EA Sports Active," Konami's "Dance Dance Revolution" and other healthy games, the worldwide retail numbers are over $2 billion."
Dr. Michael Levine, executive director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop which fosters innovation in children's learning, has just released a report looking at how digital games can play a beneficial and educational role in health care.
"The White House should launch a national initiative to promote research and development of proven games," said Levine.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, whose mission is to improve the health and healthcare of all Americans, has also called for a public engagement campaign supported by the president, Congress and the federal agencies to teach parents, teachers and health providers about the healthy side of gaming.
"States' governors should direct their school technology officers to look at innovations like "Dance Dance Revolution" and "Wii Fit" as a way to extend the reach of physical education and comprehensive health education," said Dr. Debra Lieberman, director of Health Games Research for the foundation.
The Games for Health Conference also showcased how videogames are being used to help doctors and patients alike.
Serious games developer Virtual Heroes is working on a new first-person shooter sequel for Hope Lab's popular "Re-Mission" game, which has been distributed to cancer patients in 81 countries since 2006.

"We're taking their existing concept and trying to raise the fun bar and creating more lifelike and enjoyable environments within the human body," explained Jerry Heneghan, CEO of Virtual Heroes.
"Players will take control of Roxy, the protagonist, and have new weapons to battle cancer with thanks to input from cancer patients."
Virtual Heroes is also updating its HumanSim technology with a new human physiology engine, technology has been used by Duke Medical Center's nursing school to train nurses virtually.
Heneghan said he hopes this software will inspire gamers to turn to careers in healthcare and make people in the medical profession more proficient with more grants and funding flowing into universities for health games.

Patch 3.2 Tauren Druid forms HQ

Bring Girls... or Kill Zone 2 (PIC)

Dragon Age: Origins

I'm not a big fan of dogs, but when a fantasy RPG from BioWare includes one as a major character, Isit up on my hind legs and prick up my ears. If nothing else, Dragon Age: Origins will be the first game Iknow of that'll allow you to level up a canine in the same way as a wizard.

I'm still not sure I was meant to find the dog while sitting in the corner, far from the prying eyes of various PR people observing the collected throng of journalists attempting to defeat an evil, insane wizard. Naturally, I'd mopped the floor with him with a minimum of fuss and was busying myself trying to explore as much of the game as I could before EA tore the mouse from my bloodied stump of a hand.

And that's how I discovered that, among the various wizards and warriors, a huge bulldog-type creature who, when included in your four-man (OK, creature) party, was just as capable of gaining experience and levelling up as his bipedal colleagues.

Apparently he's just called Dog too, which I suppose is as apt a name as any. But enough of that. One of the main worries about Dragon Age is that since the game has gone cross-platform, all the initial "We're making a PC game for PC gamers" bluster would turn out to be just so much hot air. While we only obviously got a limited run through various aspects of the game, my impression was that Dragon Age: Origins is a cross between Baldur's Gate and Mass Effect. That isn't big news really, but it might help qualify what you should expect from the game come winter.Combat was the focus of our hands-on, with the aforementioned mad mage needing to be put in his place. First of all, a conversation was had that was straight out of the Mass Effect playbook. The facial animations and conversational style were so similar, so while we shouldn't expect the same level of sophisticated storytelling as shown in The Witcher, BioWare's usual high standards in terms of acting and writing will shine through.After the inevitable "Actually, you know, I won't just give up" conversation finishes, you get ready to rumble. This is where BioWare have, surprisingly, managed to keep the new and old RPG fans happy.For those used to Mass Effect and its ilk, you can fly right in and look over your character's shoulder while you fight. For those of the Baldur's Gate school, you can keep the view zoomed out and go old school.Combat is pausable, so you can consider your strategy and queue up spells and attacks, just like in the good ol' days of top-down goblin slaughtering. Certainly for those worrying about Origins being dumbed down, this notion has been blown out of the window for the combat at least. You can even zoom out outside of combat too, so instead of using WSAD to move about, you can click around the screen instead. It is, as they say, up to you.

As for what is going on behind the scenes, it's all reassuringly dice roll-y and the number of skills, spells and so on are a far cry from more recent streamlined RPGs. While I won't go so far as to say the game mechanics are as in-depth as the Baldur's Gate series, it certainly shouldn't be lacking in options.The main problem that still persists is whether the game's storyline and its universe will be interesting enough. Other than being described as a "mature fantasy" Dragon Age: Origins doesn't seem to have much of a hook, some key ingredient that will get people rushing to the shops to buy the game. One imagines that BioWare are gambling on their name alone being enough to guarantee sales, which is probably true, but there is definitely a "meh, whatever" attitude amongst a substantial percentage of the PC gaming community.From what we've played so far, the actual gameplay won't be a problem, pleasing as it should veterans and newbies alike. Whether the core story and characters will be good enough, well, we'll just have to wait and see.

Michael Jackson's games: A look back

To pay tribute to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, who sadly passed away last night, Games Radar's taken a look back at Jacko's gaming appearances gone past.

The Thriller star's contributed to gaming many times over the past decade and half, the most famous of which is probably the lending of his likeness to Sega in the early 90s. Moonwalker had Michael defeating enemies and rescuing hostages with dance magic, and it was also rather good.

Michael's relationship with Sega didn't end there, as he was also heavily reported to have composed the soundtrack for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (see the evidence below) - something that Sega still won't comment on today.

In 1999 and 2002 Michael made cameo appearances in both of Tetsuya Mizuguchi's Space Channel games, under the guise of Space Michael

Jacko also made an appearance in Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2, as well as a plethora of soundtrack credits in multiple games.

Read the full article over on Games Radar. RIP Jacko, your music was awesome