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MHT's Marc Songini: Technology to keep seniors healthy
MHT's Efrain Viscarolasaga: Tech companies may have to wait for stimulus funds
MHT's Galen Moore: Service allows customers to pay taxi via cell phone
Music blared from the computer, and a middle-aged man with long hair was rocking out to Guitar Hero, the blockbuster game developed by Harmonix Music Systems Inc. of Cambridge.
But instead of watching the screen to pick up the music cues, this player, who is blind, wore a glove with buzzers on it to tell him when to strum. It’s an invention by Bei Yuan, a researcher at the University of Nevada.
“This was something this group of people never had before,” she said. Yuan’s glove was one among scores of novel health and gaming concepts on display last week at the Games for Health conference in Boston. Organizers plan to make Boston its permanent home.
“This conference was sold out. Every other conference I’ve heard of has been down 30, 40 percent in attendance,” said Jason Schupbach, the creative economy industry director for Massachusetts.
The health care industry is taking notice, exploring the possibility that games could reduce costs to manage or prevent conditions such as diabetes, obesity and dementia. Event attendees included representatives from Children’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital and disease foundations. Local developments are taking root.
Dakim Brain Fitness has developed a game designed to help seniors increase their mental acuity and memory. The game features a Hollywood announcer, a jazzy soundtrack and video clips from popular television shows from the 1950s and 1960s. On the other end of the age spectrum, young couch potatoes are enticed to get some exercise by an interactive flooring unit developed by Lightspace Corp. of Boston. Its floors offer games such as dodge ball, in which players avoid a colored light moving around the floor, or “bug infusion,” where players stomp on illuminated insects. The company collected $2.3 million in sales last year, up from $1.8 million in 2007.
But Lightspace, which went public in 2006, has been hurt by the economy. Lightspace’s shares are trading at a penny.
CEO Gary Florindo hopes mainstream acceptance of exercise games will lift businesses such as Lightspace.
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