With the fear of child obesity steadily on the rise in California, Anthem Blue Cross and the Boys & Girls Club of Camarillo joined forces to improve the health and physical well-being of children in California.

The idea for the project started when Dr. Harvinder Sareen, director of clinical programs for Anthem Blue Cross, visited the Boys & Girls Club of Camarillo with an idea according to Bill Locker, CEO/President of BGC of Camarillo.

“She asked about the idea and we said we were very interested. We then did some research on exergaming and thought it would be a great program for our kids…

A common issue some people have against video games is that they believe it promotes laziness and inactivity in children. Granted, we’re all aware of the classic image of someone spending hours a day in front of the TV or computer playing a game. But with all three major consoles adopting a motion control system, the argument that games = laziness can hopefully start to fade away. In fact, some companies have taken a cue from Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony by creating virtual exercise software that make working out fun.

A survey conducted in October by Nielsen has shown Apple as a dominant force in the eyes of children. The survey determined the purchase intent of popular electronic devices over the next six months. The most popular product was Apple’s iPad. A previous survey taken by Blackfriday.com also showed the iPad to be the top intended purchase on Black Friday.

Your health isn’t a game, but keeping track of it can be. Bayer has released a device in Europe known as Didget that comes with a fun program designed to encourage diabetic children to keep track of their blood glucose levels. Surprisingly, this new program is Knock ‘Em Downs: World’s Fair, a DS “game,” and the Didget doubles as a peripheral that can be fitted into the GBA slot on DS and DS lite systems. It’s quite ingenious, really.

The Didget alone is a blood glucose meter that can be used to check blood sugar throughout the day. But, it can also be used with the DS game Knock ‘Em Downs: World Fair to help encourage kids to keep checking their blood sugar daily. If kids keep up with their testing, they’ll unlock new levels and items in the game. You just plug the Didget and the DS cartridge into your system, and you’re all set.

At the moment, the Didget is available via two means…

Taito just announced that it plans to release My Pet Shop (Japanese title: Pet Shop Monogatari) for the Nintendo DS on March 10, 2009.

My Pet Shop is a simulation game that emphasizes the importance of organization, responsibility and care that is required in the raising of a multitude of pets. The game takes place in sunny, happy-go-lucky Green Town where you assist Mama/Mom (who looks like a younger version of Cooking Mama) in running the local pet shop through shopping, chores, and befriending the other people of the town.

While Taito is primarily marketing this title towards young children…

If you thought listening to the disclaimers at the end of a commercial for medicine or reading the warning labels on the side of a cigarette pack is funny, then get a load of this.

I read the report posted on CNet by Don Reisinger which indicates that on January 7, 2009, Joe Baca, a democratic representative of California, introduced the H.R.231: The Video Game Health Labeling Act of 2009 bill to 111th Congress requesting to make it mandatory that video games that have received a rating for violence to display the following warning:

WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior.

I thought it was funny. At first…

When Ron Stanley, a guest writer for The Washington Post, wrote an article reminiscing a time his nieces and nephews were banned from playing a video game or watching television, it was what the children did next that was surprisingly heartwarming.

As he spoke of his six-year-old nephew trying to finish his homework while the others played, it reminded me of the time when I was fifth grader struggling with math, distracted by my brothers playing Pong on the Atari 2600 in the next room. I wanted to play so bad. I could hear the joyful bleeps and my brothers madly twirling the paddles almost to a breaking point. So I can totally feel for the six-year-old described in Stanley’s article.

But the story wasn’t about the struggling six-year-old trying to finish his homework. It was about the writer’s nieces and nephews trying to find a way to entertain themselves without any form of entertainment…

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum used to be similar to nearly every other politician, believing that video games would train young children to be mass murderers. He took particular issue with the Wii version of Manhunt 2 due to the fact that he thought the Wii’s motion controls would enable kids to act out their “violent tendencies.”

According to GamePolitics, the person who planted that seed in his head was, of course, a certain Jack Thompson.

However, now that the holiday season is upon us, McCollum is taking a stance that other politicians are beginning to take – cautioning parents to exercise restraint when it comes to…

Just when you thought the world was turning an evil eye towards video games, accusing it of converting children into violent thugs, rotting their brains and making them fat. Consoles like the Nintendo Wii have opened up a new way for the medical field to use the games to their advantage. With games being integrated into physical therapies that can not only improve a person’s hand-eye-coordination it may just help shed some pounds in childhood obesity.

According to an article published by the UK Press Association video games that engage children in any form of physical activity “may be an effective answer to childhood obesity…”

During Comic Con 2008, many games and comics were featured. And who wouldn’t want to attend a special preview of today’s most talented directors and animators create independent film masterpieces. The Comic-Con International Independent Film Festival consisted of movies that fell into seven categories: action/adventure, animation, comics-oriented, documentary, humor/parody, horror and science fiction/fantasy. On July 27, 2008, the top films in each category were announced and awarded.

This year’s Comic-Con International: Independent Film Festival are…