IPods Unlocking Memories

IPods are being used to help stroke and dementia patients with memory loss and helps relaxes them.

For decades, caregivers observed that Alzheimer's patients can still remember and sing songs long after they've stopped recognizing names and faces.

Nursing homes and hospitals use music to bring patients pleasure and to help recreate their memories.

Dr. Tomaino has studied therapeutic effects of music more than 30 years.

"If someone loved opera or classical music or jazz or religious music, or if they sang and danced when the family got together, we can recreate that music and help them relive those experiences," she says.

A few years ago, Tomaino did an unpublished study on 45 patients with mid- to late-stage dementia. The patients had one hour of personalized music therapy, three times a week, for 10 months, and improved their scores on a cognitivefunction test by 50% on average.

There was one patient who even managed to remember his wife after many months.

I've known of music helping some mentally challenged children before and the idea of the same process with Alzheimer is amazing. I wonder what it is about music that triggers the mind when words and faces fail.

I can't really begin to describe what this would be like.

Apple VS Nintendo

Nintendo is getting ready to release a new version of the DS handheld and has managed to excel in the gaming market for 20 years. Yet cellphone games are rising in popularity thanks to Apple!

Nintendo's profit went down 52% in the first half of their fiscal year, which ends in March, as sales of Wiis and DS gadgets decreased.

Research firm DFC Intelligence says that Apple producsts will take charge of portable gaming for the next five years!

Apple has access to thousands of different games at their App Store. Some are free to play while others can cost under $10. New Nintendo games starting price is $20.

People are going to the source with the most games for the better deal. The DS has limits while it seems Apple has none; or at least less. I've always been a Nintendo fan and I like Apple even though I don't know much about them. I wonder what it would be like if they should merge into one company? It's way too soon for talks like that.

However, that was an idea that flowed into my head.

Disney Returns to Traditional Animation

The new film 'The Princess and the Frog' is the first traditionally drawn animation over the last six years.

Disney has been using computer animation like in 'Chicken Little", which made $135 million in the box office and a more recent film 'Bolt', $114 million.

Pixar cofounders John Lasseter and Ed Catmull have overseen Disney Animation since 2006, when Disney bought their company for $7.4 billion. They were the ones to decide to return to the hand-drawn techniques and to rehire filmmakers who use it.

"I've never understood why the studios were saying people don't want to see hand-drawn animation," Mr. Lasseter said at a fan convention earlier this year. "What people don't want to watch is a bad movie."

Lasseter's problem wasn't Disney's animation techniques, but fundamental elements like characters and plot.

They've got high hopes with this new classic fairy tale like story that's hand drawn about a princess and a frog. Disney has made some great movies, but latley some just don't have the "spark" like they use to. 'Tresure Planet' was an ok film that I wouldn't mind to rewatch every now and then, but in the box office it failed to get the high ratings. Also, the same happened to 'Brother Bear'; I never saw this movie.

I dont' know what this new movie by Disney is really about, but I've got some hope that maybe it may be that "spark" like the older disney cartoons had; have! One day, traditional animation may be a thing of the past, but until then...