New research sponsored by the Centre for Ageing Research and Development in Ireland (also known as CARDI) suggest that using video games can help the elderly improve their balance and avoid falls that are often devastating and debilitating.

The Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) has revealed the winners of its 2012 scholarship program. The trade group that represents retailers in the United States (and was the lead in Brown v. EMA) has awarded five students $1,500 a year for up to four years who are entering college as freshmen.

For the last four years, Westwood College's Anaheim Campus has put on the Gathering of Video Game Legends & Student Game-Concept Pitch Competition. This year's event will be held on August 18 from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. at the Westwood College Anaheim Campus (next to the Honda Center) in sunny Anaheim, California.

The Boston Festival of Indie Games has extended the deadline for game submissions, allowing those who have not yet submitted their games to be included in the indie game showcase to get their entries in. Game submissions are now being accepted until midnight PST (3 am EST) on Monday, August 20.

The Academy of Interactive Entertainment (Lafayette, Louisiana) will be hosting its annual Independent Game Developers Festival (iFest) at the Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise(LITE) Center on Saturday August 4th (10am - 5pm).

A Health Canal report details the concern of a critic of the UK's new video game ratings system saying that it will fail because it doesn't deal with "irresponsible parenting." Yesterday the new PEGI ratings system went into effect in the UK. The new system includes penalties for retailers that sell age inappropriate games to children that do not meet the ratings guidelines.

Realizing that the current generation has been raised on video games and technology that is constantly evolving, University of California, Davis Professor Colin Milburn has found a novel way of reaching students: getting them to use creativity and technology to bring poetry and literature to life in 3D. Milburn, who is an associate professor of English, was recently appointed to the inaugural Gary Snyder Endowed Chair in Science and the Humanities at UC Davis. In this new position Davis is developing research and teaching techniques that are geared towards tech savvy youngsters.

As more details emerge on the secretly negotiated trade agreement between Canada and the European Union, online rights activists are voicing their opinions on why it is a bad idea and why they are getting a strange sense of déjà vu. Critics of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which was ultimately voted down by the European Parliament, have warned that those forces in Europe and other parts of the world behind such treaties will continue to push parts of that treaty that most citizens do not want.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has teamed up with Birmingham City University (Birmingham, England) to give students in the Gamer Camp program the opportunity to receive scholarships and a job with Sony. This is the second year that Sony has given university game development students access to its PlayStation Academic Scholarships program.

Researchers at Deakin University (Melbourne, Australia) have come to the conclusion that pre-school aged children who play interactive video games (such as those found on the Wii) have better motor skills than those children who do not regularly play interactive games. Deakin University researchers and a researcher form the University of Wollongong conducted a pilot study in 2009 of 53 pre-schoolers ages three to six years old (31 girls, 22 boys) to determine if there was some sort of association between playing games and the fundamental movement skills of children.

Using the Unity 3D game development engine, researchers from North Carolina State (who are leading the development), Arizona State University, and Indiana University, have developed a simulation that allows crime scene investigators to look at a crime scene from multiple angles.

The highest court in Canada has delivered some depressing news for music and other rights holders today: they can't charge additional fees to educators, video game makers, and Internet service providers. In a ruling on multiple cases today the Supreme Court of Canada struck down five cases that had to do with tariffs.

In the old days, Supreme Court Justices had very little information to turn to outside of legal briefs presented by combatants and case law when making a ruling, but a new study by William & Mary law professor Allison Orr Larsen finds that justice are increasingly turning to information on the Internet to shore up their opinions. According to research from Larsen, there were more than 100 instances where justices used information on the Internet in their opinions.

Researchers at the University of Central Florida's Anxiety Disorders Clinic along with Atlanta-based company Virtually Better have created a virtual game world where children with social anxiety can practice to become more comfortable in social situations.

The UK government has decided to take the rigid requirements out of information and communication technology (ICT) curriculum, instead allowing teachers to create their own lesson plans and approaches to providing students the things they need to learn. Teachers will still be required to teach ICT. The Department for Education’s consultation document announcing the change indicated that the mandatory guidelines were not getting the job done and that educators didn't care all that much for it.

The winners of the National STEM Video Game Challenge were announced today at The Atlantic's Technologies in Education Forum in Washington, DC. The competition was designed to motivate youngsters throughout the country to promote the importance of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) by making video games.

Stroke experts in the United Kingdom from Newcastle University have been working with Limbs Alive to create action-focused games that help patients overcome physical side effects through therapeutic gameplay that can be used at home. Limbs Alive was founded by Professor Janet Eyre and occupational therapist Janice Pearse in partnership with Newcastle University and The Newcastle upon Tyne NHS Hospitals Foundation Trust.

Children with cerebral palsy (CP) can greatly benefit from playing "active play" video games - as opposed to the kind that don't require any kind of physical activity. According to researchers from Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital and the University of Toronto.

UK video game industry trade group UKIE will sponsor the Games Britannia Festival, it announced today. Games Britannia is a week-long festival that brings British video game talent into the classroom, giving students a unique insight into the skills, techniques and qualifications required to have a successful career in the gaming industry. Over 1000 children, between the ages of 5 - 18 have already signed up to attend, according to UKIE. The event is scheduled to take place July 2 - 6.

Veteran Naughty Dog lead developer Richard Lemarchand is leaving the makers of the Uncharted series, according to a Gamasutra report. But Lemarchand isn't moving on to another studio or launching his own company; he has left the development studio to teach. After eight years working for Naughty Dog Lemarchand feels that he can do the most good by teaching at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California.

Miami-Dade County, Florida public schools are preparing to launch the first-of-its-kind magnate school that focuses on video games this fall, according to the Miami Herald. Dubbed the iTech Academy at Miami Springs Senior High, students will be able to learn how to design and program video games. Educators backing the school believe that this special program will teach students how to better solve problems and also prepare them to work in the technology and gaming industries.

Local and State Law enforcement and parole officers in Washington are invited to take part in a one-day training program that deals with crimes in virtual worlds. The course is the result of a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance to Drakontas and Drexel University.

The free one-day course, "Addressing Crime in Virtual Worlds & Online Gaming Worlds," aims to help law enforcement personnel "identify, investigate, and prevent crimes involving virtual worlds and online video game worlds."

Recently the Brookings Institute hosted a panel on the important role that social networking and gaming can have on education. The panel featured Constance Steinkuehler Squire, senior science and technology policy analyst for President Barack Obama; Janet Kolodner, information and intelligent systems program officer at the National Science Foundation, Maria Ucelli-Kashyap, policy analyst at the American Federation of Teachers; and Holly Sagues, chief policy officer at the Florida Virtual School.

Students who enroll in a new video game-based narrative writing course at the University of Iowa beginning in the fall will get a chance to explore worlds, characters and plotlines popularized by video games. They'll also get credits. The course is called "Specialized Reporting & Writing, Video Games & Communication," and is a step by the university to add video games into the curriculum, though video-game education experts say that analyzing off-the-shelf commercial games isn't the typical approach taken by universities.

University of Tennessee graduate student Charles Chin has won the Vol Court spring business pitch competition and is on track to develop and release a video game similar to SimCity that highlights the importance of energy production and consumption in the real world.

Thirty students from the University of New Mexico have created a video game to benefit a charity for children with diabetes. The students developed Alloy, a video game that lets players create robots out of scrap metal in a barren wasteland. The created bots are then used to find power crystals that power other robots. The crystals are wanted by others, so the robots have to engage in come "capture the flag" style gameplay in order to secure the crystals.

Sony Online Entertainment sent along a reminder to let anyone interested in applying for the fifth annual Gamers in Real Life (G.I.R.L.) Game Design Competition, that submissions are now being accepted. The G.I.R.L. Game Design Competition is an annual initiative to promote higher education among women and encourage their inclusion and participation in the video game industry.

An interesting research project at Northwestern University used the vast number of mobile users on campus to help academics retrieve photos and other pertinent data that they couldn't find simply by trolling data online. The problem researchers had to find an answer to was how to get users to go to places that they normally wouldn’t go to collect the data they needed.

On May 4 Campus Gamers will launch the 2012 Education and Gaming Symposium at California State University, Bakersfield. Leaders in the game industry will be attending the event to illuminate attendees on how the games they play can be used to improve education. Confirmed speakers include James Portnow (Extra Credits), Leslie Redd (Director of Educational Programming at Valve), and Geoffrey Zatkin (EEDAR).

Testing began on a video game created by researchers at the Oklahoma University funded by a $10.7 million grant it obtained in October of last year from the U.S. government. University students signed up to play the game and check for coding typos and other obvious problems, play tester and communications senior Chelsey Schuessler told the UO Daily. In the next phase of the project, which begins in August, researchers will test the game to see if does what it is intended to do: prevent biases in decision-making.