p2pnet World Headlines: March 2, 2010
New analysis reasserts video games’ link to violence USA Today
A new review of 130 studies “strongly suggests” playing violent video games increases aggressive thoughts and behavior and decreases empathy. The results hold “regardless of research design, gender, age or culture,” says lead researcher Craig Anderson, who directs the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State University in Ames. His team did a statistical analysis of studies on more than 130,000 gamers from elementary school age to college in the USA, Europe and Japan. It is published today in Psychological Bulletin, a journal of the American Psychological Association.
Universities protest against government wi-fi plans BBC
Many universities take a tough line with copyright infringers, says professional group. Libraries and universities are protesting about plans to make them police users of wireless networks. The government’s Digital Economy Bill includes plans to make them responsible for what is done over free wi-fi. The plans imply that libraries, universities and cafes offering free wireless will be responsible if people use it to pirate movies and music. Bodies representing universities want the law clarified so they are not hit with big bills for policing every user. “We’re very concerned about this,” said Toby Bainton, secretary of the Society of College, National and University Libraries (Sconul). “We have been pressing them on this for quite some time.”
NetEase.com Posts More Internet Revenue In China ChinaTechNews
Chinese Internet company NetEase.com Inc. announced its unaudited financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2009, and showed large annualized and sequential revenue increases. Total revenues for the fourth quarter of 2009 were CNY1.3 billion, compared to CNY879.4 million and CNY801.7 million for the preceding quarter and the fourth quarter of 2008, respectively. Total revenues for fiscal year 2009 were CNY3.8 billion, compared to CNY3.0 billion for the preceding fiscal year.
‘Wiseguy Tickets’ owners are due in court, accused of online scheme New Jersey Real-Time News
Three men charged with hacking into websites of online ticket sellers and illegally buying up legions of tickets to the nation’s most popular entertainment and sporting events are scheduled to be arraigned in federal court in Newark today. Kenneth Lowson, 40, Kristofer Kirsch, 37, and Joel Stevenson, 37, all from California, ran Wiseguy Tickets Inc., which authorities said used software that impersonated individual ticket buyers and bombard online ticket services including Ticketmaster and Major League Baseball. A fourth company official, Faisal Nahdi, 36, is expected to surrender to authorities within the next few days. The men were charged with conspiracy, wire fraud and unauthorized computer access. The wire fraud counts are the most serious and carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years per count.
Google Awarded Critical Location-Based Advertising Patent MediaPost
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office just awarded Google a patent for using location in an advertising system — “which,” according to VentureBeat, “is the emerging business model for most consumer-facing location startups today.” Filed six years ago, the industry blog describes the patent as “fairly broad,” as it “covers using location for targeting, setting a minimum price bid for an ad, offering performance analytics, and modifying the content of an ad.”
UK ISP TalkTalk Boosts Essentials Broadband Bundle Speeds to 24Mbps ISP Review
TalkTalk has today confirmed that all of its ‘up to’ 8Mbps Essentials broadband and phone bundle customers will be given a FREE speed boost ‘up to’ 24Mbps. The provider will also be removing P2P (BitTorrent file sharing) traffic shaping for all Pro customers. Plans for this change were first reported towards the end of last year (here), though it’s not all good news. The new line connection fee is currently £59.99, however from today this will increase to £69.99. Free Local Calls for new TalkTalk customers have also been removed.
‘Sweden is a tax paradise’: Ikea adviser The Local
A leading figure behind both Ikea and Tetra Pak’s decisions to move their headquarter beyond Sweden’s borders has said Sweden is making major strides on the road to becoming a more business-friendly nation. Tax expert Göran Grosskopf, chairman of Ingka Holding, Ikea’s parent company, was instrumental in moving both the flatpack furnisher and packaging giant Tetra Pak out of Sweden for tax purposes. Ikea left for Denmark in 1973 before later switching to the Netherlands, while Tetra Pak set up headquarters in Switzerland in 1981. But writing in a newsletter ahead of the Transfer of Ownership in Private Businesses conference, to be held in Stockholm at the end of March, Grosskopf claims the companies would have remained on home turf had today’s tax system been in place at the time. By abolishing inheritance tax, gift tax and wealth tax, Sweden has become attractive to business owners who previously struggled to build up private savings outside of their companies, he claimed
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
March, 2010
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http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-03-01-1Avideogames01_ST_N.htm
A new review of 130 studies “strongly suggests” playing violent video games increases aggressive thoughts and behavior and decreases empathy. The results hold “regardless of research design, gender, age or culture,” says lead researcher Craig Anderson, who directs the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State University in Ames. His team did a statistical analysis of studies on more than 130,000 gamers from elementary school age to college in the USA, Europe and Japan. It is published today in Psychological Bulletin, a journal of the American Psychological Association.
Universities protest against government wi-fi plans BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8543142.stm
Many universities take a tough line with copyright infringers, says professional group. Libraries and universities are protesting about plans to make them police users of wireless networks. The government’s Digital Economy Bill includes plans to make them responsible for what is done over free wi-fi. The plans imply that libraries, universities and cafes offering free wireless will be responsible if people use it to pirate movies and music. Bodies representing universities want the law clarified so they are not hit with big bills for policing every user. “We’re very concerned about this,” said Toby Bainton, secretary of the Society of College, National and University Libraries (Sconul). “We have been pressing them on this for quite some time.”
NetEase.com Posts More Internet Revenue In China ChinaTechNews
http://www.chinatechnews.com/2010/02/25/11628-netease-com-posts-more-internet-revenue-in-china
Chinese Internet company NetEase.com Inc. announced its unaudited financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2009, and showed large annualized and sequential revenue increases. Total revenues for the fourth quarter of 2009 were CNY1.3 billion, compared to CNY879.4 million and CNY801.7 million for the preceding quarter and the fourth quarter of 2008, respectively. Total revenues for fiscal year 2009 were CNY3.8 billion, compared to CNY3.0 billion for the preceding fiscal year.
‘Wiseguy Tickets’ owners are due in court, accused of online scheme New Jewrsey Real-Time News
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/03/wiseguy_tickets_owners_accused.html
Three men charged with hacking into websites of online ticket sellers and illegally buying up legions of tickets to the nation’s most popular entertainment and sporting events are scheduled to be arraigned in federal court in Newark today. Kenneth Lowson, 40, Kristofer Kirsch, 37, and Joel Stevenson, 37, all from California, ran Wiseguy Tickets Inc., which authorities said used software that impersonated individual ticket buyers and bombard online ticket services including Ticketmaster and Major League Baseball. A fourth company official, Faisal Nahdi, 36, is expected to surrender to authorities within the next few days. The men were charged with conspiracy, wire fraud and unauthorized computer access. The wire fraud counts are the most serious and carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years per count.
Google Awarded Critical Location-Based Advertising Patent MediaPost
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=123526
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office just awarded Google a patent for using location in an advertising system — “which,” according to VentureBeat, “is the emerging business model for most consumer-facing location startups today.” Filed six years ago, the industry blog describes the patent as “fairly broad,” as it “covers using location for targeting, setting a minimum price bid for an ad, offering performance analytics, and modifying the content of an ad.”
UK ISP TalkTalk Boosts Essentials Broadband Bundle Speeds to 24Mbps ISP Review
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2010/02/26/uk-isp-talktalk-boosts-essentials-broadband-bundle-speeds-to-24mbps.html
TalkTalk has today confirmed that all of its ‘up to’ 8Mbps Essentials broadband and phone bundle customers will be given a FREE speed boost ‘up to’ 24Mbps. The provider will also be removing P2P (BitTorrent file sharing) traffic shaping for all Pro customers. Plans for this change were first reported towards the end of last year (here), though it’s not all good news. The new line connection fee is currently £59.99, however from today this will increase to £69.99. Free Local Calls for new TalkTalk customers have also been removed.
‘Sweden is a tax paradise’: Ikea adviser The Local
http://www.thelocal.se/25286/20100301/
A leading figure behind both Ikea and Tetra Pak’s decisions to move their headquarter beyond Sweden’s borders has said Sweden is making major strides on the road to becoming a more business-friendly nation. Tax expert Göran Grosskopf, chairman of Ingka Holding, Ikea’s parent company, was instrumental in moving both the flatpack furnisher and packaging giant Tetra Pak out of Sweden for tax purposes. Ikea left for Denmark in 1973 before later switching to the Netherlands, while Tetra Pak set up headquarters in Switzerland in 1981. But writing in a newsletter ahead of the Transfer of Ownership in Private Businesses conference, to be held in Stockholm at the end of March, Grosskopf claims the companies would have remained on home turf had today’s tax system been in place at the time. By abolishing inheritance tax, gift tax and wealth tax, Sweden has become attractive to business owners who previously struggled to build up private savings outside of their companies, he claimed
March 6th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Re: video game violence
Life imitates art or vice-versa? Consider the following and what implications it may have regarding the state of our society at the moment:
My partner in crime, Chad, has discovered the online facet of gameplay on his PS3, and I have noticed that his mood in general tends to correlate, whether in causal or effectual form is unknown, to how well he is scoring on the latest round of “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.” When I hear him shouting various obscenities at the flat screen in the other room I always think to myself how wonderful it is that he is having so much “fun”. There are so many others having fun along with him that if I type the letters “COD” into the search pane, Google’s first suggestion for completion is not “code” or “codec” or even “codeine” but “cod modern warfare 2.”
His rank among the nearly 8 million other virtual commandos is somewhere in the middle to upper third, while his friend is somewhere at newb level near the 7,000,000 marker. He can join a round of “Team Deathmatch” or “Search and Destroy” in under 30 seconds to continue his quest to unlock new callsigns earned by accomplishments during gameplay to strike terror into the hearts of his opponents. There more than 500 possible emblems, with titles ranging from the banal “Major” or “Colonel” to the clever “C4 and After”. There are charming examples of
The typical: Destroyer, Impaler, Devastator, Predator
The topical: 1bullet2kills, Boom! Headshot, Crackin’ Skulls, Blunt Trauma
The tribute: Mmmmm Brains…,Live Long…, Global Thermonuclear War, Top Gun
The top dogs: Submit to Authority, Bow Down, Big Bad
The truncated: SBD (Silent But Deadly), STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease), NBK (Natural born Killer),
The tell-tale: Philanthropist,The Anarchist
The totals: Omnicide, Omnipotent
The temeritous: 9 Lives, Phoenix Rising, Godhand
and then there is my personal favorite, The ultimate testament to testosterone: Wargasm
My own favorite PS3 game at this juncture (at least since Chad stepped on our Soul Calibur 4 disk) is “American Idol Encore 2″ which also presents the opportunity to compete/interact with others who don’t happen to be in the immediate vicinity but can still console you when “Simon” decimates your ego in his typical fashion. I was curious to try playing with strangers, but despite this being a game that made my mom laugh so hard she nearly peed, and fashioned after a show that draws in millions, would you believe there was not a single match to be had in all the network for me to dust off my vocal cords with? Zero. None. Nary a one. Anywhere.
I find interesting social commentary in the fact that I couldn’t find a soul to join me in a game that never leaves me cranky, and in fact, never fails to leave me with a smile on my face no matter how badly I might perform. While 8 million folks around the world gather to play a game which often makes them angry.
What fun!