When you slip your finger inside the box, a digital representation of it appears on the screen. You can then use your finger to interact with games, such as playing with a tiny panda, tormenting a little stick figure, or, uh, stroking a girls face. Not creepy at all! The little box will sell for $30 in Japan, but I'm sure you can find it online for import if you really want to try it out.

There was a strong correlation between video game skills and a surgeon's capabilities performing laparoscopic surgery in the study published in the February issue of Archives of Surgery.

Laparoscopy and related surgeries involve manipulating instruments through a small incision or body opening where the surgeon's movements are guided by watching a television screen.

Video game skills translated into higher scores on a day-and-half-long surgical skills test, and the correlation was much higher than the surgeon's length of training or prior experience in laparoscopic surgery, the study said.

Out of 33 surgeons from Beth Israel Medical Center in New York that participated in the study, the nine doctors who had at some point played video games at least three hours per week made 37 percent fewer errors, performed 27 percent faster, and scored 42 percent better in the test of surgical skills than the 15 surgeons who had never played video games before.

While sitting on this "pimped out" toilet, you can take care of business while notching a new high score on your PlayStation.

However, video games are just the beginning. This toilet sports a DVD player and a even a beer tap.

Everything is at arms length, including a Velcro strap for all of the remote controls.

Recessed into a urinal is a pressure-sensitive display screen. When the guest uses it, he triggers an interactive game, producing images and sound. The reduced size of the "target" improves restroom hygiene and saves on cleanings costs (like the "fly in the urinal" at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport). It also makes a trip to the urinal "fun and games" - more than just a necessary nuisance. By projecting the game experience into the public space, viewers are treated to a new way of visualizing the abstract, and the entertainment value is boosted. The projection of the project into a museum space was conceived of as a critical-ironic measure, questioning the concept of art, but extending it at the same time. "On target" is an interactive installation with the functional purpose of improving hygiene.

Then came the Genji 2 demo, which made me laugh and laugh so much. The idiocy of it has already caused it to become a bit of an internet joke, and it can be seen in the Sony Press Conference in One Minute video that's making the rounds. Once the giant crab creature showed its face in this historic game with real battles from history, there was no saving Sony's showing.

Sloppy Sims who do not clean the cage of the guinea pig and get bitten by the filthy beast are falling ill and, in some cases, dying.

To make matters worse sick Sims that do not rest and recover can infect other Sims.

Players of The Sims who have lavished attention on the virtual people for weeks only to see them cut down by a dirty guinea pig are getting annoyed.

"People are very upset by this aspect of reality being added unannounced to the game," said Sandra Linkletter, a keen Sims player. She said people were annoyed because there was no warning about the danger posed by the guinea pig.

Some child Sims with bad grades have ended up in military school after spending a day or two in bed recovering from the cold.

The Portage County Hazardous Materials Unit and Bomb Detection Unit were called in to downtown Ravenna on Friday morning after seventeen suspicious packages -- boxes wrapped in gold wrapping paper with question marks spray painted on them -- had alarmed residents.

Boxes were found at the Immaculate Conception Church on West Main Street, the Portage County Courthouse, Deluxe Pastries, the corner of Cherry Way and Main Street, Reed Memorial Library, Ravenna High School and a residence at Sanford and Main streets.

Five girls -- age 16 and 17 -- claimed responsibility for making and placing the packages. The girls said they found an Internet site that included step-by-step instructions for creating replicas of blocks featured in the game.

The game gadgets, made by technology firm DreamGear, have been introduced to Oregon's correctional system as part of a larger incentive system that starts to help prepare prisoners for life beyond bars.

The escalating system of non-cash incentives rewards those prisoners that stay out of trouble.

After six months of clean conduct, inmates get the chance to buy a 7-inch LCD screen with a cable hook-up for their cell. Inmates earn the money for the tiny TV, which costs $300, via the wages they earn doing jobs while serving their sentence.

***

After 18 months, inmates are offered further incentives, such as more visiting hours and get the chance to buy ice cream.

They are also given the chance to buy the game gadget which costs $35. The graphics in the 50 games stored on the gadget resemble those seen in mid-1980s consoles.

In what looks to be the University of Michigan library (the video is hosted on a personal UM website), a guy dressed up as Pac-Man bellows and cries for help as he is pursued by Blinky the red ghost, all the while making the infamous "wocka wocka" sound effect as the chase progresses through the computer lab.

"For 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, me and my colleagues are killing monsters," said a 23-year-old gamer who works in the makeshift factory and goes by the online code-name "Wandering."

"I make about $250 a month, which is pretty good, compared to the other jobs I've had," he said. "And I can play games all day."

He and his comrades belong to the latest global industry to use cheap Chinese labor - the fast-growing world of online gaming, which generates $3.6 billion a year, according to DFC Intelligence, which tracks the online gaming market.

They are workers with quotas and bosses who equip them to thrash online trolls, gnomes and ogres. In the hours these workers play, they accumulate gold coins that they can sell for real money to game players around the world, who then use the coins to buy better armor, amulets, magic spells and other accouterments to climb levels or create more powerful characters. The Internet is filled with classified advertisements from small companies, many of them in China, auctioning off their powerful figures, called avatars, and individual gamers marketing virtual weapons and wares.

Ballmer commented to the Citizen: "In these new consumer electronics devices based on new chips, there's always the question of what yield will you get out of the manufacturing process of the new chip. We're getting a little less, but not much less than the yields we expected, and we know that the yields we expected will probably outrun supply."

However, Ballmer noted: "We decided to go ahead and launch rather than wait until post-Christmas and get a few million units out into the hands of users. We're doing our best."

In addition, in remarks at a technology executive conference reported by Reuters, Ballmer quipped, in an apparent attempt to defuse some of the frustration over limited stocks of Microsoft's next-gen console: "The Ballmer children do not have their Xbox 360 yet. I'm in the same boat as many of you. Thanks to the wonders of [financial regulation act] Sarbanes-Oxley, management does not get a free Xbox 360."

Chang Hsi-ming, was wanted for murder, illegal possession of weapons and multiple kidnappings and coppers have been tracking him for about a year.

But the task became easier when the police learned that he had a passion for online gaming. They sniffed out his online persona, and tracked his IP address.

We don't know which game he was playing, but when police knocked on his door for a quiet word, they brought nearly 130 colleagues and two tanks.