Some researchers suspect the video games industry, which touts the health benefits of so-called exergames, is paying little attention to the risks those games pose to players.

And the FDA is taking notice…

via Healthy games offer risks, too – The Boston Globe.

Amputees wearing prosthetics have to expend almost a quarter more energy than the rest of us, to walk the same distances.

This new, microchipped artificial foot (above) compensates for that.

via PLoS ONE: Recycling Energy to Restore Impaired Ankle Function during Human Walking.

Photo: nowhere Zen New Jersey. Flickr/CC

Once we’re all wearing geo-located, camera-view eyeglasses from LG and Sony Ericsson, advertisers will be popping-in on everything we look at in the “real world.”

NEW YORK Until recently, augmented reality existed mainly in movies like The Minority Report and computer science labs at universities, where technologists grappled with comically clunky headgear.

Now, however, several new Web and mobile applications are changing minds and helping to bring AR into the mainstream.

via Is AR the Next Big Thing?.

Augmented reality: Headgear is an issue. Photo: CC/Régis Gaidot

There’s another dimension present, everywhere we go, that a growing number of technologists are working to uncover. These people aren’t talking about theoretical physics or a magical world of fairies and gnomes – they’re talking about information that could offer more context to traditionally physical lived experience. Augmented Reality (AR) is the phrase being used and this practice of making layers of data available on top of real world experiences could be a big one soon.

via Augmented Reality: Here’s Our Wishlist of Apps, What’s On Yours?.

Actually, there may be another dimension present, but that isn’t what the technologists are uncovering. Rather, they are helping to impose someone else’s messages onto what we experience through our eyes and ears.

Photo: CC/Toni Lucatorto

Japan is talking-up yet another bipedal robot (at least officials are not describing this one as a potential sexual partner, yet), to help humans settle-in on the moon, in about ten years.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan hopes to have a two-legged robot walk on the moon by around 2020, with a joint mission involving astronauts and robots to follow, according to a plan laid out Friday by a government group.

Specifics of the plan, including what new technologies will be required and the size of the project’s budget, are to be decided within the next two years, according to Japan’s Strategic Headquarters for Space Development, a Cabinet-level working group.

via The Associated Press: Japan aims for walking robot on the moon by 2020.

With a 3D viewing headset (such as the augmented reality headset imagined here), you would have your own at-home 3DVR “cave” for exploring the metaverse.

Incredibly, we are just years, perhaps only months, away from very discreet (i.e., they won’t take over your livingroom), immersive experiences, at home.

And it will cost a fraction of what 3DVR caves, such as the one at Brown University (an elaborate mix of multiple projectors, hand and head tracking devices, and a stack of Linux servers).

Of course, the more seamless metaversal interfaces become, the more likely people will start forgetting where they really are.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t52gkAwJq8&eurl=http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2008/04/11/mitch-kapor-unveils-sl-navigation-via-3d-camera/]

[digg=http://digg.com/hardware/SL_3D_hardware_near_complete_immersion]

Robuter home-centric robot

Originally uploaded by markbaard.

The French robotics firm Robosoft this week demonstrated a robotic aid for the elderly and physically and cognitively disabled.

The Robuter is a net-connected system that housebound individuals can use to connect with others (via the internet, that is), talk to doctors, record their activities, etc.

It can also be programmed to clean floors, watch for intruders and remind patients to take their meds.