The next stage of video gaming looks to be heading towards a much more immersive experience. Imagine combining motion sensor hardware like Sony’s recently launched PlayStation Move, which has an eye camera that can track the player’s movements in 3D and pinpoint them anywhere in the room, with technology used in Xbox’s Kinect, which allows characters to respond to your voice; and you start getting an idea of just how different gaming of the future will be.Let’s say you’re in the middle of a game, screaming wildly because augmented reality zombies are coming to eat your virtual flesh. You’re terrified cries well be read with urgency by the characters on screen, who will then run to your aid, likely throwing you a crossbow which you’ll catch due to 3D projection technology and start shooting zombies in the head with. But this doesn’t even come near to the awesome potential of telekinesis in video games that's also coming up in the future. Using a process called electroencephalography (EEG) which reads electronic activity within the brain—you'll be destroying virtual cities with the power of your thoughts. You can already buy the MindSet—a brainwave interface headset—by a company (which sounds like a corporation from RoboCop) called NeuroSky; it can be used in a game called NeuroBoy to set cars on fire and throw benches around like you’re training in Professor Xavier’s academy. Just imagine the potential of this combined with 3D motion sensors and projection technology?Before you know it, we’ll also be playing while we work. Gamification expert Gabe Zicherman told The Observer. “With gamification, we’ll find boring things fun – like paying our taxes, getting regular checkups, buying groceries or checking the weather. When fun becomes a principal design requirement or objective of all kinds of industries – from healthcare and government to finance and transportation – the effect on our happiness will be unprecedented.”
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