Entrepreneur Watch

Can Gaming Technology Help Medical Research?

The year is 2020. A massive contamination of a neurological disease is spreading rapidly and may affect up to 100 million U.S. citizens. Government leaders have convened a panel to try and stop the disease. You have 24 hours to find a cure. Go.

This is only a game, but one that three research organization hope will come up with new ideas for speeding up the rate of medical research.

They're hoping for 600 gamers, including university scientists, business leaders, healthcare innovators, biopharma executives and R&D professionals, government regulators, entrepreneurs, patients and the general public.

Actually, there will be two online games that will go live for 24 hours this Fall. One on Oct. 7-8, the other on Nov. 9-10. Anyone can play. 

The games are being offered as "idea sourcing" events. They're being sponsored by the Myelin Repair Foundation, with a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Institute for the Future (IFTF) is designing the game.

Aren't medical breakthroughs coming quickly enough? The sponsors think not. Their concern is that, while there are substantial scientific discoveries these days, life-saving new treatments are not keeping pace. 

The game will try to embody a sense of urgency to solve a medical crisis, and see what innovations people come up with. Says IFTF game designer Jane McGonigal: 

“Those who play games have a sense of urgency and abandon when they are engaged in a game scenario. We have seen these behaviors in corporate strategic game play where there are real stakes. The game we are building for the MRF is designed to generate that sort of urgency and unleash creative ideas for finding ways to speed medical research.”

You can see the game scenario at http://info.breakthroughstocures.org/

There's a press release here.

Registration begins Sept. 3 if you want to play.

Good luck, and live long and prosper.

Google violates Kansas copyrights

Once again, Google has shown its blatant disregard for international copyright standards.

Earlier today, Google CEO Eric "Oh aren't I smart with my Ph.D©" Schmidt announced that the Mountain View, California company was changing its name to Topeka. 

Why? Because the city of Topeka, Kansas had supposedly given up the rights to that name when it announced it was changing its name to Google.

This argument doesn't wash any better than my uncle Ernie after a night drinking with the hoboes in U.N Plaza in San Francisco.©  

Google, sorry, Topeka, knew that the people of Topeka, sorry, Google, were only planning on making the change temporary.

The Topekans, sorry, Googlans, simply wanted to call attention to the fact that children in that city of 122,000 have never had the luxury of Web-surfing faster than 122K baud, 1,000 times slower than that enjoyed by children in more developed parts of the world like Singapore. The good people of Topeka, sorry, Google, Kansas want to convince Google, sorry, Topeka, to install a Singapore-speed© broadband network in its fair city. 

Google, sorry, Topeka, has promised to do that for any U.S. city willing to change its name to Google, sorry, Topeka, wait, I'm confused now. So that city-that-must-not-be-renamed in Kansas obliged, but only for a month.

I know that Google knew this change was temporary because, in another blatant copyright violation in its attempt to destroy mainstream media, Google CEO Eric "Oh, aren't I smart with my Ph.D" Schmidt's announcement actually linked to a CNN article that described Topeka's, sorry, Google's sad attempt to gain Schmidt's attention so that the children of Kansas might catch up to the technology of the "Singapore Age"©. In that article, mayor Bill "No, I don't have a PH.D."© Bunten said it was only for a month.

CNN, of course, is owned by Rupert Murdoch©, who has complained about Google, sorry, oh to hell with it, Google stealing his intellectual property by linking to his news articles. Dr. so-smart Schmidt is just trying to goad Murdoch© into doing something stupid, like blocking his news articles from Google searches. 

When is Google going to learn that EVERY WORD any American ever writes down or steals from a native American tribe is automatically copyrighted and nobody else has ANY rights to it? Just because Topeka is temporarily relinquishing the name, Schmidt cannot violate the city's copyright©. The city has exclusive rights to that name for 123 years past the death of the city's last living resident.

Please, write to your Congressman and ask the Justice Department to crack down on Google before it becomes any more powerful. Before long, it will have a monopoly on every city name in America©.

Let's face it, if this doesn't prove that Google is evil, nothing will. ©