IT`s all fun and games

The US Army has found a powerful new weapon in training soldiers to combat urban warfare: video games. For the past year, the Army has been handing out free games as part of its recruiting efforts, but in the coming months it will also turn to a video game to train squad leaders in real-life combat tactics, reports Reuters.

The combat simulator, which was demonstrated at the Los Angeles Electronic Entertainment Expo this week, puts players at the head of two light-infantry teams locked in a running firefight in a vaguely Middle Eastern city. The "bad guys" pop out from behind walls and pull up in pickup trucks with automatic-weapons mounted on the beds. When shot, they fall with a burst of blood from the head.

Developers say they were careful to fictionalise details of the game`s setting and make sure the US soldiers acted with discipline and professionalism. Fictional or not, the look of the digital battleground shifted from a Bosnia-like terrain to a more Arab-looking street during development.

Spokane residents who want to try out the new Segway Human Transporter without shelling out the $5 000 purchase price can now rent one to get around on. Entrepreneur Larry Lambeth has bought 10 of the electric scooters and offers them for hire through his new company, Fun Transport, reports Reuters.

Rentals cost as much as $20 for each 30-minute increment, for up to 90 minutes, so that users will come back before the battery runs out. Users can also pay $5 for a test drive, or "pre-glide" as Lambeth calls it. Users will also get a two-way radio so they can call for help if they need it, and global positioning satellite units have been hidden on the scooters to ensure they don`t disappear.

The police in Yakima, Washington are installing a first-of-its-kind computer system in their vehicles to record and store pictures of every encounter they have that could end up in court, reports Reuters.

IBM will install the "in car" digital video systems in 32 cruisers for the Yakima police department. While many US police departments have cruisers equipped with camera systems to provide evidence in arrests and protect themselves from lawsuits, IBM said it believed that the Yakima system was the first to use computers to record and store such data.

Yakima officers will plug a portable hard drive into a computer mounted in between the front seats of a patrol car. A microphone and a bi-directional camera mounted on the visor will record continuously, but will save only three to four minutes at a time. When the officer turns on the "pursue" lights on the top of the car, the system automatically saves and stores the last few minutes and whatever comes next, until the system is turned off.

Once the shift is over, the officer takes the hard drive to the police headquarters and uploads all the stored data to a central server, which is capable of storing 3.5TB of data.