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Cell Phones

Texting Bus Driver Caught Red-Thumbed by Passenger's Phone Pic

The debate about driving while texting (DWT) is about to hit a fever pitch. If you think people were up in arms about this dangerous habit before, just wait till you hear the latest alarming story. According to the New York Post, a New York City bus driver is being investigated after a passenger snapped a picture of him texting while steering the bus through thick traffic Thursday. Allegedly, the unnamed driver sent three messages during his route from Manhattan to Staten Island. Transit spokesman Charles Seaton told the Post that drivers are prohibited from using a cell phone while in the driver's seat.

While this story is a black eye on the city, it's also ill-timed news for the entire state, which saw a new ban on texting go into effect today. There's a positive side, though. More people might be waking up to the dangers of texting on the road. Yet another new poll by The New York Times and CBS News found that 97-percent of those polled support a ban on driving while texting. Even more resounding, 50-percent said the practice should be treated like drunk driving. With such overwhelming support, it wouldn't be a surprise to see stateside crackdowns similar to the one in England (where texting now results in serious jail time.)

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iPod

Marathon Runner Disqualified for Using iPod During Race


In an age when everyone is looking for a competitive advantage, it's getting tougher and tougher for sports' rule makers to draw the line. What exactly is a performance enhancer, anyway? Well, in running, an iPod apparently qualifies.

This morning, Jennifer Goebel was stripped of her first-place finish in Milwaukee's Lakefront Marathon after online photos surfaced showing the 27-year-old listening to an iPod while running the race, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. According to The Sporting Blog, Goebel was in violation of an oft-debated U.S. Track and Field rule that bans headphones or portable music during a race. Understandably, Goebel isn't happy about the ruling. She only used the iPod between miles 19 and 21 of Sunday's marathon. (It should also be noted that Goebel won only because the woman who originally finished first was disqualified for drinking water that a friend had given her during the race.)

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Editor's Picks

The Web's Most Controversial Sites



Where free speech once saw a debate over "clear and present danger," the Internet has given us a new ethical conundrum between what constitutes free speech and what's just plain dangerous. We at Switched put our heads together to come up with the most controversial -- not hateful, not absurd, not out-of-left-field, but conversation-starting -- Web sites around. Our discovery? There are a lot of dopes out there with bad ideas. But hey, this is America. You have the right to be stupid.

Video Games

Gitmo Video Game Pulled by Makers



A video game set at Guantanamo Bay, and made with the help of a former Gitmo detainee, has been pulled by developer T-Enterprise, read a statement posted to its Web site today.

The game, 'Rendition Guantanamo,' was set to come out later this Fall, but, due to extreme reactions and controversy, the company has decided to not release the game at all.

As profiled in a recent CBS News article, 'Rendition: Guantanamo,' was set in the near future, after the compound had been closed by the U.S. Government and taken over by mercenaries who kidnapped the innocent for scientific experiments. The game was designed with the help of Moazzam Begg, a British Muslim who was detained at Guantanamo Bay for three years until he was released in 2005. Begg was brought on by the Glasgow-based company as a consultant to assist with the layout of the virtual Gitmo.

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Web

'Faith Fighter' Game Taken Offline Due to Muslim Group's Protest


According to Yahoo Tech, 'Faith Fighter,' the popular Internet game that pitted religious deities against one another in battle, was taken offline by its creators on Tuesday after a prominent Muslim organization protested.

The game, which debuted in 2008, has been played by millions of people and has offended that many folks several times over. In an interview with the AFP posted on Yahoo Tech, a spokesman for the Organisation of the Islamic Conference's Islamophobia Observatory described the game as "incendiary in its content and offensive to Muslims and Christians."

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Computers, eBay

French eBay Removes 'Yellow Star' Ranking After Anti-Nazi Complaints






The French Web site of online auctioneer eBay has temporarily changed its policy due to a user complaint linking the site's ranking system to a symbol of Nazi Germany, according to an AFP report in Yahoo! News.

Earlier this month, Dominique Bellamy wrote to the site, complaining of eBay's 'yellow star' user rank and comparing it to the yellow Star of David that European Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust. Recalling the Nazi invasion of France, Bellamy's wife Francoise told AFP, "It brought back bad memories of the occupation."

As frequent eBay users know, the site employs color-coded stars as a user rating system. The 'yellow star' is the lowest rating that one user can give another. While the French site has not made any public announcement of the policy change, a spokesperson for the eBay corporation did acknowledge the change, telling AFP in an e-mail that "no definitive change has been decided yet." According to the e-mail, no other eBay sites have received similar complaints. [From: AFP]

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Video Games

New PlayStation 3 Game Delayed Over Potential Offense to Muslims

PS3 Title 'Little Big Planet' Delayed Over Qur'anic Phrases
'Little Big Planet,' a new highly customizable platform game for the PlayStation 3, is garnering attention -- for all the right and wrong reasons. Initial reviews and reaction to the game have been very positive, but the game has also drawn attention for a potentially offensive song on its soundtrack that contains phrases from the Qur'an.

Sony was alerted to the potential problem by a Muslim beta tester who alerted the company that some Muslims may be offended by the lyrics, since the Qur'an is considered to come directly from God.

Sony has recalled copies of the game and producing a new version with out the controversy-courting track. Manzoor Moghal, of the Muslim Forum, told the BBC he praised Sony's decision and quick action. [From: BBC]

TV, Summer Fun

Were Parts of the Olympics Opening Ceremonies Faked?

2008 Olympic Opening Ceremonies Edited?
After all the drama leading up to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the Tibetan demonstrations, the censorship, and the bogus tickets, it seems some news organizations couldn't let the amazing opening ceremonies themselves pass without trying to stir up a little more drama. The show went off without a hitch on Friday night, but some are complaining now that one particularly impressive portion of the evening's entertainment, the firework footsteps walking toward the stadium, was digitally faked.

The sequence was deemed to have been "prohibitive to have tried to film it live," and so the 55-seconds of the footsteps spanning the city were done digitally. In the American broadcast, NBC did indeed indicate that particular sequence was done digitally, but other broadcasters worldwide apparently did not, leading to the controversy. So, good on NBC for that, but it too is being called out for some digital hijinx, which consisted of re-arranging the sequence of the parade of nations and omitting some entirely (apparently the US team came out earlier than was shown on the broadcast).

Both of these supposed controversies seem a bit silly to us. Given all the pressure and fears leading up to the games, we're just glad things went off without a hitch. [Source: The Telegraph, and The LA Times]


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Video Games

Nintendo Holocaust-Era Game Draws Criticism

Nintendo DS logo.Putting players in first-person situations is one of the most popular narrative devices in video games, and a French video game developer, working for a British distributor, has done just that with his latest digital adventure. Typically, this would not draw much fanfare but his game topic is startling to some: a first-person experience of a first-person experience of a young child in France during the Holocaust.

The game, 'Imagination Is the Only Escape, 'puts players in the role of a young boy in Nazi-occupied France during the war, and follows his attempts to escape the horror of the times by pursuing a fantasy world of his own devising.

Unlike most games developed for the Nintendo DS, which typically caters to kids titles, this game portrays often brutal scenes, with startling imagery and events.

Early outcry on online message boards indicates that the game distributor, Alten8, may not export the game to stores in the United States (although that's not a certainty) but it will be available in Europe.

The 21-year-old game developer says he does not consider the topic of war to be a game, and doesn't intend to demean the concept. Another game he's developed, also distributed by Alten8, puts players into a fantasy realm where the world has been destroyed by global warming.

Tackling serious issues head on, and with a first-person experience, seems to be catching on as a popular device in France. French president Nicholas Sarkozy recently introduced a new education initiative that "pairs" all his country's fifth-graders with the story of one of the 11,000 French children who were killed by the Nazis during World War II.

Sarkozy has come under significant fire since announcing the education plan, with critics saying the learning experience will be traumatizing to the students.

The video game will not depict violence, according to the developer, and is intended to be educational, and not exploitative of the events.

From The New York Times.


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