Whenever gaming comes into a discussion on health, it gets attacked. A large group of critics from all over the globe say that playing video games causes children to be violent, older players to withdraw from the world, and can cause physical health issues from the supposed sedentary lifestyle.
I don’t remember exactly how my PlayStation 2 broke, but I do remember when it happened. It was in 2005, a couple months before God of War was released. I priced out repairs for my system, and I remember that they were prohibitively expensive (more than $100 was prohibitive on my meager budget). So, instead of repairing mine or buying a new PS2, I stuck with the systems I had: an Xbox and a Nintendo GameCube. Yup, I had all three major systems, plus a Sega Dreamcast I had never quite retired. I was an early adopter. I bought all the major systems, sometimes at launch, but usually either after the release of the first game I really wanted to own or the first price drop. But now I’m here to tell you that I have seen the error of my ways.
Launching in the US last week, and finally making a tardy appearance in the UK today, we already know that the Google Nexus S is a decent phone. In fact, we even called it the best Android handset on the market today in our review, and considering the strength of the competition right now, that’s an admirable place to be. Yet, despite having been using a Nexus S review unit for some time now, and having gotten on with the Android 2.3 smartphone well, I won’t be picking one up today. Let me tell you why.
When I took a look back at the original Tron movie, one thing that struck me, one thing that I hadn’t remembered since I last watched the movie so long ago, was that the encapsulating plot was really about a company that was cutting off its employees’ access to the outside world. Jeff Bridges’ character Flynn can’t get access to the corporate mainframe from outside the company. So, he enlists the help of a couple old friends who still work for Encom, Those friends are disgruntled because their access has been restricted while the company conducts a security review, trying to figure out who has been hacking into the system. It turns out, the company was right to be suspicious. Even though Flynn is vindicated by the evidence he finds, the company was right that there was a security risk.
As someone that loves watching television shows and movies, I’ve been a subscriber to Netflix’s streaming service since the beginning. At that point, it wasn’t the most robust service, but I didn’t really care — it delivered enough entertainment value to make me happy.
First, a confession. This guide is always “last minute,” mostly because I get so busy covering all the new devices launched just in time for the holiday shopping season that I end up starting the holiday gift guide late. Last year it was so late that I gave up and turned it into a Best Products of the Year piece instead. This year I’ve missed Chanukah but I’m still getting in ahead of Christmas, so that’s good. However, I do usually try to make this a “non-obvious” gift guide. SlashGear already has you covered if what you want advice on the best cellphone, camera, Bluetooth headset, or the like. My favorite products this year include several on that list, including Apple’s iPad, Jawbone’s ICON, Mophie’s Juice Pack Air and the 11″ MacBook Air. I’d add Amazon’s Kindle and Microsoft’s Kinect (assuming you can find one at retail). But what if you’re looking for…
Driving home from the midnight screening of Tron: Legacy, I realized that I should have been disappointed by the movie. It’s very difficult to leave Tron and drive home on a deserted highway at 2:30 AM, with the streetlights stretching out before you and the waxing moon rising in the west, and not push the accelerator far in excess of the speed limit. I kept checking behind me to see if I was leaving a trail. Also, looking out for cops. No on both counts.
In a controversial move, TIME magazine declared Mark Zuckerberg its Person of the Year. Only TIME magazine can do something controversial by avoiding controversy. I’m speaking, of course, of the more obvious pick for Person of the Year, Julian Assange. With the WikiLeaks dump still fresh and flowing, there is certainly an argument to make that Assange had more effect on the world than Zuckerberg. But I think that Time magazine got this one right.
Whenever I talk about game consoles here on SlashGear, much of the discussion reverts to arguments over which console – the Nintendo Wii, Sony’s PlayStation 3, or the Xbox 360 – is best. And in many cases, gamers pick their favorites and defend it to the bitter end.
Tablets, iSuppli tells us, are the new epicenter for convergence, part smartphone and part notebook. It’s not a new story; every few months the convergence debate rears its head, suggesting the latest and greatest device category is pulling together the disparate threads of modern digital life and blurring the overall lines between segments in the process. Yet, despite the soothsaying, the “converged” experience still falls well short of the holistic ecosystem we’ve been promised: we have more devices than ever before, and they seldom talk well to each other.
With Tron: Legacy rebooting the aging 80s sci-fi film, I started thinking about other movies from the 1980s that could use a refresh, if not a long-awaited sequel. These were usually a mix of fantasy and technology, some with a vision of the future, and others with a bent perspective on what was technologically possible. None of these have ever had a feature film sequel, though there may have been occasional TV spin-offs and such. Here’s my list, in no particular order.
In the run-up to the new Tron sequel, which opens nationwide this Friday, I decided to dust off my old copy of the original 1982 film to see what I’d forgotten, and to determine if the original movie still holds up after almost 30 years. In some ways, the original was groundbreaking. It was infamously excluded from Oscar consideration for the best visual effects category because the use of computer animation was considered cheating. But in many ways Tron is quite derivative of some of the more popular sci-fi movies of its age, most notably the Star Wars movies that had been released by then. Still, it’s a fun film to watch, and it offers an interesting preview into what the new sequel might hold.
![JH Audio JH16 Pro with Freqphase Custom In-Ear Monitor Review [2013]](http://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/P2111170-sg-320x80.jpg)
