Month: March 2018

Enlarge / President Trump offers a small shrug as he publicly mulls whether violent video games "have a negative impact on the thought process" for at least some children. (credit: The White House / Youtube)

If game industry representatives hoped their meeting with President Trump today would help change his mind after recent statements of concern over violence in video games, they came away sorely disappointed. In a statement following that meeting, the White House said that President Trump "acknowledged some studies have indicated there is a correlation between video game violence and real violence."

"During today's meeting, the group spoke with the president about the effect that violent video games have on our youth, especially young males," the White House statement reads. "The conversation centered on whether violent video games, including games that graphically simulate killing, desensitize our community to violence. This meeting is part of ongoing discussions with local leaders and Congress on issues concerning school and public safety and protecting America's youth."

The White House statement goes against the overwhelming consensus of the research community, which has shown wide agreement that exposure to violent games in youth has little to no relationship with violent outcomes later in life.

Enlarge / An iPhone assembly worker works with Apple supplier Pegatron in an image distributed by Apple. (credit: Apple)

Each year, Apple releases a report called the Supplier Responsibility Progress Report detailing its audits of the labor practices of its suppliers around the world. Apple reports violations it finds at various categories of severity and gives its suppliers ratings based on how they treat their workers.

The 12th annual report was released this week, and in it, Apple says it found more violations than it did last year, at least in part because of new suppliers and partners added to supply chain.

Out of 757 suppliers included in the audit across 30 countries, 197 were being audited for the first time. Apple found twice as many "core violations" in 2017 as it did in the previous year. Core violations are those that Apple "considers the most serious breaches of compliance" and for which it claims to have "zero tolerance."

The latest Nintendo Direct announcement video ended with a monstrous bang, as Nintendo finally confirmed what fighting-game fans have been hoping to hear: the Super Smash Bros. series is coming to the Nintendo Switch. Even better, fans won't have long to wait, as the new game's trailer ended with a promise of "2018."

Nintendo

The trailer showed Splatoon characters, known as "inklings," running, jumping, and trying to shoot each other with ink until the screen turned to black and a massive Smash Bros. logo appeared. Standing in front of the burning logo were a bunch of apparent Nintendo characters, including clear shots of Mario and Link and silhouettes of Donkey Kong and Samus Aran. This was followed by a flash of "2018" and a Nintendo Switch logo. No other information, including a specific title or details about how the upcoming game may differ from the previous Wii U and 3DS versions were confirmed, but it's easy to assume that this means the next game in the series will include inkling fighters.

Enlarge (credit: BBC)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy deserves a special place in the geek pantheon. It's the story of hapless BBC radio editor Arthur Dent, his best friend Ford Prefect, and the adventures that result when Prefect saves Dent when the Earth is unexpectedly destroyed to make way for a galactic bypass. Written by the late, great Douglas Adams, HHGTTG first appeared as a radio series in the UK back in 1978. On Thursday—exactly 40 years to the day from that first broadcast—it made its return home with the start of Hexagonal Phase, a radio dramatization of the sixth and final book of an increasingly misnamed trilogy.

Adams' original radio series went on to spawn a universe of works. From that initial six-part series came the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, then a re-recorded LP, a second novel (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe), a second radio series, a TV series, another two books (Life, the Universe, and Everything; So Long and Thanks for All the Fish), a computer game, a short story (Young Zaphod Plays it Safe), and then a fifth book (Mostly Harmless). And the ideas Adams wrote about were visionary: what else is your smartphone if not a real-life version of the Guide?

Enlarge / Oakland City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan, seen here in 2010. (credit: Daniel Aruaz / Flickr)

OAKLAND, Calif.—A local city council member is beginning to float the idea of taxing ridehailing companies like Uber and Lyft as a possible way to raise millions of dollars and help pay for local public transportation and infrastructure improvements.

If the effort is successful, Oakland could become the first city in California—Uber and Lyft’s home state—to impose such a tax. However, it’s not clear whether Oakland or any other city in the Golden State has the authority to do so under current state rules.

Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan told the East Bay Express that she wants the city council to put forward a ballot measure that would tax such rides.

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our friends at TechBargains, we have another round of deals to share. Today's list is led by a straightforward deal on Dell's Inspiron 15 7000, which can now be had for $630. It's not likely to blow anyone away—and it's not to be confused with Dell's gaming laptop that shares the same name—but it's hard to consider a latest-gen Core i7 chip, a 15.6-inch 1080p display, and a 256GB SSD to be poor value at that price.

If you're not looking for a laptop on a budget, we also have low prices on 4K TVs from Samsung and LG, a SanDisk microSD card, a variety of dash cams, and other smart home gadgets. Have a look for yourself below.

Note: Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.

Enlarge / Jon Favreau at Comic-Con in 2012. (credit: Genevieve on Flickr via Creative Commons)

Jon Favreau, director of Iron Man and the live-action The Jungle Book film, has been selected by Disney to executive produce and write a live-action Star Wars TV series for Disney's upcoming streaming video service, according to a blog post on the Star Wars website.

Disney announced a live-action Star Wars series for its streaming service alongside its announcement of Rian Johnson's new Star Wars movie trilogy in November of 2017, but no details were included then. It's not the only big project coming to that platform; Disney also plans a live-action Marvel TV series and a reboot of The Muppets.

Disney hasn't said exactly when the new streaming service will launch, but CEO Bob Iger said on an earnings call last year that the Star Wars series would likely premiere after 2020—though the announcement posted today specifically says the "series does not yet have a release date." In the meantime, Disney has made plans to pull content like other Marvel and Star Wars movies from Netflix in 2019 to pave the way for this new service.