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Presidential flamewars, er, debates start tonight at 9PM ET on YouTube
Web video sites and civilized discourse have never been particularly compatible concepts, but that's not stopping YouTube from giving it a shot. Roughly a month ahead of the next US presidential election, YouTube be the host to the first of three presidential debates. You can tune into the first tonight at 9PM ET via the site's Elections Hub, courtesy of the folks at ABC news. Further debates can be streamed on the site on the 11th and 22nd at the same time, with then Vice Presidents getting their moment in the web video spotlight on the 11th. Click on the source link to tune in, but stay away from the comments if you're interested in retaining any faith in the political process, and or humankind.
YouTube's Elections Hub is a one-stop channel for the latest US political happenings
In case you haven't noticed, it's election year in the US of A. And while we already have a slight idea of which political party your beloved neighbors prefer, why not have an all-inclusive video hub to keep you updated with the latest action taking place on the road toward America's historical White House. Here's where YouTube comes in. The Google-owned service announced earlier today the creation of its Elections Hub, which it's dubbing as the "one-stop channel for key political moments" happening now and all the way until the final US election day on the 6th of November. Naturally, the social vid giant's teamed up with some of the biggest outfits around to bring live and on-demand content to the Elections 2012 channel, including ABC News, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and, for the spanish-speaking crowd, Univision. Regardless of who's landing your worthy, priceless vote, this should be a great corner of the internet to keep you in the loop during this year's Stateside political battle.
The Cornucopia: MIT's 3D food printer patiently awaits 'the future'
The traditional fast food business model just never had a chance, now did it? Marcelo Coelho and Amit Zoran, a pair of whiz kids doing their thang over at MIT, have developed what very well may be the next major revolution in food preparation. It may also be the only machine that keeps you alive when the Robot Apocalypse goes down, but we'll try to stuff that to the rear of our minds for now. Essentially, the Cornucopia concept is a 3D printer that precisely mixes foods and flavors from a number of canisters in order to produce something that's edible (and supposedly close to what you ordered). Able to deliver "elaborate combinations of food," the machine also has a rapid heating and cooling chamber that purportedly allows for "the creation of flavors and textures that would be completely unimaginable through other cooking techniques." Color us skeptical, but we're guessing these government-issued MREs probably taste just as good -- guess we'll find out for sure if the project ever gets its date with reality.
Mitt Romney presidential ad on GameTrailers
It appears former one-term governor of Massachusetts and presidential candidate Mitt Romney is looking to recruit gamers for his campaign. As the ad we captured off of GameTrailers (while reviewing the Ratchet & Clank videos) clearly shows, Romney has taken out ads to help raise campaign funds on the site. Allow us to refresh your memory if you don't remember that presidential candidate Romney is "deeply troubled" by the culture our children grow up in today. Using a dirty ocean as a metaphor, Romney says, "I'd like to see us clean up the water in which our kids are swimming. I'd like to keep pornography from coming up on their computers. I'd like to keep drugs off the street. I'd like to see less violence and sex on TV and in video games and in movies. If we get serious about this we can actually do a great deal to clean up the water in which our kids and grandkids are swimming." It is interesting that this ad pops up on a site that proudly displays clips of those violent video games and has a viewership that likes them too. We have no idea how the advertising process works at GameTrailers, for all we know we could have that ad pop up soon on our own pages, but how times have changed to see political ads on video game sites. We know the average gamer's age has skewed higher in recent years, we just don't know if it's necessarily skewed to helping Mitt Romney become President of the United States. Oh, and before the conservatives get all uppity, yes we will laugh when we see Hillary Clinton ads as well -- although she has tried to change in the last year.
Romney on the evils of game retailers
We must be getting closer to elections if presidential hopefuls are beating the drum about game retailers and stricter laws again. This time it's Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney who's struggling to take the family-friendly line. While his rhetoric on games is empty and uninformed, it will probably strike a chord with parents, as it makes for a tasty soundbite: "It's time to clean up the water in which our kids are swimming," he said. "I've proposed that we enforce our obscenity laws again and that we get serious against those retailers that sell adult video games that are filled with violence, that we go after those retailers," he said.It's unfortunate that the truth doesn't get more votes, because we'd love to see another candidate (any one will do) fire back with some of the statistics on exactly who's buying all these video games. Here's a hint: it's usually not the kids who are wielding the credit cards during game purchases. There are protections in place for children -- parental controls on consoles, rating systems, current laws -- and considering that only 17% of game purchases are performed by children, it seems that more laws, stricter punishments, and whatever else Romney could come up with would be a waste of resources. Until we can convince parents to take a more active role in monitoring the activities of their children, the current system is just fine.That doesn't make much of a clip for the news networks, however.[Via Game|Life]
