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Navigating the web while observing hijab
Not long ago, I was at home on YouTube watching a TED Talk by psychologist Amy Cuddy on building confidence and how body language shapes who we are. Beyond that, hijab is a mandate for maintaining modesty, which includes my mannerisms. It means that I should not be looking at anything indecent or unlawful as ordained by God in the Quran and explained in prophetic sayings.
China implements tech that can detect people by the way they walk
A Chinese surveillance company, Watrix, has developed a new system for "gait recognition" that can identify people up to 165 feet away based on how they walk. This means that if a person is wearing a mask or is at an awkward angle, the software can use existing footage to detect them. CEO of Watrix, Huang Yongzhen, told the Associated Press in an interview that the software can't be fooled by limping or other out-of-the-ordinary stances because it analyzes a person's entire body.
Egypt bans YouTube for one month over 2012 anti-Islamic video
Egypt is about to act on its longstanding threat to temporarily ban YouTube. The country's highest administrative court has ruled that officials must block the streaming video site for a month (along with "all" links playing the video) after it allowed the 2012 anti-Islamic video Innocence of Muslims. The short film's portrayal of the Prophet Mohammed triggered outrage in the Islamic world and led to a 2013 Egyptian case demanding the ban, but the appeal process has kept the ruling in limbo for the past five years.
Zuckerberg: Facebook will fight to protect Muslim rights
It's hard to open a laptop or cellphone these days and not be appalled by the latest awful or just plain factually incorrect thing Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump has said on the campaign trail. Thankfully, the list of prominent voices speaking out against him (even among his own party) continues to grow. The latest addition? None other than Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. The Social Network head responded to the priapic real estate mogul's calling for a "total and complete" shutdown of Muslims immigrating to the United States, saying that his Jewish upbringing means he was raised to stand up against attacks on all communities.
Government bans female League of Legends characters at Iranian tourney
League of Legends players will be short a few fighters at Iran's World Cyber Games tournament that's scheduled to begin on September 12th. The Iranian government has its knickers in a knot over some of the MOBA's more scantily clad femme fatales, and so tourney participants will have to do without the services of champions including Ahri, Miss Fortune, Lulu, and dozens of others. Kotaku reports that WGC Iran may be forced to shut down the tournament altogether if it doesn't comply with the ban, though it's worth noting that a few female avatars are "under consideration for tournament play."
Modern Warfare 2 map taken down after controversy over Islamic imagery
The "Favela" map has been temporarily removed from Modern Warfare 2 following the discovery of, and complaints about, items found in the map that are potentially offensive to Muslim gamers.The protest video above details the offensive item: a frame containing a quote from the Prophet Mohammed, hanging above a toilet – "a disrespectful place" as YouTube user "KhaleDQ84EveR" puts it. In response to the discovery of this image, Activision is planning to remove the image from both Modern Warfare 2 and 3 via separate title updates, the publisher told Kotaku.In the meantime, the map is down.
Found Footage: Apple pulls iSlam Muhammad app
In what is sure to raise a ruckus, comedian / filmmaker / app developer Emery Emery recorded a phone call with an Apple App Store rep when his iSlam Muhammad app was pulled from the App Store after one day. The highly entertaining conversation in its entirety can be heard by watching the "video" above. iSlam Muhammad apparently depicted images of the prophet Muhammad (forbidden by Islam) and outlined disturbing passages from the Qur'an. It's surprisingly similar to BibleThumper, a Christian-bashing app that remains in the App Store. This act of Apple censorship coincides with International Draw Muhammad Day, an Internet event designed to demonstrate how radical Islamic factions are causing traditional news outlets to self-censor themselves in fear of violent retaliation. This event has resulted in the country of Pakistan banning Facebook and YouTube, both of which have a number of pages that are touting the event. What's disappointing is that this points out Apple's lack of consistency in approval of apps, as well as their inability to provide recourse to developers who have had apps rejected for seemingly weak reasons. Now, let the comments begin! Be civil.
Crave responds to Baby Pals controversy
Crave sent a statement to GamePolitics regarding the bizarre audio sample in its Baby Pals DS game that seemed (to at least one parent) to sound like "Islam is the light". Doug Panter, the company's marketing director, confirmed the belief of rational folks: that the company did not slip an endorsement of any religion into its baby game. The licensed sound file, also found in Fisher-Price's Little Mommy Cuddle 'n Coo, is "a recording of a 5 month old baby babbling non-intelligible phrases," Panter said. "In over 200 hours of testing the product, no recognizable English words or phrases were discernible." He called the similarity between the baby's utterance and seemingly recognizable words "only coincidence as the baby recorded was too young to pronounce these words let alone a whole grammatically correct phrase".Now, with that out of the way, we look to Crave for an explanation of the Purr Pals box. Kittens in bread? That is deplorable.%Gallery-8860%
Is Islam the light for DS Baby Pals? [update]
Last fall, controversy about Fisher-Price's Little Mommy Cuddle 'n Coo doll rocked the local news circuit, when the doll was discovered to utter some kind of gibberish that sounded kind of like "Islam is the Light" if you were listening hard enough for things to be outraged about. The odd sound sample has been found once again by a concerned parent, this time in Crave's Nintendo DS game Baby Pals, previously known only for being kind of creepy-looking. In a fairly hilarious coincidence, Rachel Jones of Indiana found the offending utterance first in the doll, then later in a copy of Baby Pals she had purchased for her daughter. Baby Pals came out in October 2007, a year before the row about the doll."Not just my daughters' toys, but we have a son too," Jones told Terre Haute's WTHI News 10. "Now I feel like I need to listen to all of his little toys to make sure they're not saying it." Check out the news footage after the break, and watch as the virtual baby intones the phrase in question over and over again while being bathed. Of course, the ability of fake babies to exert absolute influence on real children through nonsensical endorsements of religion is well-known. Everybody knows that.If you listen to what is supposedly the original MP3 (provided by Fisher-Price, link goes straight to .mp3), it sounds much more like nonsense and less like some random attempt at indoctrination. We've contacted Crave to try to find out where it got the sample and hopefully solve this quirky mystery.[Update: In case you haven't seen our more recent post about this, Crave has issued a response explaining the origin of the sound file.]%Gallery-8860%
Islamic phrase removed from Zack & Wiki
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says Capcom has removed an Islamic phrase from its upcoming game Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure. The term "Allahu akbar," which means "God is Great" or "God is Greater," can be first heard at the 0:20 mark in the video after the break. The term, according to CAIR, is a "frequently repeated religious statement made by Muslims and is used often in daily Islamic prayers." From the video it's hard to tell the context the developers had in mind using the term.Capcom says the phrase has been removed from the game and will no longer be heard in future videos released to the public. According to Gamasutra, in 2003 Microsoft Game Studios removed audio clips of the Koran being heard read in the background of the Xbox fighter Kakuto Chojin. CAIR says they were happy with Capcom's quick response to "address Muslim concerns."
Islamic group wants Left Behind off Wal-Mart shelves [update 1]
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is asking Wal-Mart to take the controversial religious game Left Behind off the shelves and out of its stores. CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, in a letter to Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr., asserted that the game promotes "religious intolerance ... i[its] enemy team includes people with Muslim-sounding names." Cited in the letter is a quote from Left Behind Games President Jeffrey Frichner, who told the San Francisco Chronicle last week that "'Muslims are not believers in Jesus Christ' -- and thus can't be on Christ's side in the game ... That is so obvious." Awad reminds in his letter that "Muslims do in fact revere Jesus as one of God's prophets."Left Behind: Eternal Forces has come under fire from a large assortment of groups from all parts of society, including the Christian Alliance for Progress and the Campaign to Defend the Constitution (not to mention the Alliance for Gamers Against Rotten Gameplay, AGARD). In fact, nothing in recent memory has brought so many disparate groups together like this game. In an odd sense, might this controversy spawn unity in some fashion?[Via Game Politics][Update 1: Judging by the first 20 comments we've received on this post, there's a good chance that half of the comments left will be off topic, in the sense that their sole purpose is express intolerance towards a religion or defending a religion against someone else's intolerance. In lieu of staying up late and constantly monitoring the post, we're going to keep comments closed for now and get some sleep.]
