LA Times, Slashdot, Intl Business Times Cover ICT’s World of Warcraft Video & Tool for Games/VR

Published: December 29, 2010
Category: News

FAAST, a new toolkit that facilitates integration of full-body control with games and VR applications, was covered in the Los Angeles Times technology blog, on the tech blog, Slashdot and in the International Business Times. A widely viewed YouTube video shows FAAST creator Evan Suma, who is a postdoctoral researcher in the ICT Mixed Reality Lab, playing World of Warcraft using Microsoft Kinect. With the addition of FAAST, he is able to control game play using his body movements rather than a joystick, keyboard or mouse.
Skip Rizzo, ICT’s associate director of medical virtual reality, speaks in the video about the implications of this work.
“I think the real compelling aspect of all this is that you can now take off-the-shelf games, content that’s already built, and emulate the keyboard actions with body movement,” Rizzo said. “This opens up the doorway for building rehabilitation exercises for people after a stroke or traumatic brain injury. And in an area that’s getting a lot of attention, the area of childhood obesity and diabetes.”
And perhaps equally important was Suma’s observation after using his new tool.
“Gameplay was surprisingly fun,” he said.
Read the LA Times coverage here.
Read Slashdot’s coverage here.
Read the International Business Times story here.