Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts

HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics






SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Hewlett-Packard Co said on Monday it will sell the webOS operating system to South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc, unloading the smartphone software it acquired through a $ 1.2 billion acquisition of Palm in 2010.


LG will use the operating software, used in now-defunct Palm smartphones years ago, for its “smart” or Internet-connected TVs. The Asian electronics company had worked with HP on WebOS before offering to buy it outright.






Under the terms of their agreement, LG acquires the operating software’s source code, associated documentation, engineering talent, various associated websites, and licenses under HP’s intellectual property including patents covering fundamental operating system and user interface technology.


HP will retain the patents and all the technology relating to the cloud service of webOS, HP Chief Operating Officer Bill Veghte said in an interview.


“As we looked at it, we saw a very compelling IP that was very unique in the marketplace,” he said, adding that HP has already had a partnership with LG on webOS before the deal was announced.


“As a result of this collaboration, LG offered to acquire the webOS operating system technology,” Veghte said.


Skott Ahn, President and CTO, LG Electronics, said the company will incorporate the operating system in the Smart TV line-up first “and then hopefully all the other devices in the future.”


Both companies declined to reveal the terms of the deal.


LG will keep the WebOS team in Silicon Valley and, for now, will continue to be based out of HP offices, Ahn said.


HP opened its webOS mobile operating system to developers and companies in 2012 after trying to figure out how to recoup its investment in Palm, one of the pioneers of the smartphone industry.


The company had tried to build products based on webOS with the now-defunct TouchPad tablet its flagship product.


HP launched and discontinued the TouchPad in 2010, a little over a month after it hit store shelves with costly fanfare after it saw poor demand for a tablet priced on par with Apple’s dominant iPad.


WebOS is widely viewed as a strong mobile platform, but has been assailed for its paucity of applications, an important consideration while choosing a mobile device.


(Additional reporting By Paul Sandle and Alistair Barr; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Tim Dobbyn and M.D. Golan)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/hp-sells-webos-operating-system-to-lg-electronics/
Link To Post : HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics






SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Hewlett-Packard Co said on Monday it will sell the webOS operating system to South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc, unloading the smartphone software it acquired through a $ 1.2 billion acquisition of Palm in 2010.


LG will use the operating software, used in now-defunct Palm smartphones years ago, for its “smart” or Internet-connected TVs. The Asian electronics company had worked with HP on WebOS before offering to buy it outright.






Under the terms of their agreement, LG acquires the operating software’s source code, associated documentation, engineering talent, various associated websites, and licenses under HP’s intellectual property including patents covering fundamental operating system and user interface technology.


HP will retain the patents and all the technology relating to the cloud service of webOS, HP Chief Operating Officer Bill Veghte said in an interview.


“As we looked at it, we saw a very compelling IP that was very unique in the marketplace,” he said, adding that HP has already had a partnership with LG on webOS before the deal was announced.


“As a result of this collaboration, LG offered to acquire the webOS operating system technology,” Veghte said.


Skott Ahn, President and CTO, LG Electronics, said the company will incorporate the operating system in the Smart TV line-up first “and then hopefully all the other devices in the future.”


Both companies declined to reveal the terms of the deal.


LG will keep the WebOS team in Silicon Valley and, for now, will continue to be based out of HP offices, Ahn said.


HP opened its webOS mobile operating system to developers and companies in 2012 after trying to figure out how to recoup its investment in Palm, one of the pioneers of the smartphone industry.


The company had tried to build products based on webOS with the now-defunct TouchPad tablet its flagship product.


HP launched and discontinued the TouchPad in 2010, a little over a month after it hit store shelves with costly fanfare after it saw poor demand for a tablet priced on par with Apple’s dominant iPad.


WebOS is widely viewed as a strong mobile platform, but has been assailed for its paucity of applications, an important consideration while choosing a mobile device.


(Additional reporting By Paul Sandle and Alistair Barr; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Tim Dobbyn and M.D. Golan)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/hp-sells-webos-operating-system-to-lg-electronics/
Link To Post : HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics






SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Hewlett-Packard Co said on Monday it will sell the webOS operating system to South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc, unloading the smartphone software it acquired through a $ 1.2 billion acquisition of Palm in 2010.


LG will use the operating software, used in now-defunct Palm smartphones years ago, for its “smart” or Internet-connected TVs. The Asian electronics company had worked with HP on WebOS before offering to buy it outright.






Under the terms of their agreement, LG acquires the operating software’s source code, associated documentation, engineering talent, various associated websites, and licenses under HP’s intellectual property including patents covering fundamental operating system and user interface technology.


HP will retain the patents and all the technology relating to the cloud service of webOS, HP Chief Operating Officer Bill Veghte said in an interview.


“As we looked at it, we saw a very compelling IP that was very unique in the marketplace,” he said, adding that HP has already had a partnership with LG on webOS before the deal was announced.


“As a result of this collaboration, LG offered to acquire the webOS operating system technology,” Veghte said.


Skott Ahn, President and CTO, LG Electronics, said the company will incorporate the operating system in the Smart TV line-up first “and then hopefully all the other devices in the future.”


Both companies declined to reveal the terms of the deal.


LG will keep the WebOS team in Silicon Valley and, for now, will continue to be based out of HP offices, Ahn said.


HP opened its webOS mobile operating system to developers and companies in 2012 after trying to figure out how to recoup its investment in Palm, one of the pioneers of the smartphone industry.


The company had tried to build products based on webOS with the now-defunct TouchPad tablet its flagship product.


HP launched and discontinued the TouchPad in 2010, a little over a month after it hit store shelves with costly fanfare after it saw poor demand for a tablet priced on par with Apple’s dominant iPad.


WebOS is widely viewed as a strong mobile platform, but has been assailed for its paucity of applications, an important consideration while choosing a mobile device.


(Additional reporting By Paul Sandle and Alistair Barr; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Tim Dobbyn and M.D. Golan)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/hp-sells-webos-operating-system-to-lg-electronics/
Link To Post : HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics






SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Hewlett-Packard Co said on Monday it will sell the webOS operating system to South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc, unloading the smartphone software it acquired through a $ 1.2 billion acquisition of Palm in 2010.


LG will use the operating software, used in now-defunct Palm smartphones years ago, for its “smart” or Internet-connected TVs. The Asian electronics company had worked with HP on WebOS before offering to buy it outright.






Under the terms of their agreement, LG acquires the operating software’s source code, associated documentation, engineering talent, various associated websites, and licenses under HP’s intellectual property including patents covering fundamental operating system and user interface technology.


HP will retain the patents and all the technology relating to the cloud service of webOS, HP Chief Operating Officer Bill Veghte said in an interview.


“As we looked at it, we saw a very compelling IP that was very unique in the marketplace,” he said, adding that HP has already had a partnership with LG on webOS before the deal was announced.


“As a result of this collaboration, LG offered to acquire the webOS operating system technology,” Veghte said.


Skott Ahn, President and CTO, LG Electronics, said the company will incorporate the operating system in the Smart TV line-up first “and then hopefully all the other devices in the future.”


Both companies declined to reveal the terms of the deal.


LG will keep the WebOS team in Silicon Valley and, for now, will continue to be based out of HP offices, Ahn said.


HP opened its webOS mobile operating system to developers and companies in 2012 after trying to figure out how to recoup its investment in Palm, one of the pioneers of the smartphone industry.


The company had tried to build products based on webOS with the now-defunct TouchPad tablet its flagship product.


HP launched and discontinued the TouchPad in 2010, a little over a month after it hit store shelves with costly fanfare after it saw poor demand for a tablet priced on par with Apple’s dominant iPad.


WebOS is widely viewed as a strong mobile platform, but has been assailed for its paucity of applications, an important consideration while choosing a mobile device.


(Additional reporting By Paul Sandle and Alistair Barr; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Tim Dobbyn and M.D. Golan)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/hp-sells-webos-operating-system-to-lg-electronics/
Link To Post : HP sells webOS operating system to LG Electronics
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

gN2WZW ߣ鐨qʭl q$ :}X,MjVư&0ryUŤޏh, %Et]Aխk#8>4b;KuF1dV@BgyWpZ֬>+ ̲כ#Jv@X8Gň(/EwȉPɕ]Uڌ+mkf˲-+oɫة7>v6ume\Uaʹё(NϢ؈co#е/]5eA{zG1�-/F% 2ɮ6,dיcq! F+3jZ|lZ Xo;y-RvOb_?;OTxi-!O2z롸/Mdf’,@@_OoT;o O$Ǩ64`%Y/h93m&(gJc>S:”N5kExD!Kzf1|M+’X{fu6E݌ 3>.`#Ĩ?Sӌ!c8ʴ)|}R8ѥ)Ncݥdx,iA]w0″L)f|. qN{91؜TWiEO:5`c4ȉ21ԵEH”DŽYt; mp=*a܆y’ԙ>AU?a=LypBL,sŖB”C]Ӧj悌fyn0t?)dD,>”䕙s$ s{tir’.L,3Ui՜FeZu 4Mho&1Ja퍾8u>TY%*:dMvm@R/O(xJ竔ךH 37MqXq,yJ2; G6e\p*)w9=3nӗ|d1+i3En?4jfDgh,7 3|!ew_Mv4N4+a8ņlxf{nO[e C Dw9CX&(.KdZtIhn3Ѷz8rC!`\9~EV/ءaIy EI兗ŽA 4Lc_G]-









Title Post: gN2WZW ߣ鐨qʭl q$ :}X,MjVư&0ryUŤޏh, %Et]Aխk#8>4b;KuF1dV@BgyWpZ֬>+ ̲כ#Jv@X8Gň(/EwȉPɕ]Uڌ+mkf˲-+oɫة7>v6ume\Uaʹё(NϢ؈co#е/]5eA{zG1�-/F% 2ɮ6,dיcq! F+3jZ|lZ Xo;y-RvOb_?;OTxi-!O2z롸/Mdf’,@@_OoT;o O$Ǩ64`%Y/h93m&(gJc>S:”N5kExD!Kzf1|M+’X{fu6E݌ 3>.`#Ĩ?Sӌ!c8ʴ)|}R8ѥ)Ncݥdx,iA]w0″L)f|. qN{91؜TWiEO:5`c4ȉ21ԵEH”DŽYt; mp=*a܆y’ԙ>AU?a=LypBL,sŖB”C]Ӧj悌fyn0t?)dD,>”䕙s$ s{tir’.L,3Ui՜FeZu 4Mho&1Ja퍾8u>TY%*:dMvm@R/O(xJ竔ךH 37MqXq,yJ2; G6e\p*)w9=3nӗ|d1+i3En?4jfDgh,7 3|!ew_Mv4N4+a8ņlxf{nO[e C Dw9CX&(.KdZtIhn3Ѷz8rC!`\9~EV/ءaIy EI兗ŽA 4Lc_G]-
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/gn2wzw-%df%a3%e9%90%a8q%ca%adl-q-xmjvu0ryut%de%8fh-eta%d5%adk84bkuf1dvbgywpz%d6%ac-%cc%b2%d7%9bjvx8gnew%c8%89p%c9%95u%da%8cmkf%cb%b2-o%c9%ab%d8%a97v6umeua%cd%b4/
Link To Post : gN2WZW ߣ鐨qʭl q$ :}X,MjVư&0ryUŤޏh, %Et]Aխk#8>4b;KuF1dV@BgyWpZ֬>+ ̲כ#Jv@X8Gň(/EwȉPɕ]Uڌ+mkf˲-+oɫة7>v6ume\Uaʹё(NϢ؈co#е/]5eA{zG1�-/F% 2ɮ6,dיcq! F+3jZ|lZ Xo;y-RvOb_?;OTxi-!O2z롸/Mdf’,@@_OoT;o O$Ǩ64`%Y/h93m&(gJc>S:”N5kExD!Kzf1|M+’X{fu6E݌ 3>.`#Ĩ?Sӌ!c8ʴ)|}R8ѥ)Ncݥdx,iA]w0″L)f|. qN{91؜TWiEO:5`c4ȉ21ԵEH”DŽYt; mp=*a܆y’ԙ>AU?a=LypBL,sŖB”C]Ӧj悌fyn0t?)dD,>”䕙s$ s{tir’.L,3Ui՜FeZu 4Mho&1Ja퍾8u>TY%*:dMvm@R/O(xJ竔ךH 37MqXq,yJ2; G6e\p*)w9=3nӗ|d1+i3En?4jfDgh,7 3|!ew_Mv4N4+a8ņlxf{nO[e C Dw9CX&(.KdZtIhn3Ѷz8rC!`\9~EV/ءaIy EI兗ŽA 4Lc_G]-
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Chinese smartphone makers Huawei, ZTE target top tier






BARCELONA (Reuters) – China’s Huawei, little known to consumers just a couple of years ago, is now leading the pack of smartphone makers chasing Apple and Samsung, with ZTE, another Chinese company, snapping at its heels.


Huawei, which sold 32 million smartphones in 2012, up 60 percent on 2011, unveiled its new flagship Ascend P2 smartphone in Barcelona, boasting a connection speed of 150 MB per second, the fastest on the market.






The company was third in smartphone sales in the final quarter of 2012, according to research firm IDC, with ZTE in fifth place and Sony sandwiched in between. Samsung and Apple, however, were far in front with half the market between them.


Wan Biao, chief executive of Huawei Device Co, said the Ascend P2′s faster download speeds would make a difference to customers using 4G networks in countries such as Japan.


The device also includes power-saving technology, developed using expertise from its networks business, which Biao said helped it stand out against other high-end phones running Google’s Android software.


“Our target is for Huawei to provide the best smartphones in the world, better than the iPhone, better than Samsung,” he said in an interview on Monday. “Our target is top three in market share.”


Huawei, which became established by selling unbranded phones to operators, said the Ascend P2 would be available from the second quarter priced at 399 euros, hundred of euros less than flagship devices from its rivals.


Biao said that the company was still establishing itself as a brand in the minds of consumers, so its phones did not attract high subsidies from network operators.


“Operators give a high subsidy to Samsung and Apple,” he said. “We have a very high quality product but the price we set is not as high as these two smartphones; we have to develop differentiated products.”


Analyst Carolina Milanesi at Gartner said the Ascend P2 was a notable step forward for the Chinese company, showing a focus on the most important aspects for consumers, such as speed, an impressive screen and longer battery life.


ZTE, which also developed its technology by making devices for others, is equally ambitious. On Monday, it said it expected to increase smartphone revenue by 30 percent this year.


“We at ZTE consider ourselves as not tier one yet, we see ourselves as tier two, comparable to HTC, Sony and Motorola,” He Shiyou, head of mobile services division, said in an interviewer via a translator. “We have to be as aggressive as possible.”


He said ZTE would reduce its product range to achieve larger sales of fewer models, and focus on the strongest markets for smartphones – the United States, China, Europe and Australia.


It previously took ZTE six months to catch up with the Samsung’s software and hardware specifications, he said, but now it only took a quarter. “We need to close that gap,” he said.


“By 2015, we are hoping to achieve the top three by market share, but in terms of branding image and also pricing segmentation, we want to reach the top five,” he said.


ZTE unveiled a 5.7 inch Grand Memo handset in Barcelona, firmly in the “phablet” screen dimensions that Samsung has popularized in its Note range, and the ZTE Open, a smartphone running on Mozilla’s Firefox OS open ecosystem.


(Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)


Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: Chinese smartphone makers Huawei, ZTE target top tier
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/chinese-smartphone-makers-huawei-zte-target-top-tier/
Link To Post : Chinese smartphone makers Huawei, ZTE target top tier
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Microsoft to reportedly unveil next Xbox at April event









Title Post: Microsoft to reportedly unveil next Xbox at April event
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/microsoft-to-reportedly-unveil-next-xbox-at-april-event/
Link To Post : Microsoft to reportedly unveil next Xbox at April event
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Paying People to Play Video Games






House Speaker John Boehner tweets that the Obama administration is spending $ 1.2 million “paying people to play video games.” That’s misleading. The government did pay $ 1.2 million for university research that includes the study of how video games can stimulate the cognitive abilities of seniors. A fraction of that cost went to compensate seniors who participated in the study, researchers say.


Boehner was one of several prominent Republican congressmen who sent out a flurry of tweets – hashtag #cutwaste – distorting the research. Some Republicans said the money was spent to play the video game World of Warcraft. That’s wrong. World of Warcraft is not part of research funded by the federal government, although the study does use, in part, the Wii game Boom Blox.






We take no position on whether spending $ 1.2 million studying ways to improve the cognitive abilities of seniors is a waste of taxpayer money. But the Republicans should call it what it is and not distort the facts – even if they get only 140 characters to make their case against it.


But before we get into the facts of the research project, let’s dissect the anatomy of this Republican talking point.


The first volley in the “World of Warcraft” Twitter campaign appears to have come from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on Feb. 19.



Cantor, Feb. 19: President Obama wants to raise your taxes so he can pay people $ 1.2 million to play World of Warcraft. http://1.usa.gov/Y3NGOH



The link goes to a press release from Cantor’s office listing a number of examples of “federal government waste,” including: “The National Science Foundation spent $ 1.2 million paying seniors to play ‘World of Warcraft’ to study the impact it had on their brain.” That’s not exactly right, but even that incomplete description gets further distorted in a series of tweets from Cantor and other House Republicans on Feb. 20.



Cantor, 10:56 a.m.: Federal Government spends $ 1.2 million paying people to play World of Warcraft video games. Instead of raising taxes, let’s #CutWaste


Speaker John Boehner, 10:57 a.m.: Pres Obama wants more tax hikes, refuses to #cutwaste like $ 1.2M spent paying people to play video games #Obamaquester


GOP Whip Rep. Kevin McCarthy, 11:01 a.m.: Not a kid’s fairytale: fed gov’t actually pays ppl w taxpayer dollars to play video games. Time to #CutWaste. http://1.usa.gov/Y3NH4U


Rep. Ann Wagner, 11:01 a.m.: Did you know the govt paid $ 1.2 million to pay people to play World of Warcraft? http://tinyurl.com/bg8njug Instead of tax hikes #CutWaste


Rep. Diane Black, 11:03 a.m.: Waste of the Day: $ 1.2 million tax dollars used to pay people to play World of Warcraft http://bit.ly/UIG5oK #CutWaste don’t raise taxes


Rep. Renee Ellmers, 11:08 a.m.: Tax dollars at work: govt paid $ 1.2 million to study seniors playing World of Warcraft http://tinyurl.com/bg8njug Instead of tax hikes #CutWaste


Rep. Darrell Issa, 11:46 a.m.: That awkward moment when @BarackObama says “We don’t have a spending problem” then it comes out the Gov paid $ 1.2 mil to play video games…


Rep. David McKinkley, 12:15 p.m.: Did you know the govt paid $ 1.2 million to pay people to play World of Warcraft? http://tinyurl.com/bg8njug Instead of tax hikes #CutWaste



How did this research grant suddenly become the poster child for government waste? It traces its roots to “Wastebook 2012,” Sen. Tom Coburn’s list of 100 wasteful government expenditures. The project in question was No. 87.



Coburn, Wastebook 2012: 87) Should grandparents play World of Warcraft ? — (NC) $ 1.2 million


Soon, grandma may have to skip dinner to join her World of Warcraft guild in a dungeon raid. Researchers believe they have found another means to help our memories as we age: the “World of Warcraft,” a fantasy video game featuring characters like orcs, trolls, and warlocks. The team of academics used part of $ 1.2 million in grants from the National Science Foundation to continue a video game study this year.


The study asked 39 adults ages 60 to 77 to play “World of Warcraft” for two hours a day over two weeks. In the game, players choose a character and rove around the virtual world participating in guild (group) missions, casting spells, and defeating evil creatures.


Millions of people around the world play, with the average player spending almost 11 hours per week playing.


At the end of the two-week study period, researchers found no cognitive improvement in older people who already scored well on cognitive tests. People who started out with lower initial results, however, experienced some improvements.



It’s true that the National Science Foundation — using funds from the economic stimulus — funded two grants totaling $ 1.2 million to study the ways in which the use of some video games by older people can improve their cognitive and everyday abilities, such as memory and reasoning. You can read the abstracts for the two grant awards here and here.


More broadly, according to the abstract, the researchers hope to “advance the knowledge and understanding of how cognitive training reduces age-related decline.”


The project is being led by Anne McLaughlin and Jason Allaire, both at the North Carolina State University’s Gains Through Gaming Lab, which is “dedicated to conducting applied research examining the relationship between playing commercially available video games and important psychological constructs” and specifically “how video games can improve cognitive functioning.”


We spoke to McLaughlin about the way her research was being characterized by Republican leaders in the House.


“Misleading doesn’t describe it,” McLaughlin said. “It is entirely inaccurate.”


For starters, she said, the research that included the World of Warcraft game was not funded by the National Science Foundation, though it helped to set the stage for the federally funded project.


The initial study looked at the effects of playing an “attentionally demanding game” — in this case, World of Warcraft — on the cognitive abilities of seniors. For the uninitiated, World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG). (It’s the game featured in episodes of “South Park” and the sitcom “Big Bang Theory.”)


The study cost a total of $ 5,000 and was funded entirely by N.C. State, McLaughlin said. It was initiated as a pilot and showed some promising results in improving the cognitive abilities of some seniors, particularly those who scored poorly in the cognitive pre-tests. Results of this study were featured in stories by the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine and CBS News, as well as in a press release from N.C. State.


Spurred by those results, McLaughlin and Allaire sought and were awarded two grants from the NSF to perform a much larger series of studies — in part employing the interactive Wii game Boom Blox.


By manipulating various aspects of the game, they are trying to pinpoint what kinds of game play best improve cognition and functioning for older adults, McLaughlin said, as well as determining the effects of playing alone versus in groups.


That’s just the first phase. Then, in collaboration with computer whizzes at Georgia Tech, they hope to develop guidelines for games for older players that will lead to “a new class of ‘brain games’ with reliable effectiveness,” according to the abstract.


“The whole purpose of this is to generalize beyond any game and promote cognitive improvement,” McLaughlin said.


Begun in 2009, the research is still in progress, McLaughlin said.


For the record, McLaughlin said, “We don’t pay anyone to play video games. We pay them to participate in a study.”


Participants first take a three-hour cognitive test to use as a baseline. Then they are asked to come back and play a video game for an hour a day for 15 straight days. Then they are given another three-hour cognitive test immediately afterward, and then two more tests — one three months later and the last a year later. The amount of the $ 1.2 million grant money spent on paying the participants of the study is a small fraction of the overall cost, McLaughlin said.


We initially were led to the grants after making an inquiry with Cantor’s office seeking backup material for claims about the federal government spending $ 1.2 million for people to play World of Warcraft.


In addition to passing along links to the study abstracts, Megan Whittemore, Cantor’s press secretary, offered this response: “The President of the United States said he was going to have to turn criminals loose on the street. Clearly, he created a false choice between raising taxes or near-apocalyptic conditions. In reality, we need to make choices on how the federal government spends taxpayers’ hard earned dollars. While some of these programs may have some merit to some people, should they be saved before preventing the drastic scenario the President painted this week?”


Again, as independent fact-checkers, we take no position about whether these grants are a worthwhile use of taxpayer money. Cutting budget deficits — a stated goal of both Republicans and Democrats — is going to require some tough choices. But the facts simply get in the way of this Republican talking point. Paying people $ 1.2 million to play video games sounds a lot more outrageous than studying ways to improve the cognitive abilities of seniors. And it misleadingly twists what the grants are all about.


– Robert Farley


Also Read
Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: Paying People to Play Video Games
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/paying-people-to-play-video-games/
Link To Post : Paying People to Play Video Games
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

‘Anonymous’ becomes latest victim in Twitter hacking spree









Title Post: ‘Anonymous’ becomes latest victim in Twitter hacking spree
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/anonymous-becomes-latest-victim-in-twitter-hacking-spree/
Link To Post : ‘Anonymous’ becomes latest victim in Twitter hacking spree
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Why Twitter Makes Us Want to Add Extra Letterssss






For the March issue of The Atlantic, I spoke with linguists about this thingggg we’re doing with words — a growing habit in which otherwise reasonable people cavalierly add extra letters to the words in their texts, emails, tweets, and so forth — to find out why. One of the experts I met while working on that piece was Tyler Schnoebelen, a recent PhD from Stanford who wrote his dissertation on emotion in language and blogs about newsworthy word-findings at Corpus Linguistics. He’s been focusing lately on the phenomenon of word lengthening or “expressive lengthening” on Twitter. (He’s also one of the researchers behind a recent study about how men and women tweet.) For his dissertation, he analyzed data consisting of 3,775,174 tweets from 102,304 different English-speaking authors, tweeted in the six months between January to June of 2011 in the U.S. He was looking at the way people used emoticons in their tweets, but in that exploration he found something else: Along with those emoticons, people were adding letters to their words, too. Or toooooo. In the interest of learning more about why word lengthening exists, even on an inherently character-limited social media platform like Twitter, I turned to him with a few questions. 


RELATED: Exploring the Character of a Bad Word






What words get lengthened the most on Twitter, and why? The main ones are the expressive things you don’t think of as words — mmmm, oh, ah, aw. You can put as many letters on those as you want. That gets extended to words like hey, no, yes, and the letters that get extended are usually the ones you can hold onto, vowels or ns or ses. Then it gets even crazier — OMgggg or LMAOoo or LOLlll, though you’re not actually saying “laughing my ass off off off” or “laugh out loud loud loud loud.” From that there’s extending real words you can’t pronounce, shittttt or happppppy or amazinggggg. You start with these expressions that don’t have a proper spelling, things no one tells you how to write, and you add and go beyond that to make words more affective and expressive.


RELATED: David Cameron’s Semantic Chauvinism


You wrote a post about a friend who’d seen the word dumb tweeted as DUMBBB, which inspired you to take a look at which specific letters were added most frequently and why. Ooo was a big winner. Why do you think people pick the particular letters they do?  People love the o! I think it’s something about rounding your lips; it’s iconic of getting your mouth around something. Your lips, pursing forward, going out into the world … there’s something there. 


RELATED: The Ways in Which We Mistake Our Words


What about the more unusual added letters, like b or g? I think the gs are the most fun. People who use them are really taking this idea that you can extend things and going crazy with it. You can’t pronounce a word like Omgggg, but it’s been lifted away from the speech itself. In real speech, which is normally face to face, there are so many different ways to communicate — I’m not just happy but really happy — but we don’t have that in a tweet or text or email. Adding letters is a version of a big intonation, raised eyebrows. 


RELATED: Geoffrey Chaucer Coined ‘Twitter’


In terms of voicing, vowels make sense to lengthen because when we’re speaking that’s what we’re doing. Sometimes there are consonants, s or n, we do that in speech, too. But you don’t pronounce the b in dumb in English, so what does adding that letter mean? The end is a nice attractive spot, maybe, that gets across that you’re doing something. Clearly when people are doing this they’re being playful.  


RELATED: Embracing the Age of Autocorrect


4d3f4  c3982c83bfe7d32caadfc032583201f6 350x214 Why Twitter Makes Us Want to Add Extra LetterssssSo this is all about adding feeling to our too-brief 140-character missives? It’s not a waste of space, I guess, because of emotional layering gained? If you look at these words, a lot of them are from the expressive class. You’re already expressing some emotional state with them — aw — or you’re using them for augmentative purposes, like so and lots of affirmatives and negations: yeahhh, nooo, yesssss. But I think it’s telling that some of the other more frequent words that get extra letters are unpronounceable. People are trying to give some flavor to the communication. These additions really help get the point across and share intonation. That’s part of it: You can hear them in your ear.


Are specific usages unique to different people or subsets of Twitter? People using LMFAOOO tend to talk about Chris Brown and Nicki Minaj; there’s a hip-hop feel to that. People who write knowww with extra ws or youuu with extra us also use the word mum, they spell thankyou as one word, and they use xoxoxo.


af08f  c94d3494525f44f7f49a82f845823257 350x135 Why Twitter Makes Us Want to Add Extra LetterssssDo you add letters to tweets or emails or texts? I’m a fond of adding extra ooos like most poeple. I don’t think I do it excessively. I tend to make my hms a single. 


There’s also a kind of a social meme-ing to these things. I’m tempted to use v. for very but I can’t help but associate that with Bridget Jones, who does that in her diary, and I have a problem with someone reading me as Bridget Jones. I tentatively aded a v. in a tweet the other day. I rearranged and deleted and put it back several times. Other people may not have a reference like this.


It makes you wonder how long the “curse of Bridget Jones” will hold. Speaking of things evolving and changing, this kind of behavior tends to inspire rants about how proper language and grammar is dying. What do you think about that?  As far as I understand, [the ranters] are full of it. This represents changing conventions; we’re not becoming impaired. We all have cues, while we’re talking on the phone, for instance, and we’d have even more if we were face to face. What we’re usually doing is negotiating what we know about a particular person and what we know about people in general. It has to do with expectations, my experience with you and everybody else. We generally accommodate each other. Over the course of a conversation, our vowels become more alike. Any of these things can be going on below our level of awareness, or they can come up to our level of awareness. We can tweak them, we can notice them.


af08f  2256dcfe1d9cb21dc99ed7beab586e64 400x160 Why Twitter Makes Us Want to Add Extra LetterssssYour research focused on tweets in which people had used emoticons. Do you think emoticon-users are more likely to add letters to the words they tweet?  They very much do exist together, emoticons and adding letters. It’s easy to call these habits nonstandard, but whether they’re really nonstandard …10 percent of tweets use emoticons. As for the percent of letters added to words, I don’t know. They’re clearly very frequent, especially the expressive sound ones. Emoticons and added letters are not warring with each other; in fact, they go together very well. It’s speculation, but my guess is, if you’re fine with lengthening, you’re probably fine adding emoticons.


What other things do people do on Twitter in order to convey emotion?  Other types of punctuation. You can underline, you can bold, you can do all caps. People do all caps all the time. Putting asterisks around words has existed for a long time, and tends to be used on the internet with verbs indicating what you are doing at the moment (*smiles*). Or you see underscore, word, underscore. Those punctuation techniques will give you a sense that this is important, but not a sense of how it’s said. The all-caps gives you a sense of how it’s said, but many people hear or read it as shouting, and you don’t always mean to do that. The awwwww (expressing condolences) is not something you shout. You can’t shout mmmm.


Mmmmm. Do you see an end to the “trend” of adding letters? Once we get to the point of digesting audio tweets, we won’t need to add letters.


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: Why Twitter Makes Us Want to Add Extra Letterssss
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/why-twitter-makes-us-want-to-add-extra-letterssss/
Link To Post : Why Twitter Makes Us Want to Add Extra Letterssss
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Apple’s Retina display for the next-gen iPad mini is reportedly already in development








Read More..

MTV Fake-Hacks Its Own Twitter Handle, Proving That MTV Is Still Terrible






On Tuesday afternoon, just as the week of the big-brand Twitter hack was getting as old as it was useful to the “victims,” the Twitter feeds of BET and MTV — both owned by the media conglomerate Viacom — were “hacked.” Except they weren’t, in fact, hacked. They were stunt-hacked in a pre-planned, inter-office joke that turned into a viral marketing ploy gone bad.


RELATED: 4 Reasons To Praise Twitter’s New URL Shortener






On Monday hackers took to Burger King’s Twitter feed in a fake McDonald’s takeover that gained the brand 30,000 followers and a whole lot of social-media brand recognition, almost by accident. By midday Tuesday, Jeep had been “taken over” by hackers posing as Cadillac, and thousands of followers came with the very similar “attack.” But the social-media teams at BET and MTV had already noticed the bump, and had some “fun” in store. Which, because this is Twitter and jokes last about a day, didn’t end up much fun for anyone involved — and because this is MTV, definitely ended up in making the network look even more behind the times than usual.


RELATED: Does Google Have a Double Agent at Twitter?


We spotted this message (since deleted) from BET’s “social media pugilist”:


RELATED: The New York Times’s Bill Keller Riles Up Twitter


And there was this evidence, from an MTV marketing director’s feed minutes before the reality-TV channel was hacked:



MTV Marketing Director @schoprah tweets about the #MTVhack 4 minutes before the first “hacked” @mtv post:twitpic.com/c563h6


— Ellie Hall (@ellievhall) February 19, 2013


And have at these musings that MTV’s social media manger, Tom Fischman, tweeted after Burger King was hacked yesterday:



Is there any real downside to the @burgerking hack? Mistake leaving the account suspended all day, would have seen a nice follower windfall.


— Thomas Fishman (@Tom_Fishman) February 18, 2013



@mcbc Nobody thinks BK tweeted that stuff, doesn’t really reflect on them at all. Just bought them a ton of publicity, sympathy if anything.


— Thomas Fishman (@Tom_Fishman) February 18, 2013


The stunt certainly earned MTV and BET a bunch of publicity — like this post that you’re reading! — but came with the price of Twitter’s scorn … and no real bump in followers to either feed, either up or down:



I knew MTV wasn’t hacked when their content continued to still be complete crap.


— Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) February 19, 2013



I hope @twitter suspends @mtv and @bet just for being asshats


— Peter Ha (@ThePeterHa) February 19, 2013



It’s days like today that make me hate the Internet.


— Jared Keller (@jaredbkeller) February 19, 2013


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: MTV Fake-Hacks Its Own Twitter Handle, Proving That MTV Is Still Terrible
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/mtv-fake-hacks-its-own-twitter-handle-proving-that-mtv-is-still-terrible/
Link To Post : MTV Fake-Hacks Its Own Twitter Handle, Proving That MTV Is Still Terrible
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Burger King plans apology after Twitter hack






Somebody hacked Burger King‘s Twitter account on Monday, posting obscene messages and changing its profile picture to a McDonald‘s logo.


The tweets stopped after a little more than an hour, and Burger King said it had reached out to Twitter to suspend the account. A Twitter spokesman did not immediately respond to a phone message left on Monday.






Burger King, which usually tweets several times a week, said it was working to get the account back up. Typical tweets promoted sales on chicken sandwiches, or asked how many bites it takes to eat a chicken nugget.


But just after noon EST on Monday, someone tweeted via Burger King’s account, “We just got sold to McDonalds!” They also changed the icon to rival McDonald Corp.‘s golden arches and the account’s background picture to McDonald’s new Fish McBites.


About 55 tweets and retweets followed over the next hour and a quarter, including some that contained racial epithets, references to drug use and obscenities. The account tweeted: “if I catch you at a wendys, we’re fightin!”


Monday’s appropriation of Burger King’s Twitter account was a relatively mild example of cybersecurity problems, which are causing increasing concern in Washington and for industry. Media outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post have all said this year that their computer systems were breached, while several NBC websites were briefly hacked in November. White House officials and some lawmakers are pursuing legislation that would make it easier for the government and industry to share information on how to defend against hacking.


Burger King didn’t know who hacked the account, and no other social media accounts were affected, said Bryson Thornton, a spokesman for Miami-based Burger King Worldwide Inc. Its social media team and an outside agency manage the Twitter account, but Thornton declined to say how many people knew the account’s password. He said they hope to have it working again soon, and will post a statement on Facebook later Monday apologizing for the tweets.


Twitter acknowledged on Feb. 1 that cyber attackers may have stolen user names and passwords of 250,000 users. It said at the time that it notified users of the breach.


Competitors were sympathetic.


McDonald’s responded on Twitter that it empathized with its Burger King counterparts. “Rest assured, we had nothing to do with the hacking.”


“My real life nightmare is playing out” on Burger King’s twitter feed, wrote Wendy’s social media worker Amy Rose Brown.


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: Burger King plans apology after Twitter hack
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/burger-king-plans-apology-after-twitter-hack/
Link To Post : Burger King plans apology after Twitter hack
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Play puts Russian justice system in dock over lawyer’s death






MOSCOW (Reuters) – In a poorly lit basement theatre in central Moscow, actors play out a symbolic trial of Russia‘s justice system over its failure to protect an anti-corruption lawyer who died in custody.


Without costumes or a set, the actors in “One Hour and Eighteen Minutes” take on the roles of judges, an investigator, doctor and medical assistants, reciting lines cobbled together from legal documents, media and public pronouncements on the case of Sergei Magnitsky.






His death in 2009, while awaiting trial on charges of tax evasion and fraud, has outraged human rights campaigners who see it as an example of arbitrary justice in Russia, and contributed to a rift in U.S.-Russian relations.


A nervous giggle runs through the audience, perched on wooden chairs and benches, when an actor playing a judge says that the justice system is the only thing that is still working in Russia.


The audience is visibly taken aback when a second judge, who prolonged Magnitsky‘s detention four days before his death, dismisses accusations of acting inhumanly when she says the judge’s role is not to act like a human being but as an executor of the state’s authority.


“The most horrifying moment for me was this judge saying she is not a human because she is a judge. This is very frankly put and how things really are,” said Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a veteran Russian human rights campaigner.


“Nowadays, theatre based on documents, on real life here, is more telling and, unfortunately, more scary than thrillers.”


No one has been convicted over the death of Magnitsky, who was arrested after accusing Russian police of stealing $ 230 million from the state in 2007 through fraudulent tax refunds.


But Russia is now pressing ahead with plans to stage a posthumous trial of the lawyer, putting a dead man in the dock.


This prompted Mikhail Ugarov, the director of Teatr.doc, to revive a play first staged in 2010 because it seemed to him that true justice was now more distant than ever.


“In the very heart of Russia a man is killed, and not by thieves and bandits, but by doctors and prison workers, people who are in general obliged to safeguard the lives of those arrested,” Ugarov told Reuters.


“We used to think there would at least be some justice done, but it turned out completely the other way, it went horribly wrong. So our logic was that if they were not able to give justice to Magnitsky, we will instead.”


SEEKING JUSTICE


Rights campaigners and critics of President Vladimir Putin say the Russian judiciary is weak and open to abuse by politicians, and suggest that the Kremlin uses it to intimidate or persecute adversaries.


The Kremlin has repeatedly denied those accusations, saying the judiciary is completely independent and that the government does not intervene in legal cases.


“Judges are independent and subject only to the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the federal law,” the Russian Justice Ministry said in response to a request to comment on the play.


The Kremlin also denies that there has been a crackdown on dissenters since Putin returned to the presidency last May, facing the largest protests since he first rose to power 13 years ago.


Magnitsky’s prison death has, however, damaged Russia’s image and, for critics of the Kremlin, come to symbolize what they see as the impunity of the Russian authorities and the dangers faced by those who challenge them.


It has also resulted in a political spat with Washington. The United States, in response to Magnitsky’s treatment, passed legislation late last year that is designed to punish officials linked to his case as well as other Russians deemed rights violators.


Russia hit back with a law to punish Americans it suspects of similar abuses.


The play’s title, “One Hour and Eighteen Minutes”, alludes to the time just before Magnitsky died when he was left without medical help in his cell despite repeated complaints about his health deteriorating while in custody.


Putin said in December that Magnitsky died of a heart attack, but the head of the Kremlin’s own human rights council had earlier said he was probably beaten to death.


Putin called the death a tragedy but said the late lawyer, who had two sons, was not tortured.


All the defendants in the symbolic court in the play deny any responsibility, saying it was not their job to help Magnitsky, that they were busy with other cases, or were paid too poorly to care. Some suggest he was asking for trouble.


In the play, the first judge at a pre-trial hearing denies a glass of water to Magnitsky, saying such requests are not his concern.


Later on, an investigator involved in the case laughs with contempt at the lawyer’s repeated complaints about the conditions of Magnitsky’s detention and lack of medical care, saying a prison is not meant to be comfortable.


One actor exclaims ironically: “A dead man is good for being tried, and should be, just like someone who is alive – or is even better for being tried.”


(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska, editing by Paul Casciato)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: Play puts Russian justice system in dock over lawyer’s death
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/play-puts-russian-justice-system-in-dock-over-lawyers-death/
Link To Post : Play puts Russian justice system in dock over lawyer’s death
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Could This Be the iPhone 5S?






Photos of what may be Apple’s next iPhone surfaced online Monday.


Posted by a Chinese technology site, the images allegedly show the iPhone 5S already going into production. Nearly identical to the iPhone 5, the handset shown in the photos has an updated vibration motor (some have complained the iPhone 5′s is too noisy). Beyond that minor difference, however, it looks identical to the model currently on the market. Apple launched the iPhone 5 last September.






[More from Mashable: iMadeFace Turns You Into a Cartoon]


The Chinese site also suggested that an iPhone 6 was on the way, soon. It said the 6 will sport a larger display, increasing from 4.8 inches to 5 inches.


[More from Mashable: Apple Might Be Building a Wristwatch And Two Other Stories You Need to Know]


This past weekend, rumors surfaced that the Cupertino, Calif. company was also working on a smart watch. Made out of curved glass, the watch can potentially let users to make calls, answer texts and run apps from their wrists.


What do you want to see from Apple’s next iPhone? Let us know your thoughts in the comments, below.


Click here to view the gallery: Apple Smart Watch Concepts


Images courtesy of Sjbbs Zol


This story originally published on Mashable here.


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: Could This Be the iPhone 5S?
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/could-this-be-the-iphone-5s/
Link To Post : Could This Be the iPhone 5S?
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Samsung to reportedly take on BlackBerry with new enterprise platform









Title Post: Samsung to reportedly take on BlackBerry with new enterprise platform
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/samsung-to-reportedly-take-on-blackberry-with-new-enterprise-platform/
Link To Post : Samsung to reportedly take on BlackBerry with new enterprise platform
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Justin Timberlake’s ‘Suit & Tie’ Video Is Just as Justin Timberlake-y as Expected






At the Grammys he made our screens go sepia tone, and now, in his new, black-and-white, David Fincher-directed music video for the much hyped comeback single “Suit & Tie,” Justin Timberlake continues to try and prove that he’s a classy neo-Rat Pack star. That is, he’s a classy neo-Rat Pack star with a nearly naked women writhing around him and lot of “cool” modern conveniences like his iPad. See, JT gets rolled, via bed, into a soundstage-type area reading such a device: 


RELATED: David Fincher Is Directing the Ridiculous Justin Timberlake Music Video






Before he starts performing the song at a venue that appears to be Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl, JT and Jay-Z are just kind of chilling, because remember these are two improbably famous bros with a lot of fancy amenities: 


RELATED: The 2012 Gossip Stories We Loved


There are references to Singin’ in the Rain-type films: 


RELATED: Dr. Dre and the Lucrative Business of Not Rapping


9144c  7b354a620ff8d137a92f6d97f484b520 600x320 Justin Timberlakes Suit & Tie Video Is Just as Justin Timberlake y as Expected


And then, later on, hot girls in puddles on a stage because such is the life of Justin Timberlake, apparently: 


9144c  53ffc0d2865daeaed71614bedd7aaf6c 600x316 Justin Timberlakes Suit & Tie Video Is Just as Justin Timberlake y as Expected


Watch the entire video here, and remember it was directed by Fincher, so they all probably did a million takes of every shot: 


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News




Read More..

Amazon shares climb on Kindle e-book optimism






SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc shares climbed more than 4 percent on Tuesday after an analyst note fueled optimism about the company’s Kindle e-book business.


The e-book market is a lot bigger than previously thought, and owners of Kindle e-readers and tablets are reading more e-books, Morgan Stanley‘s Scott Devitt, a leading Internet and e-commerce analyst, told investors in the research note.






Devitt estimated worldwide e-book unit sales of 859 million in 2012, up considerably from a previous estimate of 567 million. With almost 45 percent of the e-book market, Amazon likely sold 383 million e-books last year, compared with an earlier estimate of 252 million, the analyst added.


Amazon’s broader strategy is to sell mobile devices at or near cost and make money when consumers use the gadgets to buy digital content, including e-books, music, videos, apps and games.


Devitt said on Wednesday that the strategy may be working with e-books, one of Amazon’s oldest digital categories.


“We initially assumed that early adopters of eReader devices would be avid readers and, therefore, the marginal buyer would read less,” Devitt wrote.


However, data from a recent Amazon presentation show that consumers who bought a Kindle in 2011 read 4.6 times more e-books, on average, in the 12 months following their gadget purchase, compared with the 12 months before getting the device, the analyst noted.


Similar data from 2008 show consumers reading e-books 2.6 times as much after their Kindle device purchase, on average, according to Devitt.


The success of Amazon’s Kindle business is important because it is more profitable than some of the company’s other operations, Devitt said.


The Kindle business, which includes the gadgets and related digital content sales, generated about 11 percent of Amazon’s sales last year and 34 percent of the company’s consolidated segment operating income, or CSOI, Devitt estimated. The CSOI is a closely watched measure of Amazon’s profitability.


“The Kindle franchise is a profit pool that subsidizes investments in other growth initiatives,” Devitt wrote.


Amazon shares rose 4.1 percent to $ 269.30 in afternoon trading on Wednesday.


(Reporting By Alistair Barr; editing by Gunna Dickson)


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: Amazon shares climb on Kindle e-book optimism
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/amazon-shares-climb-on-kindle-e-book-optimism/
Link To Post : Amazon shares climb on Kindle e-book optimism
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Stop blaming video games for America’s gun violence






Recently, America’s attention has been understandably focused on the potential causes of increased violence – especially gun violence – particularly among children and youth, and how to stop it. Alongside gun-control proposals, some of which President Obama is likely to highlight in his State of the Union address tonight, much of that attention has looked at the potential of violent video games to cause or exacerbate the tendencies of youth to engage in real, harmful violence.


While I applaud increased vigilance on the part of parents in supervising their children’s behaviors and pastimes, a child playing a violent video game does not necessarily increase the likelihood that he or she will engage in real violence at that age or later in life.






Various reports and commentaries have documented the fact that Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza’s video game playing included violent shooter games like Call of Duty, Counterstrike, and Starcraft. Some have cited that activity as a possible cause for his shooting massacre.


ANOTHER VIEW: Gabrielle Giffords and NRA are both right about one thing: US culture of violence


But if Lanza was playing Call of Duty 4, he was one of millions. On the Xbox 360 console alone, the game’s developer, Infinity Ward, has documented nearly 4.4 million online players, not counting players who use a PlayStation 3 or aren’t online. The statistics for Counterstrike are similar – an estimated 62,142 per day. And Starcraft is so popular in Korea, that it has professional leagues and an estimated online player population of around 50,000 each day.


Of those millions of players, few commit an act of violence, certainly not enough to say that, statistically, video game play is a principle cause – or even a significant cause – of real-world violent behavior.


So why are so many people blaming the video game industry?


It’s a phenomenon known as “cultural lag,” and it’s what causes us to be hesitant in adopting new technologies, trying new fads, and changing our social mores. Cultural lag can be a good thing – some new things are dangerous, come with high levels of risk, and can infinitely do more harm than good. But cultural lag also can inhibit the development of technologies and society because of irrational fears, which is what I’m seeing with recent criticism of the gaming industry.


Before video games, society blamed rock ‘n’ roll for violence and bad behavior among young people. Before rock ‘n’ roll, we blamed television. Before television, movies. Before movies, mystery novels, which were once known as “penny dreadfuls.” Before mystery novels, Shakespeare, who repeatedly was accused of producing violent, lecherous, and otherwise improper behavior in his audience.


In essence, as a society, we always will try to find out “why” bad things happen, but we aren’t actually very good at finding the answers. We look back at our past with rose-colored glasses and look forward into the future with trepidation.


We see our own childhoods as joyful and carefree, and when, as adults, we are exposed to the grim realities of our world, we wonder, “What happened?”. And then we try to explain the difference between the past that we remember and the present as we perceive it. When we do this, we very often look to technologies that did not exist 20, 30, or 40 years ago, and we think: That didn’t exist back then when things were “better,” therefore it must have some impact on why things have “gotten worse” now.


First of all, I am unconvinced that “things have gotten worse,” but even if we assume that they have, in blaming technologies like video games for real-life violence, we assume causation, where numerous studies show there is only correlation – at best. This is tantamount to assuming, as journalist Jeanine Celestin-Greer of Gamastura (a gaming journalism website) points out, that because Lanza drank Mountain Dew, Mountain Dew causes violent behavior.


In a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Christopher J. Ferguson, a psychologist at Texas A&M International University, claimed that the recent outcry against video games as the cause of “school shootings” in general is patently fallacious. He explains that among hundreds of studies on violence and video games, not a single one has proven conclusively a causal relationship between violent behaviors in the real world and violent video-game play. And yet, scholars and politicians who often have little to no experience playing video games themselves continue to suggest that this is the case.


Americans need to stop trying to blame something other than ourselves for the increase – if there is an increase – in violent behavior.


Video games, music, television, movies, novels, and Shakespeare don’t cause violence. Mental illness, psychological abuse, and physical abuse cause violence. Ideologies that reward and condone aggression, particularly in men, cause violence. Global genocide causes violence. The only conclusive evidence we do have is that it is real-life violence that causes real-life violence.


As long as we, as a society, condone violence in the name of nationalism, continue to minimize domestic violence and rape, and promote aggression as ideal masculinity, violence will continue to be a problem in our homes, on our streets, and in our schools. Critics will argue that the imagery and plots of video games do just that – and in turn, perpetuate those behaviors. Yes, video games reflect some of these highly problematic aspects of our society that contribute to a tolerance of violence. Just like movies and books. But they don’t cause it.


Remove video games from the equation and you will still have a commensurate level of violence.


And yes, video games can influence ideology, but they aren’t the only – or even the predominant – influence on society or an individual. In fact, video games can influence our ideologies in as many if not more positive ways than they do negative ones. Many recent games actually encourage players to play non-violently and reward players for humane treatment and good judgment.


So while video games are influencing us, and sometimes through violent images and play, many of them are pushing us to criticize the very violence that some people seem to believe they are causing.


OPINION: 6 reasons why President Obama will defeat the NRA and win universal background checks


The dialogue we need to have is about real violence, not virtual violence, and I sincerely hope that America’s leaders recognize this as we move forward in addressing the problem.


Kristin M.S. Bezio is an assistant professor at the University of Richmond’s Jepson School of Leadership Studies. Her research explores the intersection of literature and leadership, looking at influences ranging from Shakespeare to video gaming.


Related stories


Read this story at csmonitor.com


Become a part of the Monitor community


Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: Stop blaming video games for America’s gun violence
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/stop-blaming-video-games-for-americas-gun-violence/
Link To Post : Stop blaming video games for America’s gun violence
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

NH bills: Bosses can’t seek social media passwords






CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — New Hampshire is considering joining a handful of states that bar employers from asking job applicants and employees for their social media user names and passwords.


The House’s labor committee is holding a hearing on two similar bills Tuesday that would prohibit an employer from requiring the disclosure. Maryland, California, Delaware, Michigan, New Jersey and Illinois have similar laws and two dozen besides New Hampshire are considering legislation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.






In their effort to vet job applicants, some companies and government agencies have started asking for passwords to log into a prospective employee’s accounts on social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. Critics call it an invasion of privacy akin to handing over the keys to the person’s house.


State Sen. Donna Soucy, a co-sponsor on both New Hampshire bills, said Monday that employers can gain access to information about an employee or job applicant through social media accounts like Facebook that they otherwise could not legally obtain. She said people post personal information about themselves on Facebook or others post on the person’s page that should be protected.


She said she has not heard of any New Hampshire employers demanding the information.


“I think the issue is something we need to consider a lot more seriously than we used to” with the growth of social media accounts, she said. “At the very least, I would hope we would have a study.”


Soucy, D-Manchester, said employers can use information on social media accounts to discriminate. For example, the applicant might be obese but the person’s weight would not be required on the application. The employer might not know until seeing a picture on Facebook, she said.


“Would they interview them if they saw their picture on Facebook?” she said.


Soucy said other people can post information on the person’s page that the person might not delete before a prospective employer saw it.


“As responsible as somebody might trying to be, it is still a reflection on them,” she said.


Allowing employers access to social media accounts also gives them access to others linked to the account at the infringement on their privacy, she said.


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: NH bills: Bosses can’t seek social media passwords
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/nh-bills-bosses-cant-seek-social-media-passwords/
Link To Post : NH bills: Bosses can’t seek social media passwords
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..