Doctors use Wii for rehab

Nintendo's Wii video game system is fast becoming a craze in rehab therapy for patients recovering from strokes, broken bones, surgery and even combat injuries, says The Niagara Falls Review.

The usual stretching and lifting exercises that help the sick or injured regain strength can be painful, repetitive and boring.

Using the game console's unique, motion-sensitive controller, Wii games require body movements similar to traditional therapy exercises. But patients become so engrossed mentally, they're almost oblivious to the rigour, says James Osborn, who oversees rehabilitation services at Herrin Hospital, in southern Illinois.

Seeking to capitalise on the growing mobile value-added services market, private telecom operator Reliance Communications, of India, introduced multiplayer mobile games for its customers in partnership with CanvasM, says The Hindu.

CanvasM Technologies, a joint venture between Tech Mahindra and Motorola, is a mobile value-added services provider and has a global presence.

The multiplayer mobile games would not only allow customers to compete with online mobile and PC gamers playing the same game, but would also offer features like lobby chat, messenger chat, game chat, score posting, profile and others.

Nvidia has completed the acquisition of Ageia, a maker of software tools for video and PC games, says Information Week.

Nvidia will use Ageia's products in conjunction with CUDA. CUDA is technology that Nvidia provides developers for offloading work from a computer's general-purpose CPU to a separate graphics-processing unit.

Support for Ageia's PhysX software and hardware would be added to CUDA for GPU rendering of PhysX-provided special effects.