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The New York Times removes its articles from Apple News
The New York Times is ending its partnership with Apple News.
New York Times picks an AI moderator over a Public Editor
In a surprising move, the New York Times announced to its staff on Wednesday that it will immediately eliminate the position of Public Editor at its publication. The role will instead be filled by an expanded comments section -- one that is moderated by artificial intelligence.
Sky app to offer Premier League highlights from 2016-17 season
Although Sky spent a record £4.2 billion for Premier League TV rights for three seasons from 2016, the company wasn't able to secure access to online and app highlights at the same time. For over half a decade, those rights have been owned by ESPN and News International (now News UK). However, that will all change from the 2016-17 season, when Sky finally gets its hands on near real-time video clips for all Premier League matches and adds to the 126 live games it already has plans to broadcast.
Mozilla Persona sign-in launches in beta, skips the social networking ball and chain (video)
We all know those web pages where the only alternative to a site-specific login is a social networking account. That's not very reassuring for anyone skittish about linking their commentary to a Facebook account relatives might see, if they're even willing to join a social network in the first place. Mozilla has been aware of that hesitation long enough to have just released its long-in-development Persona sign-in service as a beta. Although it has the same kind of simple approach to a login as a Facebook or Twitter pop-up window, Persona's emphasis is on privacy: it stops paying attention the moment credentials go through, keeping any diatribes or subscription details from landing in social streams or central databases. Users don't have to play a rousing game of guess-the-username, either, as they just need to sign in with one or more familiar e-mail addresses and a single password. Persona faces an uphill battle in getting web developer adoption when the establishment sign-in services are open to hundreds of millions of internet citizens, but it does have The Times' online crossword section, OpenPhoto and Voost as early poster children -- and anything that lets the privacy-minded join the party has our vote.
French police avert school shooting, 13-year-old boy apprehended
According to a report from The Times, French authorities have prevented a school shooting by arresting a 13-year-old boy before he could exact revenge on his teachers for poor marks. Raymond Yeddou, a senior state official in Beauvais, is quoted as saying, "He left his home with a loaded shotgun and 25 cartridges. He went in the direction of the school where, according to his statement, he intended to kill all his teachers." The boy now faces charges of attempted murder. As GamePolitics notes, several reports -- including the one from The Times, which boasts the headline, "Computer games fan 'planned school massacre'" -- have drawn a connection between the presumably foiled attack and the young boy's hobbies. Piggybacking on word of the boy playing World of Warcraft and other games until "one or two in the morning," the mainstream media has once again attempted to trace unusual, outcast criminal behavior to a culturally entrenched and widespread hobby. Unless you plan to thoroughly investigate the complex impetus for a planned school shooting, the only use in linking a young boy to video games is to remind us what year we're in. Protip, media: It's 2009. And you're still doing it. [Via GamePolitics]
'Xbox is crack for kids,' declares Times columnist
Is anybody else feeling dizzy? It must be due to the constant eye rolling prompted by the mainstream press' recent vendetta against informed opinion and logical argument, the results of which have yielded a particularly mystifying (and entirely non-existent) version of Mass Effect. Though the attention paid to every sensational sentence is undeserved, watching someone go off the rails and take their keyboard with them is, at the very least, an excellent source of entertainment. Today's performer is The Times columnist, Janice Turner, who doesn't waste a single punctuation mark before declaring, "Xbox is crack for kids."The greatest thing about Turner's meandering piece is its ability to convince you that it's a somewhat reasonable defense of children's exposure to television and the "unfathomable black magic" of technology. There's even some evidence of parental influence (!) in the suggestion to monitor kids' total "screen time." But like a skilled magician, Turner saves the real reveal for the last few paragraphs, dramatically pulling hypocrisy out of a hat when you least expect it. How'd she do that?Turner proudly declares that "unlike the TV-hating parents," she simply bars game consoles -- otherwise known as "Satan's Sudoku" and "crack cocaine for the brain" -- from her home. In a single sentence, she manages to give television far too much credit and gaming nothing more than a scornful, ill-informed glance. "Even the crappiest cartoon or lamest soap teaches a child about character, plot, drama, humour, life," insists Turner. With these qualities clearly lacking in any games ever made, children have no choice but to become "mentally imprisoned, wired into their evil creators' brains." Books and television are given a free pass, but as soon as the media becomes interactive it warrants the label of "addiction," one applied so aloofly when the subject matter is alien and obviously unfamiliar. While the final judgment urges kids to "get an inner life," we feel we have better advice to offer: Write sensationalist drivel to bring in the hits! Just remember, darling. They'll come to your credibility too.
Culture Minister speaks in Second Life
Following earlier reports that David Milliband MP, the Foreign Secretary in the British Government, has a Second Life avatar The Times and Tameside Eye both report that James Purnell, Minister of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, gave a seminar at the Serious Games Institute in Second Life. There is a video of the presentation available here - be warned, although he is a politican, he isn't the most gripping of speakers, plus the video is home movie quality.Second Life is seeing campaigning and the like increasingly often of course, but I believe this is, however appropriate it may be, the first time a politician has come into Second Life for a routine presentation as part of his or her day to day duties.
UK's The Times becomes WoW pusher this Saturday
This Saturday, UK newspaper The Times will offer readers a disc with a 14-day trial of World of Warcraft. The edition will also include an eight-page guide to the game. Like a good drug dealer, Blizzard knows that you just have to give a customer that first hit of WoW to keep them coming back for more. The only real difference between a drug dealer and Blizzard is that dealers can't advertise in The Times -- well, not legally.We can certainly expect Blizzard to start using more unorthodox approaches in growing their customer base. With 8.5 million WoW players, they've got plenty of money to blow on marketing now and continue the march toward the mind-blowing 10 million user mark. Blizzard is sure to announce their upcoming WoW expansion in the next few months, along with whatever new title they're working on.
