Another year, another congressman proposing legislation demanding some sort of label on video games. This time around it’s Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah), who introduced HR287, the Video Games Ratings Enforcement Act for consideration by the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee.
Where this legislation differs from other past proposals is in mating penalties to the industry’s own ESRB rating system. That would make compliance with ESRB system mandatory for video games sold at retail in the U.S.
Almost all games sold in retail stores already are ESRB rated, so this would have little practical effect, though it would introduce an expensive regulatory hurdle that didn’t exist before (the ESRB isn’t free to use – game publishers are charged quite a bit to have their games rated). It also does nothing to address games sold online (games in the App Store and Mac App Store don’t need or very typically have an ESRB rating, for example), so it’s not exactly a very forward-thinking piece of legislation.
Orland points out that Matheson’s proposal also contradicts a 2011 Supreme Court ruling by preventing retailers from selling M and AO rated games to minors – the state of California tried this and failed miserably (they’re not the first, but it’s the first time such a case got to the Supreme Court).
I’m inclined to concur with Orland – I think this legislation is going to go exactly nowhere.
Parents are going to give their kids things they shouldn’t have – junk food, inappropriate clothes and video games they have no business playing. You can’t legislate common sense. But people like Matheson are going to try like hell anyway.
“When you’re in a culture that has a point of view, and drives to launch everything it does, you know you’re on the hook and you better bring your best game every time.”
To commemorate Gretsch’s 130th anniversary, the Gretsch Custom Shop introduces the beautiful new U.S. Custom Shop 130th Anniversary Hollow Body guitar.
Many designers use a grid as the foundation for every one of their designs. Some will use a 12-column grid, some will use a 16-column grid, some will use a 24-column grid, and others will use anything in between. The point isn’t so much the type of grid that you use, but the fact that you use one. Grids in web design are very common, and with the implementation of responsive web design, grids have become even more important than ever.
Hearst on Thursday posted 20 of its magazines on Apple’s Newsstand and said the iPad versions of the magazines would be available before they are released in print.
A note on the App Store on the Hearst page reads: “Subscribe to these Newsstand magazines and read them on your iPad before they appear in print or any other digital edition.”
Magazines available in Newsstand include Cosmopolitan, Food Network Magazine, Car & Driver, Popular Mechanics, Road & Track, Esquire and Good Housekeeping, among others.
Grant Howitt describing his experience at the Panasonic Toughpad press conference:
I think Panasonic has invented a new kind of pixel. A bendy pixel. I don’t understand. What does PPI stand for? What am I doing with my life? Why am I here in this basement in Munich at the age of 26 staring at a man fire a laser pointer at a graph? How did this happen? I wanted to be a Sky Pirate. I don’t understand any of this.
The gimmick here is that you no longer control our yellow wide-mouthed pellet-munching pal. Instead, you control the orientation of the blue-bordered world he and his ghostly enemies inhabit. Twist the world, and they fall through it.
It’s fun and challenging. Grab it before the copyright police go after it.
Overcome the clutches of procrastination with Finish, a busy iPhone user’s best friend. Unlike other to-do apps that are “clever” for their own sake, only Finish takes advantage of how you naturally think. Finish gets in your face when you need it, stays out of the way when you don’t, and effortlessly keeps you focused the only thing that matters.
The 2014 Corvette brings many new features to the design of the iconic sports car: muscular lines, carbon-fiber parts and redesigned tail lights to name a few. But the most head-turning feature may be the…
I left off the “most head-turning feature”. Can you guess what it might be? The new ‘Vette is a top-to-bottom redesign, 450HP and the same in torque, around $50K, muscular look, reintroduced “Stingray” badging, longer, wider, etc, etc. Lots of “new” to this car.
But what does Mashable think is the most head turning feature? Watch the video and tell me at which point do you do what I did – yell, “GET OUT OF THE CAR, GEEK!”
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced a proposal to make it illegal for pilots and flight attendants to use wireless electronics during flight operations including mobile and hand-held devices and laptops.
The proposal excludes electronic devices related to flight operations, so airlines that are replacing printed flight manuals with iPads are excluded. This is more aimed at keeping flight attendants, pilots and other personnel from being distracted by their own personal electronics while flying.
The article points out that this has no bearing on another proposal to enable passengers to use electronic devices during take offs and landings.
Use Kaleidoscope to spot the differences in text, images, and folders. Review and merge changes in seconds with the world’s most advanced file comparison application.
Turbulenz offers the ability to play the most engaging and connected games the web has to offer today. Games on Turbulenz provide everything, from 3D visuals through to real-time multiplayer, social feeds, leaderboards, and badges. The best part of the Turbulenz experience is that everything is free to play!
This was pretty cool. I tried “Save the Day” and ran over some people with my helicopter — don’t do that.
The folks at Lenovo are going into the Chromebook space with the announcement of a version of its ThinkPad X131e for the education market.
Samsung and Acer both make Chromebooks – small, inexpensive laptops running Google’s Chrome operating system, designed to work exclusively with Google’s cloud services rather than depending on local applications. Their big benefit is their cost – available to consumers for as little as $200.
The Thinkpad X131e is an 11.6-inch laptop with Intel processor, 1366 x 768 screen, USB ports and Web cam. The same laptop is already available from Lenovo for schools running Windows for $539. The article does not indicate how much less a Chromebook version would be.
If you go to work and do what you’re told, you’re not being negative, certainly, but the lack of initiative you demonstrate (which, alas, you were trained not to demonstrate) costs us all, because you’re using a slot that could have been filled by someone who would have added more value.
The critics that are screaming right now are intellectually lazy. They’re throwing temper tantrums instead of looking at the big picture. Like two-year-olds, they don’t really know what they want. And they’re not happy when they get it, anyway. Apple could unveil a new car and they’d say Apple’s days are over because it’s just bet its future on an industry it knows nothing about. Not unlike, say, Apple’s entrance into the mobile phone industry. I bet that if Apple did unveil a time machine, they’d claim it wasn’t fast enough.
Tim Cook is taking exactly the right approach, staying the course, despite distracting expectations swirling around him. Apple is a marvel of human achievement.
As a result of ongoing testing, we’re announcing AT&T will enable FaceTime over Cellular at no extra charge for customers with any tiered data plan using a compatible iOS device.
