Violent games are OK

WORLD REVIEW

The US federal appeals court cancelled the 2005 California law prohibiting sale or rental of violent games to anyone under 18; the three judges at the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeal said the law violates the constitutional rights of California minors; but they noted that one group has the right to ban computer games to children: parents; a key quote from the judgement: "The State has not produced substantial evidence that supports the Legislatures conclusion that violent video games cause psychological or neurological harm to minors." Microsoft, which is both a game producer and a vendor to schools remember, began a study to try to learn whether video gaming actually promotes learning skills that would be useful in the classroom; gaming research director (great job) John Nordlinger says he wants to know how to make better games with less violence - and invested $15 million to start the Games for Learning Institute with New York University and other schools.

A classic sign of the times: The Rocky Mountain News, the oldest daily newspaper in Colorado, was forced to announce its own demise on the Web because the newspaper's deadline had already passed when the official news was released.

For just the third time since Earth cooled, Microsoft filed a patent lawsuit - hard to believe, given how many times Microsoft has been on the receiving end; the new suits claim GPS navigation company TomTom has stolen Microsoft technology and needs to licence it; IRONY ALERT one of the complaints alleges that TomTom is misusing the Linux kernel as developed by Microsoft.

New Yahoo! CEO Carol "The Knife" Bartz said she was reorganising the firm sort of like the Six Million Dollar Man: stronger, faster, simpler, more responsive to customers; her first victim was chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen, whose pink slip arrived on his desk while he was addressing investors of Goldman Sachs; but as he left or was pushed, Mr Jorgensen let it slip that Yahoo! and Microsoft might discuss a joint search service.

Google told the European Commission it would love to help the EU press and prove anti-trust charges against Microsoft, not that this had anything to do with renewed reports of a Yahoo!-Microsoft hookup, perish the thought; it's just that Google honestly and deeply believes that the world's only court-designated abusive monopoly holds a really unfair advantage by bundling its Internet browser with Windows, not that Google is trying to use the court system and armed government agents to push Google Chrome browser, perish that thought, too, thank you.

Meet the new president, same as George W Bush; Mr Bush worked for four years to kill consumer lawsuits demanding millions of emails that were lost during his first term in office; Barack Obama's Justice Department showed up in court in Washington to ask the judge to kill the same lawsuits; the consumer groups maintain the emails might not have been lost but covered up.

Finally, thanks to the stimulus package guided and urged to law by US President Barack Obama, Microsoft co-founder billionaire Paul Allen will get the extra billion dollars he so sorely needs and deserves as a rich businessman; simply by declaring his cable-TV business bankrupt, which he did as soon as the stimulus bill was signed, Allen got a billion-dollar tax break and get enough to buy a third luxury yacht.

Mark Taylor of Somerset in England suspected he had a virus or worm of some kind when his notebook began to overheat and malfunction, with the message the fan had malfunctioned; he was literally correct, sort of; the worm was a common nightcrawler, about 12cm long, and had wrapped itself around the fan, and was well done by the time it was discovered.

India's cabinet approved a $1.7 billion plan to launch its first two astronauts into space for one week by 2015; India only launched its first unmanned lunar mission last October; Chandrayaan 1 has been orbiting the Moon to compile a 3D lunar surface map.

Microsoft released the second beta version of Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista, hinting the final release would be soon. Just in time for Mobile World Congress, the soft-spoken, hugely likeable Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced that the Windows Mobile OS is as dead as the old names, Windows CE and Pocket PCs; from now they're just Windows phones; Mr Ballmer also announced the release of Windows Mobile V 6.5 with a much more touch-optimised interface, and My Phone, the Microsoft version of an online backup and synchronisation service.

The New York Times, a US daily newspaper, carried a lengthy feature story on the "support group" Dating a Banker Anonymous; it reported that some 30 women share support for bankers under heavy stress because of the recession; unfortunately, it's not a support group but a blog, and it's not true, but satire.

The traffic situation got so serious that a Russian vehicle ploughed into an American one - in space; there were no personal injuries; "Nothing has the right of way up there," as Nasa chief orbital scientist Nicholas Johnson put it; "We don't have an air traffic controller in space."