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Not surprisingly, Taylor embraced the concept of blasting the bacteria and cancer cells that were the cause of his pain. "I liked killing the things that made me so tired and all of the things that made me miss my friends," he says. Each level of Re-Mission offered him a chance to encounter a different cyberpatient suffering from a slightly different form of cancer. During his treatment last year, he played the game every day or every other day for about an hour, taking a break from it when the chemo made him too sick to play. Taylor, who lives in Dana Point, Calif., is being home-schooled this year as his body recovers from both the disease and its treatment. His leukemia was brought on by something called the Philadelphia chromosome, which required a bone marrow transplant to purge the cancer from his body. He speaks about his experiences with a striking degree of knowledge and authority for someone so young. When asked why he wasn't able to go to school with his friends this year, sixth-grader responded, "It takes about a year to get your white blood cell count up." Re-Mission will resonate best with kids who are going through what he's been through, Taylor says. Roxxi uses an arsenal of weapons, taking on lymphoma cells, mouth sores, and bacteria with the aid of a chemo and "bacto" blasters as well as antibiotic rockets. Taylor's favorite weapon is the chemo blaster because it cuts through Roxxi's opposition like a machine gun. The shooter games on which Re-Mission is modeled have become notorious for their portrayal of violence to children. Still, Taylor's dad, Jim, says the game's benefits outweigh any possible emulation of aggressive behavior on the part of his son. "When your child gets into a life-threatening situation, your old concepts about what you do go out the window pretty quickly," says Jim, an IT-industry veteran who spent a decade at Digital Equipment Corp. before moving on to Motorola, and then co-founding PacketVideo. In fact, Jim was so interested in Re-Mission's potential to help his son that the father called HopeLab directly to replace the initial copy given to Taylor that didn't work properly. He adds, "No parent knows a lot about child oncology until they have to." Taylor gives Re-Mission pretty good marks overall as a video game. He notes that the graphics were "good but not great" but that it's "pretty good" as a shooter game. And he's got the credentials to back up his critique, given that he's got a Wii and an Xbox 360 at home. His favorite games on those systems are Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz and Guitar Hero, respectively. |
By combining resources and expertise, the AI-Enabled ICT Workforce Consortium will offer a blueprint for how industries can adapt to an AI-dominated future.
IT leaders should heed the guidance of cybersecurity insurance providers who think businesses should prioritize security education, incident preparedness, regular internal audits, and ongoing vulnerability scanning and patching.
There are many network courses that can address your present job's priorities and help you gain the needed skills to keep pace with industry changes and new technologies.
