Microsoft Windows, I thought we would never see the end of the era. Microsoft’s newest operating system (OS), Vista might be more advanced than OS’s of the past but in many ways are still the same. According to released inner office documents from Microsoft, it looks like a new OS is in the works. This system is called, Midori.

Microsoft’s key word with their development of Midori is, virtualisation. Almost everything is virtualized these days. At most businesses, especially those that have to manage different computing devices, virtual machines are a god send. Instead of having to service a massive amount of servers on one single computer, the virtual servers could be accessed at any machine.

This idea being used for virtual servers, is what’s inspiring Microsoft’s Midori. They are trying to create a portable operating system that can access various apps on different machines.

Microsoft hasn’t commented on Midori, other than that they have confirmed it is a project they’re working on. As with most of their developments, Microsoft believes that Midori isn’t ready enough to begin commenting on

In case you haven’t heard of the relatively new internet site Hulu, I’ll sum it up for you. It’s pretty much one of the greatest sites to ever grace the world wide web. Any site that has old episodes of The A-Team, which I can view at my leisure for free gets two big thumbs up.

I Pity Da Fool Who Don’t Use Hulu

For Hulu fans out there, a new feature has been launched that looks to take the experience even farther. For those who like their free show/movie watching in HD, Hulu now has a brand spanking new HD Gallery. Right now it’s slim pickings, as there’s only nine episodes of various shows available to watch. The fact that Hulu is moving in the direction of adding HD is a good thing though. As a special promotion for their new HD service, all videos will have no ads during the runtime.

In the world of video games, we’ve all gotten used to the constant attacks our beloved media falls prey too. Pretty much any violent act performed by a teenager is usually traced back to some video game they played. Then parents raise their fists and gibber jabber on about how GTA is making our kids into mindless killing machines (all the while their kids are playing during their parents’ outrage).

The newest form of video game blame comes by way of Bangkok, Thailand. An 18 year old high school student was arrested for stabbing a cab driver to death, then driving the cab around. Of course, upon questioning the kid he stated that he was trying to see if stealing a car in real life was as easy as it was in GTA IV.

The kid claimed that he was an obsessive GTA IV player. He also said that he had no intentions of killing the cab driver, but stabbed him when the cab driver fought back.

Probably the biggest head scratcher to come out of this situation, is that the police said that the kid showed no signs of mental problems during questioning. I mean are they serious? A kid kills someone allegedly because of content in a video game, and they don’t think he’s crazy? Of course the Bangkok government’s response to the situation was to pull all the GTA IV games off the shelves, and arcades. Because not selling a video game is going to stop crazy people from doing stupidly insane things.

Where were the parents, and how did they not recognize how crazy their son was in the first place? Becoming obsessed with anything is never good, let alone a video game. Probably the craziest thing in all of this, is that the kid is more than likely going to get lethal injection for his crime. Which to me is more insane than the situation itself, because the kid is in need of some serious psychiatric help. I guess it’s better to just nip these kinds of problems in the bud though *sigh*.

In an article from MSNBC, I was surprised to hear about the up-and-coming Laptop program implemented by the state of Maine. The first statewide Laptop program started back in 2002, and has been growing all these years. Since the program started, its been evolving; and the country is starting to notice.

Bette Manchester was the original director of Maine’s laptop program. In 2008 the program she started has grown by leaps and bounds. Originally the program was aimed at 7th graders, but now 8th-graders and some high schools have joined. The opinions of the program so far have been mixed, but have been providing great results.

The biggest question coming from most education experts is, ‘How will this program help states with Standardized Testing scores?”

A study by a Maine professor, David Silvernail found that 8th grade children provided with a laptop scored significantly higher on Maine’s state test scores. Another great aspect of the laptop program is that it has been closing the gap between quality of education for fortunate, and less fortunate children. With the internet and laptop technology at everyone’s fingertips, the playing field is more equal. Instead of trying to rely on keeping up to date with teaching materials. Probably the best aspect of the program is how its preparing children more for what the world is like outside school.

After reading this article and diving deeper into the ins-and-outs of the program, I’m liking it so far. Probably the greatest obstacle is overcoming how much it costs to provide a child with a laptop for an entire school year (including summers). Of course there are definitely worse things to spend tax money on. If there’s one thing I wouldn’t mind spending more taxes on it’s the education of our children. Maybe spend less money putting our kids through worthless testing. I grew up during the height of the ‘testing’ era, and I can’t think off the top of my head the one time its helped me. Of course all of the knowledge I have about computers, the internet, programming have helped in nearly every job I’ve had. America should be trying to stay ahead of the curve in education, and more programs such as these would be a definite start.

When you usually hear of video games and controversy it’s usually over violence (GTA IV) or sex (GTAIV) or alien lesbian makeout scenes (Mass Effect, wish I could say GTA IV again). The newest controversy is over a game titled Fat Princess, which made its debut at the E3 conference. The game was beginning to receive praise from many different gaming sites, as being creative and fun. Then a feminist blogger comes along and starts spewing out hatred about how the game is degrading and offensive to women (fat women that is).

Call Me Crazy But I Think The Character Is Cute….In A Fat Sorta Way

Of course when the feminist bloggers start reigning in on the hatred, video game bloggers respond. Then the flaming starts, with video game bloggers calling feminists whiners and other words I won’t mention. And the feminist bloggers call gamers objectifying pigs, and other words I won’t mention. For someone that tries to look at things cool-headed and rational, I’d like to step in and express my thoughts on the situation. While the game Fat Princess might be offensive to some, is it anymore offensive than alot of games out there? How about how GTA IV makes alot of their immigrant characters act? Or how about Call of Duty 4 that has stereotypical bad guys for your enemies?

**The Dark Knight Spoiler**

I think the Joker’s statement to Two Face while in the hospital about how to implement chaos plays here. The Joker talks about people aren’t too shook up when gangsters are reported killed, or if a carload of soldiers are blown up, but kill one mayor and everyone starts losing their minds…I kind of went along way to make a statement (I just love the Dark Knight), but the same kind of thinking applies in this situation. You make a game involving an immigrant blowing up other immigrants, or killing stereotypical terrorists and everyone is kosher. But if you create a game involving an overweight female character, and everyone starts losing their minds. I mean really? An overweight princess character has caused this much of a stir?

What I find most funny, is how people are missing out on the truly sick part of the game. To me the most offensive part of the game is that you’re force feeding someone into gluttony. The last time I saw something like this was in the movie Seven, when John Doe force fed a victim to death to prove his point about the sin ‘gluttony’. So the fact that a character is eating to death is no nevermind to alot of dissenters, but the fact she’s portrayed as being fat is the problem. That has to be the most backwards part of the argument against the game in my eyes. Eating to gluttony is all fine and dandy; we just don’t want to be shown the effects of it. If anything this game might be a stark reminder to people, that stuffing cake into your mouth might cause your stomach to expand.