Millions of young Chinese are addicted to unhealthy online games, a committee of China’s National People’s Congress reported. “Unhealthy” games in Chinese government standard refers to those that feature violence, pornography, and unpatriotic games. Because of this, the Chinese government is calling for stricter monitoring of “unhealthy” Internet games, recommending that games should automatically log off once a set number of hours of continuous playing is reached. In 2006, Internet game developers were told to ...

Guinness World Records announced that China’s Bao Xi Shun (7 feet 8.95 inches) has recaptured the record as the world’s Tallest Living Man from Ukrainian Leonid Stadnyk (8 feet 5.5 inch). Guidelines for the title were amended earlier this year, in order to ensure the highest level of accuracy in determining this category. All contenders to the Tallest Living Man title must now be measured in person by an official Guinness World Records adjudicator. As ...

Blocking a website in this time and age is just so idiotic. No matter how you block one, it will appear endlessly. I am saying this because Malaysia is in the news blocking access to Malaysia Today, a website that often carries anti-government articles and run by Raja Petra Kamarudin. The Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission has ordered all local Internet service providers to block Kamarudin’s website, who early this year was charged with sedition ...

If you are to run your own dream team, who would be its captain? In a survey by Match.com, 81% of its members selected 8-gold medalist Michael Phelps. The poll also found that Match.com members dig beach volleyball by choosing Kerri Walsh as the female Olympian that they’d most like to go on a date with. Who wouldn’t? I have to admit though that I’d choose Natalie Coughlin. Match.com members also proved that the Olympics ...

Even the once king of pop, Michael Jackson, is taking advantage of the power of social networking. Jackson is launching an exclusive dance game application on Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo as part of his King of Pop album promotiom. The game will allow users to control the singer’s dance moves as if they’re playing dance revolution. Prizes will be awarded for the highest hourly and daily scores, exclusive ringtones for hourly winners, and limited edition ...

Donald Trump announced that he would save Ed McMahon’s Beverly Hills mansion from foreclosure by buying it and leasing it back to McMahon. Nice. I am deeply touched by his act. It was just his way of adding another property under his portfolio, masquerading as a good deed. Or maybe, he really wanted to help the former sidekick of Johnny Carson. He has not worked for 18 months because of a neck injury, defaulting $4.8 ...

Are you happy with your current Internet connection speed? The results of a nationwide study of Internet connection speeds in the US revealed little progress over the previous year in the country’s median data download speed. At present rate, the study suggests that it would take the US more than one hundred years to catch up with current Internet speeds in Japan. The national report is based on aggregated data from nearly 230,000 Internet users ...

Yahoo! Inc. will offer users greater choice in how they manage their privacy online by enabling them to opt-out of customized advertising on Yahoo.com. This move came as Yahoo’s response to a letter sent by congressmen from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce asking 33 Internet ad telecommunications companies to detail their privacy policies. Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and AOL were among those asked to comply. Yahoo’s opt-out capability is expected to be available for ...

Computer security researchers warned that social networking websites are playgrounds for hackers, AFP reports. The report added that hackers are taking advantage of people’s trust, especially with the open platform that social networks employ, a trend started by Facbook. With an open operating platform, outside developers can create their applications and feed it to the entire network. Hackers can obviously play around with this openness. “I can’t necessarily attack Facebook or MySpace, but I can ...

Magnify.net, the video aggregation and curation platform on the web, is releasing new features that enhance site performance, expand video sources, and give site owners new tools for socializing and monetizing curated web video content. The addition of new video hosting services reflect the increasing diversification of online video sources and the importance of aggregating and curating videos from multiple locations to provide destination sites with the ability to build diverse, but focused video collections. ...

Asia’s social network of choice Friendster, Inc. announced that it has closed $20 million in funding led by new investor IDG Ventures. The new lease of money will allow Friendster to extend its leadership in the Asia Pacific region and continue to grow and monetize its global user base. Friendster also announced the appointment of Richard Kimber, formerly the regional managing director of Google at South Asia where he dramatically increased the search engine’s revenue ...

In a move to preserve the open nature of the Internet, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to uphold the complaint against Comcast that it had illegally inhibited its users from using a file-sharing software, the New York Times reports. “We are preserving the open character of the Internet. We are saying that network operators can’t block people from getting access to any content and any applications,” Kevin J. Martin, the FCC’s chairman said. Aside ...

The Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI), a project that aims to rebuild the Internet has secured a $12 million grant from the US National Science Foundation and massive bandwidth from Internet2. GENI is envisioned as a national data communications laboratory, supporting experiments on a wide variety of advanced research in communications, networking, distributed systems, cyber-security, networked services, and applications. Together with the grant, Internet2, a networking consortium, will donate a 10 Gigabits per second ...

Hull Media Inc. wants you to remember, share, and preserve stories that shaped your life– even history– with the launch of its social archive WereYouThere.com WereYouThere was inspired by Founder and CEO Jonathan Hull’s own passion for storytelling both as a former TIME magazine bureau chief and a bestselling author. “Over the years I’ve received quite a few letters from readers who wanted to share stories from their own lives, hopeful that someone might listen. ...

Social software provider for online communities Userplane has inked partnerships with four online social media platform providers to integrate Userplane applications to enhance their offerings. KickApps, Small World Labs, Magnify and Pringo will integrate Userplane’s live chat, instant messaging and presence functionality into their respective platforms. Members of sites powered by these four platforms can now engage in live text and audio/video conversations with each other via Userplane’s chat and/or instant messaging applications. Through each ...

In 1998 Google had 26 million indexed pages. It went further north to one billion in 2000. In 2005, however, Yahoo announced that it had indexed 20 billion URLs prompting Google to rebuke the claim. So let’s see how Yahoo will react to this statement from Google: “Over the last eight years, we’ve seen a lot of big numbers about how much content is really out there. Recently, even our search engineers stopped in awe ...

Randy Pausch, renowned computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, died today, July 25, of complications from pancreatic cancer. Celebrated in his field for co-founding the pioneering Entertainment Technology Center and for creating the innovative educational software tool known as “Alice,” Pausch earned his greatest worldwide fame for his inspirational “Last Lecture.” That life-affirming lecture, a call to his students and colleagues to go on without him and do great things, was delivered at Carnegie ...

Online animation community MyToons.com has secured an undisclosed second round funding led by Syncom Venture Partners and Barshop Ventures. The new funding will be used to support MyToons’ continued technology infrastructure development and revenue growth, as well as expanded global partnerships. MyToons.com provides global content creators with a platform to promote and share their original animations, artwork, and games with animators, enthusiasts and fans world-wide. MyToons recently became the first animation-focused website to launch full-resolution ...

In a national survey commissioned by Disaboom, the online community for people touched with disability, 52 percent said that they would rather die than live with a severe disability. The survey, launched in an effort to understand America’s perception of disability, asked, “Which would you choose: Living with a severe disability that forever alters your ability to live an independent life, or death?” The survey findings noted significant attitudinal differences based on age, income, geographic ...

Burst Media, provider of advertising representation, services, and technology to web publishers, has launched the Daily Jolt College Network, a premier online advertising network for advertisers looking to reach college students. The Network is comprised of a select group of college focused websites and is anchored by The Daily Jolt, a national network of campus specific websites run by a team of students on each campus. Burst’s Daily Jolt College Network is the third publisher-sponsored ...