Why Won’t the NRA Say Anything About Its (Possibly Fake) New Video Game?
Label: TechnologyIf this app is, in fact, an unlicensed kind of hoax using the NRA acronym without permission, you’d think the NRA might want to squash the brand association quickly. Despite the gun lobby’s slow response to the Newtown massacre, the NRA isn’t afraid of issuing cease and desists or suing President Obama, the District of Columbia, or the Department of Justice.
RELATED: One Month After Newtown, NRA Releases First-Person Shooter Game with AK-47
What’s more, as ArsTechnica’s Kyl Orland points out, the NRA’s earlier efforts at officially licensed video games have been successful in the lobby’s seemingly unending efforts to the turn gun-violence debate away from guns and toward other industries accused of stoking violence. Orland writes:
So Practice Range fits right into the NRA’s arguments about video games’ insidious effects on our society. “There’s nothing wrong with guns in video games per se,” the organization seems to be saying; “the problem is the way those guns are used by most of the big-money game industry in service of ultra-violent revenge fantasies. If only the game industry could use its immense influence and power to promote responsible, safe use of guns, as we have with our humble app, the world might be a different place!”
If the app isn’t the NRA’s, then the app and the controversy surrounding it would seem to present an opportune time for NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre to hammer home his point about violence in video games. In his notorious post-Newtown press conference, LaPierre in the days following blamed the gaming industry for mass violence:
And here’s another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people.
The video-game industry has been reeling as it struggles to put together a lobbying defense of its own. Of course, all these theories would be moot if the app is indeed the NRA’s. As of today, the app is still up in the iTunes Store.
Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News
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Designers Create Dream Inauguration Dresses for Michelle Obama
Label: Lifestyle
Stylewatch
Style News Now
01/17/2013 at 01:00 PM ET
Courtesy L’Wren Scott; Inset: Cliff Owen/AP
It’s a big week for Michelle Obama: she turns 49 today, joined Twitter this morning and will stand by as her husband is sworn in to his second presidential term on Monday. (And here we thought our weeks were busy …)
Though we’ve been captivated by many of Mrs. O’s past dresses, we’re quite excited to see what she wears for Monday’s Inauguration and parties. According to WWD, the First Lady’s staff reached out to several different designers for samples and ideas — Derek Lam, Marchesa, Michael Kors, Prabal Gurung, Tory Burch, Tracy Reese, Narciso Rodriguez, Naeem Khan, Thakoon and Jason Wu among them.
WWD also asked several designers to create dream dress sketches for the First Lady and her fashion-forward daughters, Malia, 14, and Sasha, 11. Some of our favorites include L’Wren Scott’s belted, lace-topped blue gown (left), and Nicole Miller’s stunning strapless red dress, with youthful, complementary blue frocks for the girls (below).
Courtesy Nicole Miller
For the 2009 Inauguration, Obama selected a white one-shoulder dress by then-newbie Jason Wu; her stunning style moment instantly put the young designer on the map.
The dress was “a masterpiece,” the First Lady said one year after its debut. “It is simple, it’s elegant, and it comes from this brilliant young mind, someone who is living the American Dream.” No doubt her choice on Monday will be equally as beautiful — and important — as well. Tell us: How do you envision the First Lady looking on Inauguration day?
–Kate Hogan
PHOTOS: SEE THE FIRST LADY’S 10 MOST STUNNING GOWNS
Flu remains widespread in US; eases in some areas
Label: HealthHealth officials say nine more deaths of children from the flu have been reported, bringing the total this flu season to 29.
In a typical season, about 100 children die of the flu, so it is not known whether this year will be better or worse than usual.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says half of confirmed flu cases so far are in people 65 and older.
This year's season is earlier than normal and the dominant flu strain is one that tends to make people sicker. The flu is widespread in all states but Tennessee and Hawaii and is starting to ease in some areas.
Health officials say it's not too late to get a flu shot to help protect against the flu.
Wall Street little changed; Intel drags, Morgan Stanley up
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks opened little changed on Friday, a day after the S&P 500 rose to its highest level in five years, as a weak outlook from Intel offset a fourth-quarter profit at Morgan Stanley.
Shares of Intel Corp
That was offset somewhat by a 5-percent gain in shares of Morgan Stanley
The earnings season so far has been mixed, but that could change with a barrage of releases scheduled for next week, said Doug Cote, chief market strategist, ING Investment Management in New York.
"There were some good reports but the real big bellwether companies are not coming in strong," said Cote.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> edged up 8.02 points, or 0.06 percent, at 13,604.04. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> slipped 1.20 points, or 0.08 percent, to 1,479.74. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> lost 7.52 points, or 0.24 percent, to 3,128.48.
Overall, S&P 500 company earnings are expected to have risen 2.3 percent in the fourth quarter, Thomson Reuters data showed. Expectations for the quarter have dropped considerably since October, when a 9.9 percent gain was estimated.
On Thursday, the S&P 500 rose to its highest since late 2007, and that could prompt investors to lock in recent gains, analysts said.
Economic data out of China provided some support to the market, though the focus remained on U.S. corporate earnings. The country's economy grew at a modestly faster-than-expected 7.9 percent in the fourth quarter, the latest sign the world's second-biggest economy was pulling out of a post-global financial crisis slowdown which saw it grow in 2012 at its weakest pace since 1999.
General Electric
Despite the gains in Morgan Stanley, financial stocks sagged as Capital One Financial
Research In Motion
(Editing by Bernadette Baum)
Cameron to Outline a Recast European Role for Britain
Label: World
Weighted down by centuries of entrenched wariness in this island nation toward the Continent — and the knowledge that a gallery of his predecessors as Conservative prime ministers saw their tenures blighted by divisions within the party over the issue — Mr. Cameron is heading for Amsterdam on Friday to set out his vision of a sharply whittled-down role for Britain in the affairs of 21st-century Europe.
The speech in the Netherlands, carefully chosen as a country with a strong historical friendship with Britain, is a watershed moment for Mr. Cameron, and for Britain. It could be a deeply jarring occasion, as well, for other European nations, which have grown increasingly impatient, angry even, with Britain’s policy during the crisis in the euro zone. Some European officials have described as blackmail its use of the crisis — one that Britain, with the pound, has largely escaped — to demand a new, “pick-and-mix” status for itself within the 27-nation European Union.
After months of delay, Mr. Cameron is expected to brush aside the warnings of the Obama administration and European leaders and call for a referendum on whether Britain should remain squarely in Europe or negotiate a more arm’s-length relationship, most likely before the next Parliament’s mandate expires in 2018. In a clamorous House of Commons on Wednesday, the prime minister set out his thinking.
“Millions of people in this country, myself included, want Britain to stay in the European Union,” he said. “But they believe that there are chances to negotiate a better relationship. Throughout Europe, countries are looking at forthcoming treaty change, and asking, ‘What can I do to maximize my national interest?’ That is what the Germans will do. That is what the Spanish will do. That is what the British should do.”
For months, Mr. Cameron has been holding off on a promise to explain just what he wants from Europe. As a reformist Conservative pressing ahead with, among other things, a plan to legalize gay marriage, he has scant common ground with the “little Englanders” in his party, the core of about 100 members who make up a third of its representation in Parliament.
But Mr. Cameron can see votes, too, in the strong anti-Europe currents that run wherever people in Britain gather.
In pubs and bars, on radio and in Parliament itself, talk of the European Union tends to center on the bloc’s real — and, in some cases, apocryphal — abuses: its highhanded, bloated bureaucracy, with nearly 1,000 featherbedded officials earning more than Mr. Cameron’s $230,000 salary as prime minister; its endless proliferation of rules on everything from the length of dog leashes to the shape of carrots; the recent claim by a former high-ranking Cameron aide that government ministers spend 40 percent of their time dealing with the mass of pettifogging European “directives,” many of them widely ignored elsewhere in Europe.
Not only has Mr. Cameron been hemmed in by deep divisions over Europe within the Conservative Party — an issue that helped unseat Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher and John Major as prime ministers — but he has also been wary of stirring a fresh wave of anger among other European leaders, particularly Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, a center-right politician and onetime ally in European councils.
Her aides have described her as frustrated with Mr. Cameron’s maneuvering and, as she is said to see it, his bid to take advantage of other European states as they struggle to save the euro and keep the most debt-laden nations, like Greece, Portugal and Spain, from dropping out of the European Union.
Concern about the reactions in Berlin and Paris prompted a last-minute rescheduling of the Amsterdam speech. Germany and France had protested that the original date, next Monday, might overshadow long-planned celebrations that day of the 50th anniversary of the treaty between them, itself a landmark in the building of postwar Europe, that sealed their reconciliation after the wounds of World War II.
Along with this, commentators say, Mr. Cameron has been recalculating the ways in which the European issue can be managed to bolster the Conservatives’ sagging prospects in a general election expected in 2015, in which polls show them lagging as much as 13 percentage points behind the opposition Labour Party. He has also been contending with heavy lobbying by American officials, including President Obama.
The Americans, diplomats say, have told Mr. Cameron squarely in private what made headlines here last week when a senior State Department official, Philip Gordon, who is assistant secretary for European affairs, spoke on the issue with British reporters. Mr. Gordon said a continued “strong British voice” in an “outward-looking” European Union was in America’s interests, and warned specifically against the referendum on Europe that is an important component in Mr. Cameron’s plans. “Referendums,” Mr. Gordon said, “have often turned countries inward.”
For all his delaying, his aides say, Mr. Cameron is ready now to outline a strategy for renegotiating Britain’s status in the European Union in a way that would keep Britain free from the centralizing forces at work. Other major European states, France and Germany in particular, see a new federal Europe with enhanced powers of fiscal oversight as essential to the long-term survival of the tottering euro.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: January 17, 2013
An earlier version of this article misstated the year that a referendum approving Britain’s entry into the European Economic Community, the precursor to the European Union, was held. It was 1975, not 1974.
PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720 could cost just $350, expected to launch this fall
Label: TechnologySony (SNE) and Microsoft (MSFT) are both expected to announce their next-generation gaming consoles at the Electronics Entertainment Expo in June, or even a little before then. While we have seen rumored specs for both the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox 720, one thing that has escaped us is a possible price tag. In a research note to investors on Monday, Colin Sebastian of Baird Equity Research suggested that both consoles could retail for between $ 350 and $ 400 in the U.S., Games Industry International reported. The analyst revealed that during the Consumer Electronics Show last week he spent time “with a number of companies involved in video game development and distribution,” who informed him that the next-generation consoles will be “largely built from ‘off the shelf’ high-end PC components, along with hybrid physical/digital distribution models, enhanced voice controls and motion sensing, and broad multi-media capabilities.”
[More from BGR: HTC One SV review]
Sebastian believes that “a PC-based architecture (Intel chips in the case of Xbox) should have a number of advantages over custom-developed silicon.” In his opinion, there will be less of a “learning curve” for software developers compared to completely new technology, and the cost of production and retail price points should be lower than prior console launches.
[More from BGR: Dell’s bold plan to reinvent itself: A USB-sized PC that gives access to Windows, Mac OS, Chrome OS]
Microsoft launched the Xbox 360 in 2005 with a top end price of $ 399, while Sony released the PlayStation 3 a year later for $ 499 and $ 599 respectively.
“It will be easier to build online services around PC chip architecture, including flexible business models (free-to-play, subscriptions) and multi-media (over the top) content offerings,” the analyst added. “For Microsoft, this design will also allow for more integration with Windows 8 and Windows Mobile devices.”
Sebastian expects Sony to launch the PlayStation 4 in October and Microsoft to launch the Xbox 720 in November.
This article was originally published on BGR.com
Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News
John Mayer Performs for First Time in 10 Months After Battling Voice Problems
Label: LifestyleJohn Mayer on stage in Bozeman
Courtesy John Mayer
Sing it, John!
Forced to be all but silent for 10 months as he recovered from a second bout of vocal-cord problems, John Mayer returned to the stage Wednesday, performing "Speak for Me" at a benefit concert in Montana.
"And we're back," read a post on his Twitter page, along with a photo of Mayer singing in Bozeman.
He may be back, but he's far from 100 percent.
"I don't have a ton of range ... I'm a 70-year-old version of myself," Mayer said – as quoted on Twitter by Anthony Mason, co-host of CBS This Morning: Saturday, which will air a story Feb. 10 about Mayer's 10 months of vocal therapy.
"It's like a painter with just reds and purples," Mayer says of his range.
A full recovery will still take months.
Mayer, 35, has twice battled a granuloma in his throat. The problem, for which he had surgery in 2011, returned last March, necessitating a second round under the knife last October.
"They cut this thing out, then they inject your vocal cords with Botox, which freezes [them] so [they] can heal without smacking up against the other side," he said of the surgery.
Mayer, who has been dating pop star Katy Perry, has a home in Montana.
He organized Wednesday's benefit to help firefighters who battled last summer's Pine Creek Fire, which destroyed more than 8,500 acres of forest and farmland near Bozeman.
Large study confirms flu vaccine safe in pregnancy
Label: HealthNEW YORK (AP) — A large study offers reassuring news for pregnant women: It's safe to get a flu shot.
The research found no evidence that the vaccine increases the risk of losing a fetus, and may prevent some deaths. Getting the flu while pregnant makes fetal death more likely, the Norwegian research showed.
The flu vaccine has long been considered safe for pregnant women and their fetus. U.S. health officials began recommending flu shots for them more than five decades ago, following a higher death rate in pregnant women during a flu pandemic in the late 1950s.
But the study is perhaps the largest look at the safety and value of flu vaccination during pregnancy, experts say.
"This is the kind of information we need to provide our patients when discussing that flu vaccine is important for everyone, particularly for pregnant women," said Dr. Geeta Swamy, a researcher who studies vaccines and pregnant women at Duke University Medical Center.
The study was released by the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday as the United States and Europe suffer through an early and intense flu season. A U.S. obstetricians group this week reminded members that it's not too late for their pregnant patients to get vaccinated.
The new study was led by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. It tracked pregnancies in Norway in 2009 and 2010 during an international epidemic of a new swine flu strain.
Before 2009, pregnant women in Norway were not routinely advised to get flu shots. But during the pandemic, vaccinations against the new strain were recommended for those in their second or third trimester.
The study focused on more than 113,000 pregnancies. Of those, 492 ended in the death of the fetus. The researchers calculated that the risk of fetal death was nearly twice as high for women who weren't vaccinated as it was in vaccinated mothers.
U.S. flu vaccination rates for pregnant women grew in the wake of the 2009 swine flu pandemic, from less than 15 percent to about 50 percent. But health officials say those rates need to be higher to protect newborns as well. Infants can't be vaccinated until 6 months, but studies have shown they pick up some protection if their mothers got the annual shot, experts say.
Because some drugs and vaccines can be harmful to a fetus, there is a long-standing concern about giving any medicine to a pregnant woman, experts acknowledged. But this study should ease any worries about the flu shot, said Dr. Denise Jamieson of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The vaccine is safe," she said.
___
Online:
Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org
Wall Street climbs, boosted by eBay results, rosy data
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street rose on Thursday, with the S&P 500 hitting a five-year intraday high, as investors were cheered by rosy economic data and better-than-expected results from online marketplace eBay
In encouraging signs for the labor and housing sectors, data showed the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to a five-year low last week, while residential construction jumped in December.
"It reminds us that although the situation on the job front hasn't improved significantly, slowly but surely it is getting better," said Andres Garcia-Amaya, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds, in New York.
EBay's shares rose 3 percent to $54.50 a day after it reported holiday quarter results that just beat Wall Street expectations. It gave a 2013 forecast that was within analysts' estimates.
The S&P climbed above an intraday peak set in September to its highest since December 2007.
Gains were capped by weakness in the financial sector, with Bank of America
Bank of America's fourth-quarter profit fell as it took more charges to clean up mortgage-related problems. Citigroup posted $2.32 billion of charges for layoffs and lawsuits, while its new chief executive cautioned the bank needed more time to deal with its problems.
Bank of America fell 3.7 percent to $11.36, while Citigroup dropped 2.3 percent to $41.50.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 61.49 points, or 0.46 percent, to 13,572.72. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> added 6.36 points, or 0.43 percent, to 1,478.99. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> rose 18.19 points, or 0.58 percent, to 3,135.73.
Overall, S&P 500 corporate earnings for the fourth quarter are expected to see a 2.3 percent gain, Thomson Reuters data showed. Expectations for the quarter have moderated significantly since October.
With investors anticipating the current earnings season to be lackluster, their focus will be on the corporate earnings outlook for the months ahead, analysts said.
Shares of Boeing
(Editing by Bernadette Baum)
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