Satellites and GPS

I hope that everybody had a nice Thanksgiving. I got lost once again going to Maryland from the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and ended up in downtown Baltimore. Rather than to get lost again I finally got a Magellan GPS at Sears on Black Friday and got a good deal on the 3100 model. It is better than having mapquest in the car. It can calculate the shortest path. You can re route if you think there is too much traffic on a road should you decide not to drive in that direction. It talks to you while you drive so you don’t have to ever look at a map.

I just got this but think that I can download new maps to the device.

Even telescopes have GPS with SkyAlign.
This new technology finds what you want to see in the sky at night. There is no more guessing what star you are looking at in the heavens anymore.Here is a GPS movie. I wonder how many satellites will be added one day to the 27 in operation one day with all this technology using it all the time.

Google plans to bid $4.6 billion and possibly partner in auction of wireless airwaves.

A bid for wireless is soon. Google plans on bidding $4.6 billion only if certain conditions are met. They want the Government to alter rules. The partner whom they choose is to help them build a network. They have several companies of potential partners. It would be a big challenge designing, building and operating a mobile network. Experts think that it is too heavy for Google to do this alone. The airwaves when auctioned off will be for $14 billion altogether.

They can alter the technology standard to have a WiFi TV and it goes to a controller box. Not ready yet for prime time is the WiFi TV on the internet. Article on WiFi-Tv. You can hook up wireless with TV’s in your home . They have Dish Network and are wireless and are less expensive than the cable company. I just hope Google don’t charge high prices like the cable company does!

Manhunt Released and banned in U.K.

I’m not into gaming as most people are. I usually like a good military type of game if I would play one. I guess that would be from being a Marine at one point in my life. There was something on CNN about the release of Manhunt 2. The release data for this game was October 31 or a few days sooner. Of the clips shown it is a very violent game and parents are urged not to buy it for their children.

Another article from USA Today give some more detail of this game.Please use your discretion when going to the following links; it may be offensive and violent to some. This game is made by Rockstar Games and here is the Manhunt site.
All this attention although negative seemed like a marketing ploy to make this game sell.
Rockstar games has made several other games that deal with adult themes also. These games are Grand Theft Auto and Midnight Club: Los Angeles.
However they lost buyers in the global market in the U.K. and it is banned.

Here is a list that I found of banned video games. I don’t know how accurate or how worthy it is being that it comes from wikipedia. Here is more about video game controversy. This is an old article from May 2005 about legislation of putting labels on video games. Here is a top 10 list

In our society I’m glad there is some sort of censorship with all that goes on in the world. Parents should be responsible for what they buy for their children and also watch on a TV screen. Everyone is somewhat a critic just like some people like Halloween and then some people don’t. These labels safeguard society somewhat. Here is an article about an attorney with a modest game proposal- Attorney Proposes Violent Game.

I don’t think this game Manhunt was created with him in mind to write a $10,000 check. The plot seems different. Now comes another thought. Does video games create people to do violence? There may be many arguments to this if video games can or cannot create violence.

Here is another article You Grew Up Playing Shoot’em-Up Games. Why Can’t Your Kids? I don’t want to bring up the Virginia Tech shooting but found two articles. One article read that he like violent video games. Va. Tech Killer A Violent Video Game Fan This one contradicts the other one. Search warrant reveals VA Tech killer had no video games
Police found no evidence in Seung-Hi’s room that he played video games. Here is a study that was done and wonder if PSU ever did one about video game violence? VG Researcher More studies Education Games Research. This article tells more and states “Just as we know for a fact that guns don’t kill people, neither should we believe that video games do either.”