The British television show The Gadget Show has created a simulator for Battlefield 3 that will appeal to those who feel the game isn’t realistic enough.
Featuring a treadmill floor, projection screens and a motion controlled gun that looks kind of cheesy but doesn’t seem to detract from the tester’s enjoyment of this unique gaming experience. I don’t know about you, but I want one!
–via Joystiq

Even driving down the highway can be a virtual experience! With this Google Earth application, just enter your location and destination, hit “go” to find your route, then go to the simulator panel and hit “start.” You can adjust your speed as you drive along. Now, slow down and enjoy the scenery! Requires the Google Earth plug-in. The screenshot shown here is where I’m either getting on the Brooklyn Bridge or plunging into the East River. Link -via Metafilter
This CBC news story describes a brain surgery simulator that doctors in Halifax, Canada use for practice before cutting open real patients. It simulates not a generic human brain, but the brain of the specific patient:
First, patient data from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is rendered into a 3-D, high-resolution model of an individual’s brain. After the model is loaded into the system, doctors can touch and manipulate tumors and other virtual objects on screens in real time using a physical instrument resembling a scalpel. The instrument has six degrees of freedom and re-creates the force-feedback of the real tool and the varying resistance of tissue in brain regions with differing toughness. Meanwhile, photo-realistic on-screen imagery shows the simulated surgery, including bleeding and pulsing gray matter.
Link via Popular Science
Wanna-be pilots have Flight Simulator, Microsoft’s iconic computer game, but what about those who want to steer a cargo ship? Enter PlanetInAction’s "Ships", an online simulation that uses Google Earth to let you get in touch with your inner helmsman and steer your own fleet of ships from barges to the cruise ship Queen Mary 2.
Link | YouTube Clip – via Kris Abel’s Tech Life

