Second Life or Just an Escape

Many people have joined the virtual world of Second Life, but do people join it to get away from stress or do they join it to be someting that they are not in their real life. I personally think there is a line that has to be crossed before becoming something you are not on the cyber web. Sometimes I think that line is social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and now Second Life. I personally would not join Second Life because I am so busy in my real life I don't have time to play on the internet and buy virtual land and build on it.
Second Life is an internet-based virtual world created by Linden Lab, it was released in June 2003. It allows it's users, residents, to interact with others through avators. Residents can explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in activities, and even buy property. The Second Life world changes constantly with thousands of new residents join daily. When purchasing land you can open up your own business. There was only 64 aceres of land available in 2003 when the game first came on the scene. Now there is over 65,000 aceres of land people can buy and build on to display their virtual creations.
The concept of Second Life fits in the world today because so many things are going through the world wide web. I am not a huge fun of second life because many people focus way too much on what is going on in the world wide web world and don't really care what is going on in the real world. Too many people get caught up in the whole thing of Second Life and tend to lose what they really have in the life they live.

The Possible Link between Video Game Violence and Children’s Behavior

By: Matthew J. Geiger

Living in Colorado and experiencing the tragedy of the Columbine shootings in the state, one has to wonder if the students played violent video games. In the past decade the Columbine shootings in 1999 just started a “trend” of students holding other students and teachers at gun point. Although parents are concerned that their children are being negatively affected by these violent video games, studies show that there is no direct link to video games causing violence. Many emotions have been linked to video games such as addiction, depression, and the most controversial is aggression. There have been studies showing the relationship between violent games and aggression, even aggressive thoughts and beliefs. The crime and abuse rate in the United States has risen in the past decade, and it is being argued that violent video games are to blame.
Many legislators in the country have passed a rule that if a video game that has violence in it should not be sold to anyone under the age of eighteen. There are many arguments concerning this, some are about what constitutes as violence, and then some are about the first amendment rights of this children. Children have first amendment rights just like their parents, but the courts can put limits on the laws at times, in order to protect the children. It is hard to put a band on violent video games because everything in society today is someway linked to violence.
If the courts ban violence in video games then the media has to ban violence in the news, and even cartoons. Society has the understanding of more than one influence on violent behavior. The courts and law is now requiring more evidence on how violent video games influence behavior rather than just violent images, and interactivity. Research has shown that violent media, and even real world experiences influence violent behavior, but the courts cannot attack all sources of violence.
Many researchers have shown a link between violent influences in behavior to violent entertainment, but they cannot directly link it to video games. Researchers are now paying more attention to the format of the game and the type of storyline of video games. This is now happening so the courts can determine what can influence children who play video games, and those who are influenced by real world violence.
Parents are now to the point where they do not want to sit on the sidelines and watch their children go into a media induced trance. A solution to this problem is to have parental intervention. Two major contributors with parents that can turn a child to violent acts is the lack of parent involvement and child abuse. These two factors can definitely raise a child’s risk of committing a violent crime. If the child’s behavior turns violent, then it is the duty of the parent to take it away and see if the child’s behavior changes. If it does then the child has no right to be playing violent video games. Many audiences use video games to deal with stress they are experiencing.

Timeline of Video Games

1960's

• 1961--MIT students made up the game Spacewar
  
• 1966--Ralph Baer created the video game called Chase
  
• 1967--Bill Harrison created the light gun and developed video games with Bill Rusch


• 1968--Protype was completed for games like table tennis and and target shooting games


• 1969--Ken Thompson produced a game called Space Travel

1970's

• Many areas came out this decade for video games, such as handhelds, computers, and arcade machines


• 1971--Galaxy Game, this was based on Spacewar. Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney created the acrade version of Spacewar and called it Computer Space.


• 1972--Atari was founded. First video game with sucess was Atari Pong.


• 1978--Golden Age: Release of Space Invaders by Taito, Atari released Asteroids


• 1979--Color arcade games came alive with Pacman

1980's

• 1980--Mattel introduced Intellvision, brought the "8-Bit Era"
• 1980--Defender was the game that established the scrolling shooter
• 1980--Battlezone used wireframe vector graphics
• 1980--Zork was released as the first game for the adventure genre
• 1980--Nintendo began to make handheld games
• 1981--3D Monster Maze was the first 3D game for the home computer
• 1982--Dungeons and Dragons came upon the scene and added weapons and monsters
• 1982--Pole Position brought the "rear-view racer format"
• 1982--ColecoVision sales took off
• 1982--Gaming computers came about like Commodore 64, Apple II, and Sinclair ZX Spectrum
• 1982--Journey Escape was released for the Atari 2600 console, and featured the band Journey
• 1983--Dragon's Lair was the first game to introduce full motion video
• 1983--Snipes was created by SuperSet Software to test the new IBM PC. Snipes was the inspiration for Novell Netware
• 1984--Sierra's King's Quest featured third person perspective
• 1985--Beginning of the Third Generation. Nintendo came out with the Super Mario Brothers
• 1986--Dragon Quest Series made a debut which was a role-playing game
• 1986--Final Fantasy Series, Legend of Zelda
• 1987--Final Fantasy Series, Metal Gear
• 1987--Maniac Mansion allowed the point-click interface
• 1988--Nintendo published it's first magazine; Nintendo Power
• 1989--Capcom released Sweet Home

1990's

• 1990--Shareware came out with Apogee and Epic Megagames
• 1990--Maxis came out with the "Sims"
• 1992--Release of the game, Dune II, real-time strategy
• 1992--Alone in the Dark was one of the games to come out of the survival horror genre
• 1993--Simulation games came along like Myst
• 1993--Atari released Atari Jaguar
• 1994--Sega released Sega Saturn
• 1995--Sony came onto the scene with Playstation
• 1996--Quake became the first online game to have first- person shooters
• 1996--Nintendo came out with Nintendo 64
• 1997--Nintendo 64's Golden Eye 007 brought together headshots and first person shooter
• 1997--Final Fantasy VII made Playstation the most popular console for videogames
• 1998--The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was Nintendo's first 3D game
• 1998--Nintendo game out with the handheld; Game Boy Color
• 1998--Konami brought Dance Dance Revolution from the UK
• 1999--Counter-Strike was the most popular first person shooter game which in turn created Half-Life

2000's

• 2000--Sony came out with the Playstation 2
• 2000--Nintendo brought out the their first disc-based console with the GameCube
• 2000--Online games became more popular with World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XI
• 2000--Online gambling has made mark with casual gaming with Bejewled and Diner Dash
• 2001--Microsoft introduces themselves to the scene of gaming and came out with the Xbox
• 2004--Sony produced Playstation Portable
• 2005--Microsoft came out with Xbox 360
• 2006--Sony then came out with Playstation 3
• 2007--Nintendo had a new revolution console, the Wii
• 2008--Harmonix produced Rock Band
• 2008--Wii has become the new genre with Wii Fit
• 2001--Nintendo came out with the Game Boy Advance
• 2004--Red Octane surprised consumers with the Guitar Hero

The Future is 3D

Many movies are now going 3D, which means you only get the full effect when you wear the 3D glasses. The glasses make it seem like you're in the movie it self with realistic three-demensional images everywhere around you. 3D is a visual attempt to recreate moving images of the third dimension, which is the illusion of depth seen by the viewer. A 3D movie is filmed in a unique way. It involves two images being filmed at the same time with two different cameras poistioned side by side. The cameras are set at a 90 degree angle from each other using mirrors to make the images opposite. 3D movies are going from one side of the spectrum to the other with the movies that are being made. Hannah Montana has a 3D concert, The Best of Both Worlds. The newest 3D movie that has come out is the famous Nightmare Before Christmas. I think in the future 3D movies are not going to be anything special, they will actually be the movies everyone goes to.

Are You Ready for the Storm

Now a days everything is going to touch screen. In about two weeks the Blackberry Storm is being released in storms. Blackberry manufactures have nicknamed the phone as the Apple Killer. The Storm is going head to head with Apple's IPhone. Just like AT&T sells the IPhone and you have to have that provider, Blackberry Storm is only go to Verizon for right now. Nothing will happen to the phone until you press down on the screen and hear a click, the screen is a huge button just like the trackball on the Blackberry Pearl. The Blackberry Storm is like any other touchscreen phone, but has the original four button the Blackberry uses on all their phones: menu, back, send, and end. The Blackberry Storm will have some problems hooking on to a network because it uses EV-DO, not Wi-Fi. Some think this will hurt the phone and not sell like the IPhone, but Blackberry doesn't think this will have an effect. Each Blackberry Storm comes with an 8GB microSD card and stero Bluetooth, along with Verizon's V Cast.

McCain Speaks Out

This past friday, October 3, Presidental Canidate Senator John McCain came to Pueblo, Colorado. He spoke in the new Massari arena on the Colorado State University-Pueblo campus. Being a student there it was intense to see half of the campus parking lots blocked off and secret serivce. There was estimated to be about 3,000 people that filled up the Massari Area, and 300 people filled the first floor of the library and the Belmont Residences Hall where it was aired live on television. Only one station aired it and it was KOAA 5/30. They are definetly ahead of the times here in Pueblo, Colorado. KOAA streamed it live via internet and televisied it as well. It is good that one station here in town will do anything to get an audience by giving them what they want.

Bill Gates Funny?

Many people are confused on what is going on in the new PC commercials with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. The three commercials that air for a week and then were pulled show the two men trying to realate to "real" people. The idea behind the commericals is to show how Microsoft has related to over a billion people. The problem with these commericals is they do not even metion that they are relating people to computers until the ending where the Microsoft logo pops up. There is no relation to why a consumer should buy a PC instead a Mac. I am not sure if Microsoft is making a good move on putting two famous people from the early 1990's to promote a product being sold to the new generation of the early 2000.