Affordable High-Definition Products
LifeSize Communications (www.lifesize.com) has unveiled an expanded HD video product line, featuring the new products — LifeSize Express and LifeSize Team MP. All LifeSize products deliver an immersive, high-definition telepresence experience, over existing broadband networks. LifeSize Express offers a high-definition, point-to-point video communications experience at a lower price than most standard definition systems. About the size of a wireless router, LifeSize Express provides telepresence quality HD video for under $6,000.
LifeSize’s mid-priced HD video communications solutions, the LifeSize Team MP and LifeSize Room, include embedded high-definition multipoint capabilities that give customers greater flexibility in determining the solution that best accommodates their environment. As with all LifeSize HD video products, LifeSize Team MP and LifeSize Room deliver 30 frames per second and 1280x720 screen resolution at only one megabit per second (Mbps), and provide better quality at any bandwidth. LifeSize products are fully standards compliant and can interoperate with nearly any videoconferencing system built within the last seven years. Priced as low as $8,999.
Duels Available on Facebook
Oxygen Games’ popular Duels online fantasy game is the first massively multiplayer role-playing game (MMORPG) to be integrated directly with Facebook. Duels, which currently has more than 50,000 users, combines the best of collectible card games (CCGs) and the advancement and character development of MMORPGs with the ease of access and community aspects of Web 2.0 applications. Facebook users can now play Duels directly within the Facebook “social graph” and challenge their friends to battles after they install Duels for Facebook, which is available free at http://apps.facebook.com/duelsfb.
Develop Some Positive New Habits
Feeling stressed out and worried? Instead of turning to a self-help book or TV psychologist, try the new MindHabits Trainer PC videogame. MindHabits Trainer recently won first prize in Telefilm Canada’s Great Canadian Video Game Competition, a $2 million videogame competition for independent game developers in Canada. MindHabits is available through www.mindhabits.com, priced at $19.99.
MindHabits Trainer offers players simple, fun mental exercises that can help maintain a more positive state of mind. The game is based on more than a decade of social intelligence research conducted at Montreal’s McGill University by a team led by Dr. Mark Baldwin. The findings, published this month by the American Psychological Association, show that playing social intelligence games like MindHabits Trainer for five minutes a day can actually help reduce stress hormones and boost the confidence of players in work and in life.
MindHabits Trainer applies three principles of social intelligence, as used in Dr. Baldwin’s research: Activation, inhibition and association. The principles are part of a series of mini-games targeting different responses from the player. The game features trainers, as well as trackers, to help players measure their personal improvements.
High-Performance Video Outdoors
Under its Runco custom home theater brand, Planar Systems is showcasing the first flat-panel LCD display designed specifically for outdoor living. Runco’s 42-inch weatherproof WP-42HD utilizes advanced LCD technology and glass with special element-proof bonding to deliver a high-definition widescreen flat-panel monitor ready for all most anything.
Engineered for maximum durability, the WP-42HD’s weatherproof enclosure ensures protection from adverse environmental conditions including temperature, exposure to moisture, dust, oils and intermittent direct water spray. The custom aluminum cabinet is sealed to ensure protection from the elements and features a specially-designed internal ventilation system to provide adequate cooling.
