Source - BBC

Playing virtual reality computer games may help treat the condition known as amblyopia, or lazy eye, say researchers. In patients with amblyopia, one eye works better than the other. Because the amblyopic eye is inferior for some reason, the brain decides to use the good eye. Over time, the neural connection to the bad eye becomes gradually weaker in favour of the good eye. The traditional way of fixing the problem is for patients to force the bad eye to work harder by wearing a patch over the good eye. The treatment usually involves patching for around 400 hours and can cause the eyes not to work together, resulting in double vision.

Researchers at Nottingham University (wraggys home city) say that an experimental treatment using virtual reality (VR) may offer the best of both worlds, encouraging the lazy eye to be more active and getting both eyes to work together. "Traditionally VR has been used to present realistic environments in 3D so you imagine you're there because of the depth of the world around you," said Richard Eastgate of the university's Virtual Reality Applications Research Team. "But we're using VR to make something unrealistic. You could call it virtual unreality," he told Digital Planet.

"We're actually presenting two different versions of the world to each eye."

Effective treatment

In one experiment, the team has been trying out a racing game where the computer sends images of the player's own car to the amblyopic eye, but the other cars go to the good eye. A racing game was used for the research
Obstacles on the track are sent alternately to each eye, so both eyes team up to get the patient through the game. The researchers are encouraged by the results. "We thought we'd develop a system that needed about 400 hours of treatment like patching. In the end we achieved the same effect in an hour," said Dr Eastgate. It is not entirely clear how the treatment works on a neurological level. Research in the past has tried static images. But the team believes that modern virtual reality has allowed different but related dynamic information to be sent to each eye for the first time. "The technique hasn't been proven with rigorous trials but the early results show a very rapid effective treatment through this system," said Dr Eastgate. ...

Source - PSPFanboy

Among the myriad of multiplayer games ever made, Worms has stood out as one of the most enjoyable. The game play isn’t absolutely unique (gorillas with exploding bananas were causing havoc even back as far as BASIC), but considering that the barebones core was already vastly enjoyable, the series’ marked improvements on the base essentially guaranteed an equally enriching experience. In other words, it was already freakin’ fun to start with, and the addition of armed militant invertebrates to the mix made it even better.

Worms: Open Warfare for the PSP is more of the same, which is all right if you liked the games to begin with. The lack of a substantial single player experience and some wonky AI won’t attract new converts to the fold, however. Multiplayer is capable but cumbersome thanks to its lack of a game-swapping feature (it has hot-swap instead), but otherwise everything goes according to the typical Worms formula.

So should we get ourselves some Worms then? That would all depend on what kind of medical coverage you have (drum roll).

GameSpy (3.5 / 5) – “Worms: Open Warfare marks the first time the franchise has hit Sony's popular handheld, and the results are actually somewhat impressive… [It] isn't quite perfect though. Although the single-player portion of the game is a lot of fun to play, the AI can prove to be a little frustrating.”
Yahoo! Games (3.5 / 5) – “Despite the fact that Worms fanatics have been clamoring for a return to the 2D world for a while now, Open Warfare isn't the perfect comeback. If you want a killer single-player experience, this game is definitely not for you. But there's plenty of mobile multiplayer mayhem to be had, even if the execution is a little flawed.”
IGN (7.0 / 10) – “Worms: Open Warfare is a decent game that doesn't offer much in terms of new content. It's great for fans who want a faithful iteration of the series on the PSP. It's also a good game to play in quick 10-minute bursts. But if you find yourself bored with strategic silliness, or if you never liked Worms to begin with, there's not much here to love.” ...

Gamers out there that have a Pelican PL-6018 Power Brick external battery pack for their PSP need to take note that the company is recalling the product. Internal testing and 143 customer complaints have shown that the Power Brick is prone to overheating while one customer reported fire damage from a faulty unit. There is a FAQ available for users to check out if they have any questions:

Q. I love my Power Brick, and it does not overheat. Do I have to return it?
A. The recall is for all Power Bricks, not just those which are overheating. You should stop using your Power Brick and return it. If you do not, you will continue to face a risk of property damage or injury.

Source ...

Source - GTAPortable.com

It's been a while since an update of Edison Carter's infamous Cheat Device. Well adepsp over at our forums is apperantly beta testing the latest version and since he hasn't signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement with Edison Carter, I thought that it'd be ok to reveal some footage of this new feature.

Below you can download a small video clip that shows several vehicles around the city hovering about. I have to say this feature would be great in multiplayer mode, but it is said that this wouldn't happen soon. (If not ever)

adepsp also says that Edison Carter is working on a mission select feature, that will allow you to replay any mission in the game, over and over again.

More info and Video at the link above. ...

Unofficial LaunchELF has seen a series of updates in the last week.

Quote:
LaunchELF v3.54 (2006.03.29)
-Removed limitation that prevented use of JPG skins stored on HDD
-Improved readability of source code by adding a new drawSprite function

LaunchELF v3.53 (2006.03.28)
-dlanor: Added user editable menu title (individual per menu page)
-Polo35: Sealed some memory leaks in the JPG background skin implementation.
-Polo35: Improved vertical resolution of JPG skin by 87.5% (240/128)

LaunchELF v3.52 (2006.03.26)
-Merged in JPG background implementation, contributed by 'Polo35' at PS2-Scene.
-Combined hdd patches to a single IRX for both PS2 and PStwo, eliminating the need for model-dependent ELFs. Now all models of PS2 and PStwo can use the same ELFs.
-Modified the partition 'hiding' of both the main program and the FTP server, so as to allow normal file/folder access to the partition "__common", used by the Sony HDD browser for memory card backups.
-Modified the timeout method so that pressing any gamepad keys will permanently halt the timeout. The timeout will also be halted once the DEFAULT action has been performed. This is useful for those who set up "MISC/PS2Net" as DEFAULT action, to start FTP server.
-Modified menu handling, to prevent all file/folder write access to the pseudo-folder of "host:/" which is equivalent to the "elflist.txt" file on the host system (normally your PC). Such access is meaningless, but the commands were not blocked previously.

Download Here -> http://www.ps2-scene.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=113 ...

Majesco Entertainment Company (NASDAQ: COOL) today announced they have shipped Super Black Bass Fishing. The first fishing game for the Nintendo DS™, Super Black Bass Fishing fully utilizes the portable system’s signature touch screen to reel in fish, trail lures and pull in the catch. Great for fishermen of all ages, Super Black Bass Fishing is rated ‘E’ for Everyone and is available for a suggested retail price of $19.99.

“As the #1 freshwater sport in the country, bass fishing is at the height of its popularity,” said Ken Gold, vice president of Marketing for Majesco. “Super Black Bass Fishing’s consumer friendly price point offers great value for both seasoned anglers and newcomers to the sport.”

Majesco’s portable game lets players t ake on up to three friends in a four-player fishing competition via wireless link. Players start competing in amateur tournaments and ultimately work their way up to the National Bass Tournament for a shot at the championship title. With more than 500 fish to reel in including largemouth bass, pike, muskie and tilapia, Super Black Bass Fishing lets players earn their title just like the pros do—by fishing in some of the best lakes in the world.

Developed by Starfish, Super Black Bass Fishing is now available at retail outlets nationwide. For more information, visit www.majescoentertainment.com. ...

Majesco Entertainment Company (NASDAQ: COOL) today announced they have shipped Super Black Bass Fishing. The first fishing game for the Nintendo DS™, Super Black Bass Fishing fully utilizes the portable system’s signature touch screen to reel in fish, trail lures and pull in the catch. Great for fishermen of all ages, Super Black Bass Fishing is rated ‘E’ for Everyone and is available for a suggested retail price of $19.99.

“As the #1 freshwater sport in the country, bass fishing is at the height of its popularity,” said Ken Gold, vice president of Marketing for Majesco. “Super Black Bass Fishing’s consumer friendly price point offers great value for both seasoned anglers and newcomers to the sport.”

Majesco’s portable game lets players t ake on up to three friends in a four-player fishing competition via wireless link. Players start competing in amateur tournaments and ultimately work their way up to the National Bass Tournament for a shot at the championship title. With more than 500 fish to reel in including largemouth bass, pike, muskie and tilapia, Super Black Bass Fishing lets players earn their title just like the pros do—by fishing in some of the best lakes in the world.

Developed by Starfish, Super Black Bass Fishing is now available at retail outlets nationwide. For more information, visit www.majescoentertainment.com. ...

Source - DSFanboy:

Our friends at Famitsu managed to attend a GDC seminar entitled "The Zen of Wi-Fi: A Postmortem of the Wireless Features of Nintendo DS" and, as most journalists are prone to do, quickly converted their experience into an informative article. Unfortunately, being of Japanese origin, said wonderful article had to be put through an internet translation service before we could make any sense of it. Curse our bizarre Western tongues!

Regardless, the most interesting bit of news to emerge from the conference is one directly involving the universal language of numbers. According to Takao Ohara, amusingly dubbed as the "Ohara your husband person" of Nintendo by Google's linguistic trolls, there are currently 40 Wi-Fi DS games en route for release. He also made an effort to point out that the forthcoming Winning Eleven (Pro Evolution Soccer for the Europeans and soccer hooligans among us) was one of them, shortly before pulling his shirt over his head and doing an energetic backflip.

The Nintendo Wi-Fi service is certainly taking off with gusto--and this from a company that once claimed gamers weren't interested in all those online shenanigans. ...

Source - DSFanboy:

Our friends at Famitsu managed to attend a GDC seminar entitled "The Zen of Wi-Fi: A Postmortem of the Wireless Features of Nintendo DS" and, as most journalists are prone to do, quickly converted their experience into an informative article. Unfortunately, being of Japanese origin, said wonderful article had to be put through an internet translation service before we could make any sense of it. Curse our bizarre Western tongues!

Regardless, the most interesting bit of news to emerge from the conference is one directly involving the universal language of numbers. According to Takao Ohara, amusingly dubbed as the "Ohara your husband person" of Nintendo by Google's linguistic trolls, there are currently 40 Wi-Fi DS games en route for release. He also made an effort to point out that the forthcoming Winning Eleven (Pro Evolution Soccer for the Europeans and soccer hooligans among us) was one of them, shortly before pulling his shirt over his head and doing an energetic backflip.

The Nintendo Wi-Fi service is certainly taking off with gusto--and this from a company that once claimed gamers weren't interested in all those online shenanigans. ...