Minnesota video game law blocked
Underage gamers in Minnesota can sleep a little easier now.
Thanks to one legal interpretation, should they get their hands on a video game rated "M" for mature or "AO" for adults only, they won't have to cough up a fine if caught.
A federal judge on Monday declared Minnesota's video game law unconstitutional, saying that the purchase or rental of a video game is protected by the First Amendment.
Originally slated to take effect Tuesday, the law was an attempt by state lawmakers to limit the exposure of those younger than 17 to sexually graphic and violent games by imposing a fine of $25.
U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum also ruled that the state did not prove that overly realistic depictions of sex and violence actually harm minors.
"There is a paucity of evidence linking the availability of video games with any harm to Minnesota's children at all," he wrote.
Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch said the state will probably appeal, according to the Associated Press .
Similar laws in other states--including California , Illinois and Michigan --have also been rejected.
12.11.08 17:14, comment
Zembly lets you create social apps for Facebook and more
I just watched this video demo of Zembly , a relatively new service that you create collaborative applications on the fly and deploy them to services like Facebook, Meebo, and the iPhone.
There's lots of widgets and Javascript involved, but it seems easy to use and overall Zembly is an interesting product as it lets users actually manipulate walled-garden content.
It's also interesting in that the company makes use of a wide array of open APIs and developed their own to create a networked effect of usage.
In a bit of a twist, Zembly runs on Solaris and Sun hardware at Network.com . Maybe Sun is getting their cloud act together after all?
Video courtesy of Cote at Redmonk .
12.11.08 16:02, comment
Windows Mobile to get pumped up on Nvidia
Watch out, Nvidia is stalking the iPhone. The maker of fast graphics processors will apply its chip know-how to juice up the mobile internet device market and the Windows Mobile interface.
Nvidia APX 2500-based Windows Mobile device has flick-and-roll interfaceAs reported back in February , after a decade of pumping up PC performance, Nvidia is betting a big part of its future on boosting graphics performance in fit-in-your-pocket mobile internet devices .
CNET Video of APX 2500 prototype here .
iPhone-style devices with Nvdia's APX 2500 system-on-a-chip--due late this year and next year--incorporate most of the functionality of a PC. And it is important to note that Nvidia is building all of the core electronics that will run a mobile internet device, not just the graphics component.
The APX 2500 is different from Intel's Atom processor platform--which is offered as a processor and a separate chipset--because the 2500 integrates everything onto one piece of silicon. This makes it more akin to Intel's upcoming Moorestown processor that's due next year or early 2010.
Nvidia's goal is to pack as much processing punch as possible into a few-hundred-milliwatt power envelope, said Michael Rayfield, general manager of the Mobile Business Unit. "I said start from zero. And then made my team beg and plead for every milliwatt," he said. Notebook PC processors typically operate in power envelopes between 10 and 35 watts.
But to the user, the biggest difference will be Microsoft's Mobile Windows interface and what can happen when there is Nvidia GeForce graphics silicon pushing everything around.
The platform that Nvidia is demonstrating goes far beyond the staid, pin-striped Windows Mobile that is used today. Nvidia is showing finger-flick-and-roll screens and accelerometer-based reorienting 720p video.
These tiny devices are designed to run 720p HDTV video for 10 hours--one of the marquee features that Nvidia will be emphasizing, Rayfield said. He plugged a prototype APX 2500-based device into a large screen TV via a High-Definition Multimedia Interface connector and played high-definition movies with the same fluidity and resolution as you get from a big HDTV box or bigger computer.
Nvidia APX 2500 block diagramAll on, believe it or not, Windows Mobile. The operating system has struggled since its inception back in 2000. Initially, it had promise on Compaq iPaq handhelds, but these devices never appealed to a large base, even in corporate America which eventually went en masse for the Blackberry. There is more acceptance now as Windows Mobile 6.1 is adopted by companies like HTC , Samsung, and Acer --but it is still Windows. In a post-iPhone world, Nvidia says this is not adequate.
The prototype mobile internet device that Nvidia is currently working on is not the product that will appear from phone companies or navigation device vendors. Rayfield said it is necessarily a thick device and contains extra circuit boards because it is a development platform. The final product made by device manufacturers will be thin, he said.
Nvidia APX 2500-based Windows Mobile device interface12.11.08 14:50, comment
Google phone coming in two weeks?
Talk of a possible Google phone kicked up again Friday with new rumors coming out of India that the phone could be launched within two weeks.
Rediff.com reported that Google is in talks with two of the three top mobile providers in India, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar, to offer the new "Gphone." The article cites unnamed sources who say the phone will also be launched simultaneously in the U.S. and Europe. The only remaining hurdle in the U.S., the story said, is approval from the Federal Communications Commission, which must certify any wireless device sold in the U.S.
Google isn't commenting on the rumors, saying in a statement that the company "is committed to providing users with access to the world's information, and mobile becomes more important to those efforts every day."
Before you get too excited and start queuing up somewhere for one of these phones, let me explain why I think the rumors are bogus. For one, Google has never actually confirmed that it's working on building its own handset. Even though it sounds really cool and sexy for the company to pull an "Apple" by building its own hardware, it just doesn't fit into Google's business model, which is to develop software applications for the Web as a way to sell more advertising.
Google executives, including Chris Sacca, head of special initiatives at Google , have said publicly that they think there is plenty of competition and innovation in the handset market.
"I think there is a healthy environment of competition and innovation in the device market worldwide," Sacca said in an interview with CNET News.com last month. "It's just the channel that discourages that kind of innovation here in the U.S."
And just this week, Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience, showed off how well Google's applications worked on her iPhone . So I just don't see any reason why Google would want to build an "iPhone-killer."
That said, there's no question Google is hot for mobile . The company has introduced several new mobile products this year. And CEO Eric Schmidt recently said the company will likely participate in the upcoming 700MHz spectrum auction early in 2008. Exactly what it will do with the spectrum if its wins licenses is unknown.
I think what's more likely is that Google is working with a hardware partner to develop a smart phone that's optimized and preloaded with lots of Google applications. My guess is that the supposed prototypes that The Wall Street Journal and others have mentioned in recent articles may be mockups the company has developed with partners to demonstrate and test new applications.
So could a Google-powered device made by unknown hardware partners really be ready for launch in two weeks? I think that's probably a little too soon. I checked the FCC Web site Friday and Google has not registered any product to be tested with the FCC. Of course, if Google is working with a partner, as I have suggested above, the phone could be registered in the FCC files under a different company's name.
My gut feeling is that these Google-loaded phones will likely be introduced a little later this year and into early next year. But stay tuned. I'll definitely be watching to see how Google's ongoing mobile strategy evolves.
12.11.08 13:38, comment
Globetrotting YouTube dancer shares his tech secrets
Sure, the YouTube video " Where the Hell is Matt 2008 " is clever and maybe even inspirational, but what's been overlooked in all the hoopla over the clip is how technology contributed to its popularity.
Matt Harding first earned fame two years ago by filming himself dancing in exotic locales all over the world and posting the video montage to YouTube. Everyone from the The New York Times to National Public Radio has swooned over Harding's latest clip since it first appeared on YouTube three weeks ago.
In less than a month, the video has been viewed more than 5 million times.
While much of the mainstream press is just discovering Harding, he has been well known among the early adopter crowd for some time. His first installment of "Where The Hell Is Matt" was one of YouTube's earliest viral-video blockbusters.
In an interview with CNET News, Harding, a former video-game developer, describes himself as a tech enthusiast and credits software, gadgets, and the Internet with helping to turn his videos into blockbusters.
For example, go to Wherethehellismatt.com and check out how much better the YouTube embeddable player appears on his site than it does at YouTube. Harding doesn't like to talk about it but he went online and found a piece of script that improved the quality of YouTube's embeddable player.
"There is a way to force high quality into YouTube's embed," Harding said. "I felt a little bad about doing it."
A screen shot of Matt Harding's Web site. The dancing videographer found a way to "force quality" into YouTube's embeddable player A screen shot of Harding's video as it appears on YouTube.Here's something else that Harding was sheepish about talking about. In addition to YouTube, he posted the clip to Vimeo, a YouTube competitor. He says if people want to watch the video in the highest quality, they should watch it there. "Vimeo's video looks phenomenal," he said.
Who can blame him for being less than loyal to YouTube? He danced his ass off for 14 months in 46 countries and shot everything in high definition. Don't all filmmakers want to showcase their work in the best possible quality?
To this end, Harding upgraded his camera for this world tour. He shot his original 4-minute clip with a point-and-shoot camera, the Canon Powershot SD500 . He loved that it was small and easy to carry. This time, however, Harding decided to pay $800 for a Sony Handycam HDR-SR8 .
Harding only had good things to say about the camera's durability and ease of use. The hard disk drive camera did have one drawback, but it's one that only someone like Harding is going to encounter.
A safety feature prevents the camera from writing to the hard drive anytime it senses the camera is falling. This proved to be an obstacle when Harding was flying above Nellis Airspace, Nev., during a weightlessness exercise.
"The camera always thought it was falling and wouldn't record," Harding said. "I had to go up again with a solid-state memory card and we recorded with that."
Aside from the gadgets, technology's most important contribution, of course, was turning someone like Harding into star in the first place. He's a former video-game developer from Connecticut. He's neither a trained filmmaker nor dancer .
Yet, Harding has earned a modest level of international celebrity from his videos. Fans showed up to dance with Harding in places like Seoul, Lisbon, and Tel Aviv. He said more than 2,000 people in total .
That may not sound like a lot, but Harding didn't do much advertising other than announce on his blog where and when he was showing up.
Harding's real significance is that he's one of the best examples of how YouTube enables anyone to communicate with audiences across the globe. And what's the message Harding is trying to communicate?
"Some people will probably accuse me of spreading humanist propaganda," Harding said. "Everybody knows that we can all be small-minded and petty. But we also like to be reminded once and a while about what we can be at our best."
12.11.08 12:26, comment
Is it time for a higher capacity Nano?