SERIOUS GAME MARKET

  Deadline for Serious Games Awards: Feb. 9 Competition Accepts Digital, Tabletop Entries   The entry deadline for the  2021 International Serious Play Awards  is Tuesday, Feb. 9,2021 The competition honors game-based learning games, either digital or tabletop, for use in the Military, Government, Business, Non-Profit, Healthcare, Higher Education, K12 or Museums/Visiting Centers.   The Award Program has three categories: Commercial Digital Learning Games (Professional); entries due by Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2021 Tabletop/Board Game Learning Games (Professional and Students); submit entries by Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2021 Serious Games developed by Students in game development college and university programs, due in May 2021   Entries are judged on how well-executed and clear the feedback, assessment and learning objects are; overall gameplay, which includes how engaging and interactive the game is, startup orientations for the player and aesthetics.   For

  Image credit: OpenBCI ant its Open Source Brain-Computer Interface   OpenBCI , a Brooklyn-based neurotechnology company, announced last week a new hardware and software platform called Galea conceived specifically for immersive headsets, which combines mixed reality with state-of-the-art biosensing and brain-computer interfacing (BCI) technology.   The headgear comes equipped with multiple sensors to simultaneously monitor biometric data streams in real time and is designed to seamlessly attach to head-mounted displays (HMD), including virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) devices. Galea also includes robust SDKs to bring biometric data into common development environments and enable researchers and developers across industries to produce next generation experiences through neurotechnology.   Galea is said to include several sensors, such as electroencephalogram (EEG), electrooculography (EOG) electromyography (EMG), electrodermal activity (EDA), and photopleth

  Image credit: Serious Games Showcase & Challenge   Visit Our Virtual Booth at This Year's vIITSEC - A Retrospective Look of the Past 15 Years As you know by now, I/ITSEC 2020 is canceled due to COVID (please find also I/ITSEC 2020 Goes Virtual in the 15th Year of Serious Games Showcase & Challenge ), so we will not be holding our annual Serious Games Showcase and Challenge (SGS&C) this year. However, we are excited to have a virtual booth as part of vIITSEC and are offering a 15th anniversary retrospective of the SGS&C. Central to this event is our celebration of our past finalists.  The SGS&C would not be the amazing event it is today without our talented and dedicated developers who bring us excellent games to showcase, and this year we will highlight them!  We’ll find out how the SGS&C impacted our finalists and if there is anything happening currently with their games. The virtual booth will focus on a retrospective of the past 15 years of

  Image credit: OSSO VR - Virtual Reality Surgical Training & Assessment Platform   In the recent article Training Future Doctors Virtually , Future Pulse (a new weekly newsletter for those who are interested in the rapidly changing world of healthcare and technology), brings to our attention that perhaps nowhere has the pandemic more fundamentally rocked education than in medical schools.   OSSO VR , a virtual reality technology company founded on the principle of training surgeons with real world skills that can be directly applied when in the OR, has seen inquiries increase tenfold since the beginning of the pandemic.   Founded in 2016 by UCLA and Harvard trained orthopedic surgeon Justin Barad, MD, OSSO VR is an award-winning, clinically validated surgical training platform designed for medical device companies, practicing surgeons, residents, and medical students of all skill levels. Using immersive VR technology, the scalable platform offers a realistic, hands-o

Image credit: vIITSEC - a virtual version of the trade show that will take place on the same dates planned for I/ITSEC. NTSA is developing a virtual platform that will allow the presentation of tutorials and technical papers, as well as a virtual event hall.   I/ITSEC organizer National Training & Simulation Association (NTSA) has announced a new virtual event called vIITSEC , taking place November 30 - December 4, 2020. The conference theme, “The Future is Now,” could not be more appropriate.   I/ITSEC 2020 was canceled for safety concerns amid the COVID-19 pandemic. NTSA waited until September 1 to pull the plug on its trade show, the premier annual event for the modeling, simulation, and training (MS&T) industry. The organization quickly followed up a week later with an announcement of vIITSEC, a virtual version of the trade show.   NTSA is developing an online platform that will enable the training and simulation community to virtually gather. The new format will include a

Image credit: PIXO VR   In the recent article Bringing Virtual Reality Into Your Business , Harvard Business Review states that VR might be the most promising enterprise technology organizations can adopt today.   “VR is growing rapidly as businesses recognize its potential to help them grow. And the pace of its technological development positions it to transform industries, not just tomorrow but starting today. VR’s contribution to the GDP is valued at $13.5 billion globally in 2019, according to PwC, which anticipates that figure reaching $450.5 billion, and supporting more than 23 million jobs worldwide, by 2030. Given the rapid global adoption of remote-work practices in the wake of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, that rate of adoption could happen even faster and more widely than expected.”   The many advantages and use cases for VR are already clear to industries such as manufacturing, construction, and transportation , among others. VR technology can help reduce or eliminat