"Call of Duty: Black Ops 2" may achieve more than just becoming one of the biggest entertainment products of the year. The best-selling video game could help shape the real-world thinking of the U.S. military through its science fiction story of a Cold War playing out between the U.S. and China in 2025.
The game, whose sales reached $500 million in the first 24 hours, owes plenty of its inspiration to real military weapons and prototype technologies — lumbering battlefield robots, microwave weapons, swarms of flying drones — as well as to today's news headlines regarding cybersecurity threats and the rise of China. But a defense expert who helped create the story for "Call of Duty: Black Ops 2" also points out how his game-consulting work has influenced his day-job thinking about geopolitical issues and technologies that someday could have an impact on the U.S. military.
"It's a weird way to say this, but the experience of working on the fictional game was definitely an aid to my non-fictional work," said Peter Singer, director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution.
When games shape reality
The near-future realism of "Call of Duty: Black Ops 2" also can serve as a guide for real-world technologies, Singer said. He pointed out that one of the game's first marketing videos featured a flying quadrotor drone armed with a machine gun, and that the U.S. military took notice of it long before the game hit store shelves.
But the game's impact won't stop at the higher levels of military planning and think tank analysts. Like any good science fiction story, it also could have a huge influence on what ordinary U.S. soldiers and Marines expect to have in their hands on future battlefields — especially because so many younger troops play video games and enjoy military-themed shooters such as the "Call of Duty" series. [The Big Guns: 'Halo 4' vs. 'Call of Duty: Black Ops II']
"It serves as an inspiration for the real world and also sets the expectations for the future," Singer told TechNewsDaily.
The chance to shape the direction of the best-selling "Call of Duty" series proved irresistible to Singer. He helped the "Black Ops 2" team at Treyarch and Activision by organizing the game's possible military technologies into three categories: active battlefield technologies, prototype technologies that have not yet been battlefield-tested, and technologies that exist only as ideas in research labs.
Serious war games
Singer also brainstormed elements of the game's story involving rising political and military tensions between U.S. and Chinese coalitions. He joked that he and the game's developers were a year ahead of the official U.S. policy pivot toward Asia and China, so that he was already well-equipped to think about those issues.
In that sense, the consulting work on "Call of Duty: Black Ops 2" shared some eerie resemblances with the serious war-gaming exercises conducted by the U.S. military and government officials. Singer himself is currently leading the U.S. military's NeXTech workshop series, organized by the Noetic Group, focused on game-changing battlefield technologies of the future.
"Treyarch was asking about future causes of conflict, geopolitical issues in 2025, and what weapon systems are game-changers," Singer said. "Those are questions necessary for the fictional world, but they're also interesting questions on the non-fiction side."
In terms of influence, "Call of Duty: Black Ops 2" will have a huge advantage over the military and defense think tanks, because as video game entertainment it reaches far more people than any workshop, report or book ever will.
"As popular as my books have been, the numbers are nowhere near the numbers on this video game," Singer said.
This story was provided by TechNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. You can follow TechNewsDaily Senior Writer Jeremy Hsu on Twitter @jeremyhsu. Follow TechNewsDaily on Twitter @TechNewsDaily, or on Facebook.
Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Internal emails among U.S. military officers indicate that no sailors watched Osama bin Laden's burial at sea from the USS Carl Vinson and traditional Islamic procedures were followed during the ceremony.
The emails, obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act, are heavily blacked out, but are the first public disclosure of government information about the al-Qaida leader's death. The emails were released Wednesday by the Defense Department.
Bin Laden was killed on May 1, 2011, by a Navy SEAL team that assaulted his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
One email stamped secret and sent on May 2 by a senior Navy officer briefly describes how bin Laden's body was washed, wrapped in a white sheet, and then placed in a weighted bag.
According to another message from the Vinson's public affairs officer, only a small group of the ship's leadership was informed of the burial.
"Traditional procedures for Islamic burial was followed," the May 2 email from Rear Adm. Charles Gaouette reads. "The deceased's body was washed (ablution) then placed in a white sheet. The body was placed in a weighted bag. A military officer read prepared religious remarks, which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker. After the words were complete, the body was placed on a prepared flat board, tipped up, whereupon the deceased's body slid into the sea."
The email also included a cryptic reference to the intense secrecy surrounding the mission. "The paucity of documentary evidence in our possession is a reflection of the emphasis placed on operational security during the execution of this phase of the operation," Gaouette's message reads. Recipients of the email included Adm. Mike Mullen, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. James Mattis, the top officer at U.S. Central Command. Mullen retired from the military in September 2011.
Earlier, Gaouette, then the deputy commander of the Navy's Fifth Fleet, and another officer used code words to discuss whether the helicopters carrying the SEALs and bin Laden's body had arrived on the Vinson.
"Any news on the package for us?" he asked Rear Adm. Samuel Perez, commander of the carrier strike group that included the Vinson.
"FEDEX delivered the package," Perez responded. "Both trucks are safely enroute home base."
Although the Obama administration has pledged to be the most transparent in American history, it is keeping a tight hold on materials related to the bin Laden raid. In a response to separate requests from the AP for information about the mission, the Defense Department said in March that it could not locate any photographs or video taken during the raid or showing bin Laden's body. It also said it could not find any images of bin Laden's body on the Vinson.
The Pentagon also said it could not find any death certificate, autopsy report or results of DNA identification tests for bin Laden, or any pre-raid materials discussing how the government planned to dispose of bin Laden's body if he were killed.
The Defense Department also refused to confirm or deny the existence of helicopter maintenance logs and reports about the performance of military gear used in the raid. One of the stealth helicopters that carried the SEALs to Abbottabad crashed during the mission and its wreckage was left behind. People who lived near bin Laden's compound took photos of the disabled chopper.
The AP is appealing the Defense Department's decision. The CIA, which ran the bin Laden raid and has special legal authority to keep information from ever being made public, has not responded to AP's request for records about the mission.

Mapigano mengine yamezuka  karibu na mji wa Goma huko Jamhuri ya Kidemokrasi ya Congo-DRC, baada ya serikali ya DRC kupuuza madai ya mazungumzo ya amani kutoka  kundi la waasi wa M23.
Mwandishi  wa habari wa Sauti ya Amerika-VOA anasema kulikuwa na ufyatuaji risasi mkali  Jumatatu  kiasi cha kilomita tatu kutoka  mji wa  Goma na karibu na uwanja wa ndege. Msemaji wa kundi la M23,Vianney Kazarama aliiambia VOA kwamba kundi la waasi linadhibiti sehemu ya kaskazini-mashariki mwa Goma.
Pia kuna ripoti za ufyatuaji risasi kwenye mpaka wa DRC na Rwanda. DRC inaishutumu Rwanda kwa kuwasaidia  waasi wa M23 huku Rwanda ikiendelea  kukanusha shutuma hizo.
Wapiganaji wa M23 wamesonga mbele kilomita chache kuingia Goma katika muda wa siku chache zilizopita baada ya kuyarudisha nyuma majeshi ya serikali na walinda amani wa  Umoja wa Mataifa.  Wakati huo  huo, Idara ya  Watoto ya Umoja wa Mataifa-UNICEF inasema vita vikali vinavyoendelea huko Goma mashariki mwa DRC vimelazimisha maelfu ya watu ambao tayari wamepoteza makazi yao  kukimbia kwa mara nyingine.
UNICEF inasema ina wasiwasi  juu ya athari za kisaikolojia ambazo watoto wa Congo watakabiliwa nazo.  Nona Zicherman  mkuu wa UNICEF anayeshughulikia masuala ya  dharura   huko Kinshasa anasema wasiwasi wao mkuu ni hali ya wanawake na watoto ndani na karibu ya Goma, ambao wameathirika na mapigano na  pia  wasiwasi juu ya usalama wa wafanyakazi wao.
Anasema maelfu ya watu tayari wamekimbia maeneo ya watu waliopoteza makazi yao kilomita kadhaa kutoka Goma.Zichermann anasema UNICEF  inajua kuwa kulikuwa na idadi kubwa ya raia waliokwenda Goma kutafuta hifadhi na kwamba walikuwa wakiwasaidia katika  kambi ya Kanyaruchinya iliyopo nje ya Goma  ambayo ni makazi ya takriban watu elfu 60.
Anasema japo hawana idadi kamili wanajua kuwa idadi kubwa ya raia wa Kanyaruchinya na vijiji jirani pia wamekimbilia Goma na wamefika katika sehemu kadhaa na wanaishi na familia zilizowapa hifadhi  katika mitaa ya Goma.
UNICEF tayari inatoa misaada kwa mamia ya wanawake na watoto wanaotafuta hifadhi katika kituo cha Don Bosco Catholic Center huko Goma. Zicherman anasema UNICEF tayari ina mipango ya dharura  kwa sababu katika siku za nyuma ugonjwa wa kipindupindu  umewahi kuwa tatizo hapo huko Goma na  pia kwenye kambi ya Kanyaruchinya.
NOKIA C7 ON SALE IN GOOD CONDITION
 if u interested 0777305155 call/text/whatsapp