In The News:

Video Games: An hour a day is key to success in life - see... I told you I was working!!

Israeli General claims credit for StuxNet worm - A retiring general from Israel has been credited with instigating the StuxNet worm which attacked Iranian nuclear facilities... wow.... I never thought I'd see someone own up to it.

Too many Facebook friends causes stress - hmmm.... maybe I'm damaged... but if I only see you online... I don't really care... but it's still and interesting article.

Anything you search for can and will be used against you in a court of law - wow.. .this is seriously scary... so much for the anonymous and neutral nature of the 'net.

The Khan Academy is the future of education - This is an absolutely incredible idea!!! With the lack of effective teaching in this country... We should really jump into this program.

In The News:

New Zealand emergency services computers go offline - they were able to make do while their IT guys brought them back online, but this highlights just how dependent we've become on computers.

IBM Watson (Super computers) vs. Humans in Jeopardy game - two of the champions of this american game-show are taking on IBM's new Watson Jeopardy super computer... after the first round, Watson is tied for first.

Removing a 'dumb' gene from mice makes them smarter - interesting article, but like it points out: we have no idea what other effects removing this gene will have... the whole field of study seems terribly hit-and-miss to me.

Steps towards a robotic eye - I've posted a lot of the build up to this specific piece of tech in earlier News, but this article sums up where we are quite nicely.

Obama seeks big boost in cyber-security spending - looks like we might be amping up to a new arms race... the cyber-arms race.... why do I have a picture of a bear with robot arms in my head?

Violent Video Games and human nature

Steve Napierski over at Dueling Analogs posted a strip this week about a report by the world health organisation saying that video games are a contributing factor in child obesity. Steve sees it as another extension of the bad press around video games, specifically violent ones.

I've never really weighed in on the subject, so I thought I'd give you my two cents: Human beings are predators, we evolved with forward facing eyes and aggressive tendencies so that we could hunt our food. As Cormac McCarthy said, "War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner." We're a violent bunch, if we weren't playing video games then we'd be watching an action movie, boxing or going out the roman circus to see gladiatorial combat.

What I do find troubling is the small number of games that are creative rather than destructive. The few that are around, like Guitar Hero, Farmville or Tamagochi (remember those?) seem to do very well. Maybe we should be encouraging the positive games rather than declaring war on the negative ones... that would seem to be far more consistent to me.'

In the news:

Book Review: The Warcraft Civilisation: Social Science in a Virtual World - sounds like a really cool book ^^

iPhone finally gets multi-tasking - it took you long enough....

Aussie Army Trains With Fleet of Robots On Segways - so cool! I want to have a run.

South Korea Announces Daily MMO Blackouts For Youths - very interesting since South Korea is one of the worlds  most technologically adoptive countries, and that they've got a HUGE market in neatly free MMO's.

Power Beaming For UAVs and Space Elevators - it's getting closer and closer, the Stage1 prize was taken at last years Space Elevator Games, lets hope for some more breakthroughs at the competition this year.

NSA Develops USB Storage Device Detector - and big brother sees just a little bit more than he did before.

First Pulitzer Awarded To an Online News Site - welcome to the digital age....

My post last week was a little weak ^^.... so I've added a couple pics to it so that you can all get a glimpse of Matt and Ian's awesomeness. Hope you enjoyed the post, as usual - tell your friends ^^

-Odd

Zeus most glorious and most great, Thundercloud, throned in the heavens! Let not the sun go down and the darkness come, until I cast down headlong the citadel of Priam in flames, and burn his gates with blazing fire, and tear to rags the shirt upon Hectors breast! May many of his men fall about him prone in the dust and bite the earth!
- Homer (The Illiad)