3 April 2012 Last updated at 17:59 ET Facebook has responded to a recently-launched legal action by rival Yahoo with a lawsuit of its own. Last month, Yahoo claimed the social network had infringed 10 of its patents, including systems and methods for advertising on the web. Now Facebook is counter suing, claiming the web portal violated its patents covering photo tagging, advertising and online recommendations
A conference for schoolteachers in the UK has focused its ire on the issue of small children playing violent videogames, and bringing these adult fantasies to school play-time. Delegates at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers annual conference discussed a motion calling for “stringent” legislation against the “negative effects some computer games are having on the very young.” One teacher of small children said her students “throw themselves out of the window of the play car in slow motion” play-acting the motion of “blood spurting from their bodies.” Alison Sherratt, a teacher at a primary (elementary) school in West Yorkshire, added, “We all expect to see rough and tumble, but I have seen little ones acting out quite graphic scenes in the playground and there is a lot more hitting, hurting and thumping in the classroom for no particular reason.” She said there is a “notable correlation between the children who admit to playing games and those who come to school really tired.” The ATL’s general secretary Mary Bousted called on parents to honor game ratings and TV watersheds. “It’s about reminding parents and carers that they have a very real responsibility for their children and that schools can’t do it alone.” Thanks to The Guardian.
3 April 2012 Last updated at 18:46 Tiny robots that can join together to form functional tools and then split apart again after use might be ready for market in little more than a decade, according to researchers.
Female players of online strategy game Prime World are to be offered perks and incentives in order to encourage more women to play. Prime World is a League of Legends-style game pitting teams of varyingly tooled-up combatants against one another. It also involves skill-building mini-games.
3 April 2012 Last updated at 15:45 US activist group Invisible Children is to release a sequel to its video highlighting the activities of Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony. The first 30-minute film attracted more than 100 million views on YouTube and proved popular with young people. The follow-up has been made without input from the group’s co-founder, who suffered a mental breakdown following publicity generated by the film
Your local games retail store is going out of business. It’ll take a while to play out, but it’s happening. It’s just a matter of time before sad-faced staff members are given their slips, shelving is auctioned off, windows are whitewashed.
3 April 2012 Last updated at 14:33 TomTom has blamed a “leap year bug” for a fault which has caused some of its satellite navigation devices to stop working.
3 April 2012 Last updated at 12:47 Motorola Mobility’s patent lawsuits have become the subject of two investigations by the European Commission. It follows complaints by Apple and Microsoft after Motorola tried to block sales of their products
3 April 2012 Last updated at 06:10 ET The Home Office says new laws to allow the monitoring of all emails, texts and web use in the UK will be brought in “as soon as parliamentary time allows”. The statement comes despite widespread criticism of plans to allow GCHQ “real time” access to communications data. In a further sign of a determination to push on with the plan, Home Secretary Theresa May said “ordinary people” would have nothing to fear.
3 April 2012 Last updated at 10:59 A data breach that may have exposed as many as 1.5 million credit card accounts has been “absolutely contained”, according to the firm behind the leak. Global Payments processes payments for firms such as Visa, Mastercard and American Express.
