serious games

Not “game industry” per se, but games are what drive this market right now. Pretty interesting.

» Report: The State of the Brain Fitness Software Market 2008 « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains

5) Over 400 residential facilities for older adults have launched computerized “brain fitness centers.” Sales to the healthcare and insurance provider segment grew from $35 million in 2005 to an estimated $65 million in 2007.6) More than five programs have shown results in randomized controlled trials. Cognitive functions that can be trained include: visual and auditory processing, working memory, attention, and decision-making.

Someone in Beijing decides to try reaching a blogger under house-arrest:

Luckily, just prior to this I had finished reading The Gulag Archipelago, so I was mentally prepared for the conditions inside an institution. However, this was still not enough, so I did a crash course in learning some criminal procedure law and investigation and interrogation methodology. Aside from that, my head was full of the first-person shooters in Delta Force and Counter-Strike—so I was thinking of what was needed for a military operation.

Global Voices Online » China: Hack into Freedom City