Mountain Surfing

Gun, Red Dead Revolver, and the Wild Arms games. These are the only half-decent Wild West themed games that have come out in the past decade. I give Wild Arms credit for having such a long running RPG series, I even enjoy my copy of Wild Arms 3, but when I think of the Wild West, I don't picture cell-shaded anime characters shooting goblins in the face with snipers and shotguns. I like the Wild Arms series, don't get me wrong, it just isn't the type genre of the Wild West that I'd like to see more of.

The 1800's in America were a time of exploration and adventure, where everyday people weathered the elements, the treacherous landscape, and the wild animals to catch a glimpse of the Pacific Ocean or make their fortune in gold. Nowadays, sand box games are all the rage and so an open ended Wild West game seems doable; just picture Nikko from GTA4 on a horse instead of a car and using a six shooter instead of a rocket launcher.

It surprises me a little that we aren't flooded with every Western-style game imaginable like we were with Western movies. Ask anyone if they've ever heard of John Wayne or Clint Eastwood and after they ask what you're doing in their house, they'll probably say yes. The simple answer is that we don't see more wild west games is because Japan has the most say in what types of games are to be developed and since their history is much different than ours, we see more samurais and ninjas than we do cowboys.

Don't get me wrong, I like exploring fictional video game lands like Filgaia and whatever the name of the world is from the Final Fantasy games, but it would be a breath of fresh air and much more interesting to have landscapes in games modeled to look like realistic locations. Nothing would be more exciting than to explore the pre-settled territories of the American West and ride off into the sunset like we see so many heroes do in movies; or recognize a landmark in a game that you've actually seen in real life.

Thanks to advancements in open sourced technology, gamers are given the driver's seat when it comes to what they want in video game. Maybe in the future we'll see more games that seek to satisfy the restless American spirit that we all seem to have because, I don't know about you, but Oregon Trail just doesn't seem to cut it.

My name is Brendan and I am a senior at the University at North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I enjoy writing articles to improve my writing, pad my resume, and give my advice and feedback on different topics. Check out my website to find more of my stuff at http://brendanigan.com

AP - The Lakers have been waiting more than six months for another shot at the Boston Celtics. Now that they'll get it, they might not like it.

Three dimensional TV, or 3D TV as it will undoubtedly come to be called, is sure to become a winner when it comes to market in the future. This futuristic way of watching TV has been envisioned for years. In fact, it's a rare science fiction scenario that doesn't anticipate some kind of holographic or three dimensional entertainment or communications technology.

3D TV has a lot of practical uses for a lot of different people both professionally and personally. For example, the applications to diagnostic medicine are pretty obvious. After all, a two dimensional X-ray could never compare to viewing a scan of someone's innards from any angle when it comes to figuring out what's wrong with them. Three-D scans could take the guess work out of a variety of different types of surgery by allowing doctors to look at wounds, tumors, foreign objects, broken bones, and blockages before even opening a patient up. Plus, when combined with real time scanning technology that's already available, 3D TV could even allow doctors to look at the physical processes of living people in real time!

The applications for physicists, scientists, and engineers could also be extremely useful. Much like doctors could do with humans, zoologists could look at the inner workings of exotic, even possibly endangered animals, without dissection. Physicists will be able to use the technology to analyze complex processes that would be extremely difficult to conceptualize in two dimensions. Engineers will be able to do similar things with the technology in order to visualize the things that they're building and designing. If you think about the extremely small applications of nanotechnology, you can see how 3D TV could be extremely useful for the development of that technology as well. After all, with most other mediums people can look at their prototypes.

One of the first forms of entertainment that will benefit from 3D TV will be video gaming. That's because most modern video games generate their images in 3D and then convert them to two dimensions for display on a computer screen or a TV screen. This means that it would take only minor changes to how video games work in order to display a huge number of them in 3D.

Creating TV programming in three dimensions is a little more difficult, but several well known directors are working on 3D movies right now. There's also software under development that converts 2D video into 3D images that can be shown on prototypes of 3D TV sets. The software still has a lot of bugs that need to be worked out. While it does convert 2D programming to 3D programming, it doesn't render the images very realistically. At least one version of the software that's been developed so far is that it can be run on hardware that's widely available. In fact, a laptop computer was able to run prototype software without any trouble.

While we can't be completely sure how 3D TV will play out- especially when it comes to compatibility and creating programming for it- we can be sure that it is coming, and by all accounts it should be coming in the near future.

E.Sanderson writes articles for consumers who want to find the latest technology news about Cable Television. She has written for many major publications about Cable Television Access and how buyers can find the best deals with Comcast TV.

AP - Lance Armstrong is going to be a father again.