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Could this be the year the Kuro is completely dethroned?
Every year since that sad day Pioneer announced its exodus from the plasma TV market videophiles have looked to Panasonic to take the baton forward and push picture quality to new heights, but so far it has come up short in the one metric that many consider the most important; black levels. Plenty of TVs have great realistic colors, vivid whites and great contrast, but there is something about staring into the abyss that is a Kuro that warms the heart. So while it is debatable whether a TV with better contrast, but greyer blacks can be better than a Kuro, the debate might be over if Panasonic's engineers are to be believed. At an event in New York City last week they did just that, telling members of the press that Panasonic's new VT30 line will indeed match the black levels of the 2009 Kuros. Apparently the key is the new and improved louver structure of the filter that blocks reflective light, which block ambient light -- and Kuro fans are mocked for saying the Kuro is blacker when its off than other TVs, ha. We'll have to wait to see if the reviewers agree before we get excited, but it is still pretty crazy to think it's taken this long for the industry to catch up with where Pioneer was years ago in at least one category.
Criticism of racial stereotyping in games
A piece on BlackVoiceNews explores blacks playing and portrayed in video games. The two part piece (1 and 2) by Ricard O. Jones expresses his views on the harm to blacks by racial stereotyping and obsession with gaming. Based on a 2006 Kaiser Family Foundation study that revealed black youth play video games 90 minutes a day, 30 minutes more than white youth, that "it stands to reason that blacks are the most negatively effected" by the game media's portrayal. Jones uses the "poor self-images" from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to illustrate his point. In all fairness though, the first two GTA's had a generic white guy and an Italian mobster stereotype as the anti-hero. The question being: Would it have been better not to have Carl Johnson at all? Take-Two took a bit of a risk using a black protagonist nestled in the Cali gangsta' culture of the early-'90s.Portrayal of diverse characters in video games is a simple issue of marketing and numbers. Jones states this in the first piece's closer, "The video game industry is all about money. No one really cares about your skin color or gender if you are a well-trained video game designer or illustrator. The problem is that [black] youth and adult players see themselves as players and not designers or illustrators. Therefore unless they're motivated to get on the business end versus the player end of the video game phenomenon they will continue to be portrayed in a negative light and also miss out on a ten billion dollar a year industry."The impact, influence and potential of minorities will certainly be part of the discussion at the Game Developers Conference's Diversity: The Window of Opportunity headed by Joseph Saulter. A similar session last year pointed to more blatantly offensive games like 25 to Life, which were crass compared to the more refined GTA: San Andreas.See also: Jade is Latina, Asian, Black ... who knows?[via GamePolitics]
