Is it a trend, or is Microsoft just trying to leapfrog Nintendo as it goes for more family videogame players? Maybe both. First, with the Wii, Nintendo turned the videogame controller into "a simple swing-and-swivel device. Now Microsoft wants to ditch the controller entirely and leave the swinging and swiveling to you," USATODAY reports. With the help of none other than Steven Spielberg, … [Read more...] about Microsoft: Forget the controller
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Md. students seek cellphone rules change
Cellphones are banned from Montgomery County (Md.) schools, but there's still plenty of texting going on in the classroom. So, since texting is so inextricable from their lives now, the students - led by Quratul-Ann Malik, a high school senior - are taking a resolution before the county school board, asking it to allow high school students to use cellphones during lunchtime, the Washington Post … [Read more...] about Md. students seek cellphone rules change
Phone bans don’t work: Oz expert
After two girls were suspended from Ascham School - a boarding school for girls in an eastern suburb of Sydney - for harassing fellow students, "the school sent a letter to parents urging them to take their children's mobile phones away from them at night to try and stop abusive messages circulating," ABC News Australia reports. But ABC talked with the general manager of Kids Helpline, a free … [Read more...] about Phone bans don’t work: Oz expert
Texting at meals: Usually *really* not cool
"Husbands, wives, children and dinner guests who would never be so rude as to talk on a phone at the family table seem to think it’s perfectly fine to text," the New York Times reports. A therapist told the Times that texting while eating has become a major topic between spouses in marital counseling. It's as if the issue - for old and young cellphone users alike - is sound levels rather than … [Read more...] about Texting at meals: Usually *really* not cool
When does texting get unhealthy?
The teen texting rate keeps climbing. US teens sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages a month in the fourth quarter of 2008, the New York Times reports, citing Nielsen figures. That's "almost 80 messages a day, more than double the average of a year earlier." The Times cites one psychotherapist as saying that adolescents' huge interest in what's going on with peers plus huge anxiety … [Read more...] about When does texting get unhealthy?