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WII : Good for Wannabe Dogs

The next time you get told off for playing endless computer games just tell the parents you’re training to become a surgeon. The thought of all that kudos should stop them in their tracks. The only thing is, it has to be a Wii-type game.

New Scientist magazine reports that trainee surgeons who chilled out playing Wii games at the Good Samaritan Medical Centre in Phoenix, Arizona, were better at surgery afterwards. A quirk of Wii — the Wiimote system, which allows players to direct action in 3D using a wireless wand — increases their manual dexterity.

So impressed are the guys in Phoenix that they’ve taken the Wii software and altered it to simulate surgery. At US$250, it’s also a lot cheaper than similar medical equipment. And the improvement is huge. Trainee surgeons doing a Wii warm-up proved to be nearly 50% better at handling surgical tools than those who’d just chilled out quietly.

Surgery involves making small, finely controlled hand movements — just like using a wireless wand. Not got a Nintendo Wii? Apparently, the game Marble Mania is pretty good, too.

TXT-TO-GIG

Wanna know who’s playing in Auckland and where? Check out the new website Mukuna (www.mukuna.co.nz), which not only lets you know what’s happening but can also send you txt messages to keep you up to date on the latest gigs.

It’s easy to do. Just go to the Mukuna website, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click ‘gig guide by txt’. actv8 checked it out by txting ‘hip hop’ to the number given, and back came a txt-list of the week’s gigs.

It’s a great service for those who can’t live without live music. Shame it’s not available elsewhere, although there are plans to expand it to Wellington and add in underground music gigs, for the Korean and Chinese communities, for example.

MOBILES BANISH SLEEP

It could be easy to become a txt addict with services like txt-to-gig (if you’re not addicted already!) However, a new warning says txters should haul back on txting at bedtime if they want to sleep.

A Swedish researcher at Uppsala University, Bengt Arnetz, says his 18-month study has shown that mobile phone radiation seems to cause insomnia, headaches and difficulty concentrating.

So, if you’ve got an exam coming up and need some serious shut-eye it might be better to lay off the late-night txting. Similar advice applies to computer use before bedtime, although with the latter it seems to be more a case of your brain being too active too close to sleep time.

VIDEO GAMES CAN MAKE YOU FIT

Don’t fancy a run around the park or a bike ride? It’s not always enticing when the weather’s damp and cold. Well, while couch-style computer games will do nothing for your fitness, it seems the newer active games will.

An Auckland University pilot study looking at how playing such games, based on the Sony EyeToy, compared with outdoor physical activity, has found they compare pretty well. The active Nintendo Wii games weren’t used in the study but they are similar when it comes to exercise intensity.

Twenty-one Auckland kids aged 10 to 14 donned oxygen masks while playing the games, so the researchers could check out how much energy they were using. Then a second study saw 20 new kids play PlayStation games.

But there was a catch: half had their PlayStations upgraded with the EyeToy and half didn’t. The result? Over 12 weeks, the EyeToy kids were far more physically active, even though they spent less time overall playing games.

So, if you’re worried about your fitness, but you can’t face going out into the cold, get some mates round and jump around the sitting room playing an active game and you’ll be sweaty but sweet. Just make sure you strap the controller to your hand though or you could end up with a smashed TV. It has happened.

SLANG TXT BY THE BOOK

It’s gotta be the height of laziness, but, hey, your trigger fingers can get tired. We’re talking about predictive text, where you just opt for the first word-option that comes up — ‘book’ instead of ‘cool’, say, as it’s the first ‘predictive’ word in the list at the bottom of the screen.

But did you know textonyms, or t9onyms, as they’re called, are actually good for your English skills? Experts are cool with it; they say it means kids are not only smart but literate, too. So tell your English teacher that next time you’re ticked off for txting under the desk. There’s another advantage, too: t9onyms help stave off txt-RSI.