Wii Tennis Effective Training Tool for Surgeons

21 surgical residents performed laparoscopies with significantly improved accuracy after a month of playing video games in addition to their usual training. The results is according to research published February 27 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Gregorio Patrizi and colleagues from the University of Rome, Italy.

"Play to Become a Surgeon" is the study that resulted when researchers at the University of Rome took the teaching opportunity presented by video games more seriously than have others before them. They introduced play as part of training for post-doc fellows in their first two years of residency, instructing them to use the Wii for an hour a day, five days a week.

The study found that participants in both groups improved their skills over the four week period, but those who had been trained on the Wii showed a significant improvement over the other group in their performance on several specific metrics like economy of instrument movements and efficient cautery. The study concludes, "The Nintendo® Wii might be helpful, inexpensive and entertaining part of the training of young laparoscopists, in addition to a standard surgical education based on simulators and the operating room."

Intel reveals their newest dual-core Atom processor for smartphones and tablets

Intel launched today at Mobile World Congress 2013 a fast dual-core Atom mobile processor for smartphones and Android tablets.

Intel promised that the new chips, 22-nanometer processor, will enable a new generation of faster and power-efficient smartphones and tablets.

The Clover Trail+ "32 nanometers" is Intel's first dual-core chip for smartphones. The Atom processor provides double the computing performance and triple the graphics capabilities of its predecessor, Medfield. And that performance boost comes at the same level of power consumption as Intel's prior offering.

PS4 Controller Touchscreen

An image has been circling the web shows a prototype controller for the upcoming PlayStation 4 “PlayStation Orbis" console. The photo shows a controller that looks largely like a Dual-Shock, but with a touchscreen in the upper middle.

The controller is connected to a large silver box which could possibly be a PS4 dev kit, but that’s unconfirmed. The new controller also has an illuminated LED strip on the back edge, which I presume can change colors like the current PlayStation Move controllers can.

There also rumors that comes from the Wall Street Journal, which reported that Sony plans to utilize Gaikai, a game streaming company Sony owns, to stream existing PS3 games to the new console.

Samsung Galaxy Note battery explodes in Korea

 
"Chosun Ilbo" a Korean news agency reported that a 55-year old man suffered second degree burns to his right thigh when the battery of Samsung Galaxy Note blew up while it was inside his pocket.

A Samsung spokesman in Korea downplayed the incident:

    “Lithium ion batteries can catch fire due to external pressure or sudden changes in temperature, so we’re trying to understand what really happened.”

The report notes this is the second such incident involving a Samsung Galaxy smartphone in the country, after a schoolboy suffered an injury when his Galaxy S II exploded in his trouser pockets in March last year.

Facebook Blocks Yandex, Russia biggest search engine

Yandex, Russia’s biggest search engine, said its new experimental application to search on social networking sites from mobile devices was blocked by Facebook.

Yandex’s new mobile recommendation tool "Wonder App" was supposed to coalesce a user’s data from Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and Instagram and use the data to help answer questions asked verbally, similar to the Siri feature on Apple’s iPhone. Instead, Yandex is now in a dispute with Facebook, TechCrunch reports, with the two sides at odds over whether Wonder is properly defined as a search engine and thus in violation of rules governing the use of data provided by Facebook through its software interfaces, or APIs. In the meantime, Facebook has cut off Yandex’s API access, rendering Wonder significantly less viable.

The Facebook’s Yandex blockade is the latest in a series of information embargoes between competing internet giants. Facebook’s Instagram recently blocked users from showing their pictures on the microblogging network Twitter. Twitter, in turn, has been steadily tightening the restrictions on apps that use its own APIs. And Google recently allowed its own photo app Snapseed to publish into its social network Google+ while rivals like Instagram remain entirely locked out.

Internet activist Aaron Swartz commits suicide

Aaron Swartz, was an American computer programmer, writer, archivist, political organizer, and Internet activist. Swartz co-authored the "RSS 1.0" specification of RSS, and built the Web site framework web.py and the architecture for the Open Library. He also built Infogami, a company that merged with Reddit in its early days, through which he became an equal owner of the merged company.

Aaron Swartz has committed suicide. His body was found Friday evening in Brooklyn, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman with the New York medical examiner's office. The 26-year-old had hanged himself in his apartment.

His family and partner said they were "in shock, and have not yet come to terms with his passing."

"Aaron's insatiable curiosity, creativity, and brilliance; his reflexive empathy and capacity for selfless, boundless love; his refusal to accept injustice as inevitable -- these gifts made the world, and our lives, far brighter," they said in a statement. "We're grateful for our time with him, to those who loved him and stood with him, and to all of those who continue his work for a better world."

RIP

LG smart home appliances at CES 2013

LG said that they will be showing several new smart home appliances on display at CES 2013 that includes a new smart refrigerator, washing machine, robot vacuum, and oven.

The appliances can interact with users’ smartphones using NFC or remote control over a home WiFi network. By simply touching smartphones to the NFC tag on the smart appliances, users can easily control the refrigerator, washing machine, robotic vacuum cleaner, or the range oven. Users can also give simple voice commands via their smartphones and remotely monitor appliances using LG’s Smart Control.

Now with these technology you could start a load of laundry while you’re on your way home from work, tell your robotic cleaner to vacuum the floor, or bring up a list of food items that are currently in the fridge, as well as bring up a grocery shopping list for items that you need.

The LCD displays on the appliances allow users to access a slew of information. For instance, the oven’s LCD screen can allow you to monitor the status of your oven, search for recipes, set cooking modes, and diagnose problems. Furthermore NFC allows you to quickly set your oven to any particular mode for a specific recipe.