More than simple IT news!
The ESRB is teaming up with Penny Arcade to launch a new PSA campaign for the game ratings system. Also, ESRB president Patricia Vance ponders unified global game rating.
The video game industry has faced a few political attacks recently: A violent video games tax earlier this month from Oklahoma legislator Fourkiller, and most notably, Californias push to ban violent video games last year. And while these actions may have flown under the banner of parental aid, what about the ESRB?
T-Mobile sounds a bit bitter today.
The wireless operator has asked the Federal Communications Commission to reject a deal Verizon Wireless reached to acquire some wireless spectrum for some $3.9 billion, saying it would create excessive concentration of mobile service spectrum holdings that is contrary to the public interest.
Lest anyone forget, the price Verizon Wirelesss deal would be one-tenth the price AT&T was going to pay for T-Mobile, a deal the government rejected despite the assurances from T-Mobile and AT&T that competition wouldnt be an issue.
That deal faced plenty of industry yelling, most loudly from Sprint Nextel.
But not from Verizon.
Verizon Communications CEO Lowell MacAdam actually urged the government to let the AT&T-T-Mobile deal go through.
I have taken the position that the AT&T merger with T-Mobile was kind of like gravity, McAdam said.
Good news, everyone! HTC is reportedly working on yet another music streaming service. Why? Because Spotify, Rdio, Napster, Last.fm, Pandora, Slacker, Zune, Mflow, Kazaa, and the rest dont provide quite enough options for listeners just yet.
Apparently the opportunity to create yet another streaming music service has arisen because the record industry is fearful of Spotify. Theyre worried that it could eventually morph into an unstoppable iTunes-like juggernaut, which would put Spotify in a position to call the shots.
The Nokia N9 will go down in mobile history as something of an enigma.
The device is powered by an operating system called Meego, which if you don’t remember was supposed to be Nokia’s Symbian replacement before it signed a pact with Microsoft’s Windows Phone.
The N9 is a completely button-free touch-screen phone, with a 3.9-inch display and 1 GB of RAM. It’s been praised by users who like the look and feel of the phone.
Of course, with its now-defunct operating system it got very little shelf space around the world, but one inventive software programmer saw more potential from the phone.
The U.S. Congress should scrap two controversial copyright enforcement bills and start over with attempts to target foreign websites accused of infringement and counterfeiting, more than 70 groups have said.
With widespread concerns about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), Congress needs to “take a breath, step back, and approach the issues from a fresh perspective,” the groups said in a letter to lawmakers, sent Monday.
Among the groups signing the letter were Amnesty International, the American Library Association, Consumers Union, Public Knowledge, Fight for the Future and Human Rights Watch. Many of the groups signing the letter have opposed SOPA and PIPA.