Taking the Fun Out of Games

It used to be that games were fun. Or supposed to be. But these days, games are serious stuff. If you don't believe me, check with the folks at the Serious Games Institute at Coventry University. The Serious Games Institute is serious about using games to tackle real-world problems in areas ranging from education, healthcare, and national security, to corporate management and more.

Moreover, the Institute has jumped into the world of virtual worlds to develop game-based learning and interactive digital media resources for a range of uses and industries. Specifically, the Institute is using Forterra's OLIVE (short for "On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment") platform to generate realistic, collaborative, 3D Internet PC-based solutions for training, planning, rehearsing, and collaborating.

Not to be outdone, the fun-loving folks at the University of Houston are using technology originally designed for video-game consoles to identify oil reserves. Specifically, the Mission-Oriented Seismic Research Program (M-OSRP) is using systems based on the Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.) to process algorithms designed to remove coherent noise from, and to locate and produce hydrocarbons in, seismic data.

One of the algorithms developed within M-OSRP to suppress a form of coherent noise called "internal multiples" places a high bar on seismic data collection and computing speed and memory. IBM researchers working with M-OSRP have recoded this M-OSRP algorithm for the Cell/B.E. processor and are running comparisons with industry-standard computer architectures and other novel architectures including Cell/B.E.

When you stop and think about it, that does sound like fun.

-- Jonathan Erickson
jerickson@ddj.com

Posted by Jon Erickson at 12:55 PM  Permalink