Will Wright, creator of The Sims, is moving beyond mere pixels, and taking gamers with him. Instead of letting you play god and housing designer to a group of non-sentient AI, his newest game will actually play games with your life with a little help from GPS, cloud storage, and your friends.

If it sees that you go to car shows frequently, it will mold the game accordingly. The more the game finds out about you, the more it’s going to be customized to your life. If you share absolutely nothing with it, you’ll be left with what should be a very generic, but perhaps mildly entertaining game.

It’s going to be able to tell whether it’s day or night, and where you’re at. If you allow it access, it can even use information from purchases you make and how much money you have. It really points to being mobile by the fact that it will also interact with Google Maps and point out places you may want to journey to. If it gets really in-depth, you may even see events in your area pop up through the game.

HiveMind will theoretically be able to solve problems you may have by tapping into the network of those around you who are playing. Wright hasn’t fleshed that part out (at least to the press), but it’s an interesting theory. Maybe you need the cheapest price for repairing your brakes, or to even decide if it’s your breaks that need fixed. It seems like it will run off of the unfailing ideology of crowd sourcing an individual’s problems to get the best answer. Like a human-driven search engine, HiveMind will let you find what you need, as long as you give it enough data.

Before the conspiracy theorists chime in with ideas on how we’re one step away from any science fiction dystopia you can think of, give Wright a little credit. Every single thing the game learns, it learns from you. You have to give it permission to do anything. It won’t sneakily grab your credit card information or your first born child.

However, in the days of LulzSec and Anonymous, users might be a bit spooked about putting information about themselves online. It’s a hurdle Wright and his team will have to overcome if they want to be successful. Users are pretty tired of being tricked and finagled into adding more and more data about themselves online (a la Facebook’s dubious privacy settings), so it will be a challenge to convince them to join in.

HiveMind sounds more like an augmented reality than an actual game, but we all know that if anyone can make paying taxes fun, it’s Will Wright. The ‘game’ sounds a bit all over the place right now (tracking fitness, solving your problems, knowing what time of day it is), but a lot of the hype is resting on Wright’s rather substantial laurels. We can all sit back and wait for him to make sense, and fun, out of what would be our standard daily lives.

Gaming:

Put the controllers down; all you need is your phone to have access to the most popular gaming platform. It might not be the only full-touch control gaming device (think Android phones), but it’s certainly the most popular out there.

iPhone gaming has taken new heights and inspired a line of peripherals with graphics that perform better than on some laptops. A year ago, the Unreal engine that powers games likes Bioshock, Mass Effect and Gears of War was used to create Epic Citadel, an iPhone game. The game itself wasn’t entirely successful, which many people blame on a loose storyline and not enough variety in the action.

What it actually means, though, is that iPhone games are progressing rapidly. They’re becoming just as good as console games, even if they are more condensed. Though many feel like the iPhone is the bastion of casual games, there are very serious, very legitimate games in the App Store.

Education/Learning

For students, the relationship between phones and life becomes even deeper. They’re using their phones for flashcards and writing quizzes for themselves on it. Online learning opportunities for college students become convenient enough that a student can take their studies on the road or even get in some reading time at work or when they’re commuting.

Apps like Kindle and Nook help students even more since they can rent and borrow books and textbooks from libraries and stores across the nation. Kindle even has an e-textbook program through the Amazon App Store.

The iPhone is especially great for college students because of programs like myHomework, which allow them the ultimate in custom organization. The influx of apps means that organizations can become intensely personalized to a demographic, and students are definitely taking advantage of that.

Memory:

By now, you’ve probably seen the study that was done to prove our brains are now storing things differently because of technology. Instead of remembering what things mean, we remember where we can look them up.

If you’re lost, you don’t grab your phone to call someone; you open up your navigation application and find your way out. If you need to look something up, you open up your Wikipedia app and find your answer there. If there’s anything you need, you can always find it through your phone.

iPhones have it set firmly into our minds that if you need something, it will be there for you. If you can’t find the proper app, you’re either not looking hard enough or you just have to wait a few weeks for it to be developed.

All of those changes are exciting. They’re not, however, that exciting to gamers.
So, on to  Siri, the magical little wonder that will make everyone’s life better. It does show incredible promise, even if it did take the place of an anticipated iPhone 5 release. For gamers, it can be the Kinect of the iPhone. Instead of shouting commands at Shepard’s squad in Mass Effect 3, imagine yourself controlling different puzzle pieces by only your voice while you slide others into place. Apple is giving developers access to Siri’s coding, so they’ll be able to use it in programs and apps.

Siri will be able to multitask for players. Awkward thumbsticks won’t be a thing of the past, but you won’t have to alternate between using them and hitting onscreen buttons. Hopefully, of course, there will be toggle controls so you won’t have to be the weird person sitting at the bus stop telling your phone to switch to the rifle.

More importantly than even decent inventory management systems, though, is what Siri can do for students. Online training is going beyond just using Google to look up definitions and find Wikipedia entries. It now consists of full integration between learning and the devices students use daily.

Imagine having a flash card program (already popular on the iPhone) that you can answer out loud. If you’re wrong, it may even give you a hint to point you in the right direction before telling you the answer. Anyone who has crammed for a 50-question history test the night before understands how important using every second of the day can be. If you don’t have to use your hands, you can even get by with playing World of Warcraft online while studying.

For educational games, look forward to handing your future (or current) children an iPhone that can teach them how to read. They can sit down with a book and try to sound out words. Siri will be able to listen and prompt them when they’re struggling and turn the page when they’re done reading it. It can highlight text by syllables to help them learn how to break up speech patterns and offer helpful suggestions on remember tricks like “I before E.”

Siri won’t replace education by any means, but it can act like a private tutor for your four year old. Because it doesn’t require any physical control whatsoever, Siri will make your iPhone even friendlier for toddler use. Teach them how to use the controls on more fun programs, like coloring, to ensure they don’t get frustrated with more advanced tasks, like reading.

Siri isn’t a game change for apps—it’s a game changer for technology. Give developers a few months to catch up, and they’ll start rolling out some exciting apps that will have you and Siri chatting it up daily.

Minecraft, perhaps the first game to have its own con before its official release, still isn’t coming to the iPhone just yet. Thanks to a nice deal made with Sony Xperia, indie darling Mojang has said that it will come to iOS, but Sony and Android will have a period of exclusivity. Details on exactly how long that will be haven’t surfaced yet, but publishers are saying it will be later this year.

For those who have missed it, Minecraft is a sandbox game that lets users build the world. Though it sounds a lot like Little Big Planet, Minecraft is more like virtual Legos, and LBP is like paper dolls. The world is seemingly endless, but the farther you go from point zero tends to have more bugs. Sound too constricting? The biggest map so far is nine times the size of the earth.

There are two versions of Minecraft in the Beta version. The first is creative mode, which lets users build structures without taking damage. Creatures still appear, but they can’t hurt players. Creative mode also gives you unlimited building supplies, similar to the first unpaid version of the game that surfaced. Survival mode features a health and hunger bar, and players can take damage by falling or because of creatures. They have to mine or find their own items, and they’ll need to acquire their own tools. The survival mode is new for the paid beta, and it’s proving a perfect challenge for experienced Minecraft players.

The free, classic version of Minecraft still thrives on the internet, but it’s no longer receiving updates. Likely, the world will continue existing for a few months after beta is released and developers will rely on the shiny bells and whistles of the paid version to draw free users in. The classic version will function nicely as a free-to-play lead-in to having players make the jump.

Minecraft, for those who enjoy living under their rock, has been rocketed to cult-status. It’s being used everywhere, even in classrooms. Joel Levin, an elementary school teacher has been using Minecraft to teach students about sharing, filling leadership roles and even settling disputes, giving new meaning to online education.

Minecraft is also being used to create music videos, dog parks and more.

When it does come to the iPhone, users can look forward to a version much like the Sony Xperia version. It will be scaled down slightly and probably use a mix of touch and traditional controls, which will be simulated on the iPhone. Since the iPhone is based on touch-controls only, chances are decent that if developers haven’t taken a lot of time on the project, it could come out slightly buggy.

However, that shouldn’t stop fans of the series from downloading it, and it certainly shouldn’t stop new devotees from joining. If you’re looking for a Minecraft-esque experience now, check out Minecraft World Explorer, which lets you download your Minecraft world into your phone. There are several other versions available, but World Explorer isn’t buggy and the controls work well.

Today Rushing Ninjas by the guys from Frostware Entertainment, the studio known for The Starchildren and Skycat, rushed into Apple’s App Store for iPhone and iPod Touch. This arcade-like game is the perfect way to test your multitasking skills in ninja style. Rushing Ninjas challenges you to get as many ninjas as possible through the screen without having them chopped into tiny pieces by cool but dangerous creatures like evil dragons. The game has Game Center support for all the leader board and achievement whores among you. Rushing Ninjas can be yours for $0.99.

Idyllic might sound a bit very idyllic for an iPhone game, even though it sure looks idyllic from the info and first media of the game. The game wants you to put on your jumping shoes to start jumping around in the idyllic world of the game to collect coins that allow you to upgrade. While jumping you need to defeat monsters that are trying to stop you. As you grow stronger, the world starts to evolve, the music idyllically changes and in turn makes the game even more… idyllic. Fatcow Games promises that the game’s concept is fresh and new, and that it should make the boarder that divides casual gamers from hardcore gamers even thinner. The game is due to appear in the App Store on September 22nd for both iOS devices.

Many mobile gamers still fancy Flipping burgers and a twist of strategy added to it, which is why G5 Entertainment released its third installment of the Stand O’Food series in the App Store for both iOS devices and the Androids. Ronnie the Chef is back in his Stand O’Food chain in Tinseltown where he meets Mr. Clarence and Nikki with whom he hooks up to tackle the evil Mr. Torg. Let’s see if your burger flippin’ skills are good enough to flip this troublesome douche! Stand O’Food 3 is now available for iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad.

Amongst this week’s Chillingo releases, we find a top-down western style shooter entitled Cowboy Guns for iPhone and iPod Touch. You’re The Kid, and don’t be fooled by your name because you’re fearless and taking on the deadly gang named Crimson Jackals in the Spaghetti Western steting of this nice-looking game. Hook-up with locals, take on different types of missions and become the ruler of the western worlds in this game by developer C2EStudio. Get the game in the App Store for 99 cents.

If there’s one game due for release this fall we easily got excited about, it must definitely be Shadowgun. The fine folks over at Madfinger Games announced that their much anticipated iPhone and iPad game is set for release in the App Store this September 28th. Shadowgun caught the attention of many mobile gamers at E3 and Gamescom when it first became clear how good the graphics are in the game. Take a look at the screenshots yourself, and you’ll immediately see that this game almost looks as good as a coneosle game.

Not only the graphics make this a much promising game, its unique concept that combines third person action with tactical combat will most likely also make us fall in love with the game. You play the role of John Slade who’s on a mission to hunt down Dr. Edgar Simon, a geneticist who used to work for the evil Toltech Enterprises corporations. The game’s story takes place in the year 2350, which means that you’ll come across a lot of futuristic, scary looking mutants, cyborgs and other space litter with some life in it.

But, the iPhone is the pacifier that you don’t have to be weaned off of. There’s a benefit to growing up around technology that may later hold your textbooks and school assignments as online learning becomes the norm. Students whose parents handed off the iPhone are going to be intimately familiar with these devices. When they get iPads in school (which is becoming increasingly more prevalent), they’re already going to know the current iOS platform. Compared to children who are just learning how to slide to unlock, they’re leaps and bounds ahead the minute they walk in the door.

Traditionalists say that children should be reading and playing, not glued to video game screens and smartphones. They say that games have little to no meaning and can’t be educational based on their very method of delivery. They say that gamers are wasting their time.
They’re wrong.

Learning can happen in games, and for many students, that’s where it can happen best. Jane McGonigal, author of “Reality is Broken,” said in her TED talk “Gaming can make a better world” that games are the best chance we have of making it through the next century.

She argues that gamers have an optimism, a willingness to take immediate action, and an ability to take joy in their work if it has meaning that non-gamers can’t understand. Games, educational and otherwise, make us better people by giving us a format to see growth and ‘leveling’ easier. If you have to spend 10 levels killing wild boars to get to a place where you can finally go up against an orc, you’re going to learn the value of working hard.

The difference, of course, between being a pacifier you can take to school, and one that teaches you how to speak Spanish is based on the intent of the developer. Just as Oscar Wilde claimed there is no evil book, there is also no evil in technology, except in how it’s used.

If you’re raising your kid to use the iPhone as a gateway to the world, you need to filter the types of games they’re playing and the apps they’re using.

Look for apps like Pop Math Lite or Brain Toot that have a solid, educational premise, but are still entertaining enough that kids will want to play them. When games are directly aimed at learning, educating your kids through your smartphone becomes more effective. There are games targeted towards reading and games that talk about history and the moon. With a little bit of digging around, you can ensure that your child has access to the best head start possible.

If they’re given an iPhone as their first piece of technology and they’re taught that its primary use is for learning, that’s also going to shape how they view the PC they’ll use in school and eventually, the Mac Book you’ll buy them for college.