recovery posts

So, your computer has done something very, very, comprehensively, unquestionably bad. Unbootably bad. Now what? If you bought a system from HP or Dell or one of the other big players in the OEM PC market, you might be tempted to reach for the System Restore Disk (CD or DVD) that shipped with it to resurrect your moribund system.

A word of advice here: Don't.

By now, most of us are aware that video games aren't just for fun anymore. The latest evidence: the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has distributed over $2 million in grants to 12 teams developing video games intended to help players overcome health problems.

For example, one funded project is a virtual world for recovering drug addicts, wherein they can get support and practice drug-free living. Another: a motion-sensor-based game to be part of stroke patients' physical therapy regimens. 112 teams applied for funding, and this was just the first round.

This is one more example of society's exploration of new applications for video game technology. We've already seen games used for everything from geopolitical activism to exercise. Are these signs that interactive software will replace film and television as society's dominant medium? We wonder!