Archive for the ‘General News’ Category

“Police have arrested a South Korean couple whose toddler starved to death while they were raising a virtual child online, authorities said.

The couple fed their 3-month-old daughter once a day between marathon stretches in a local Internet cafe, where they were raising a virtual child in the fantasy role-playing game Prius Online, police told local reporters Friday.

Prius Online is a 3-D game in which players nurture an online companion, Anima, a young girl with mysterious powers who grows and increases her skills as the game progresses.”

(Source: Police: Couple nurtured virtual child while real baby starved – CNN.com)

“A hovering Toblerone and a silky-white residue join near-misses and strange lights in the British government’s latest release of its files on UFO sightings.

Made public Thursday, the files are the fifth collection of records about unidentified flying objects to be released by the Ministry of Defence and The National Archives as part of a project to open the files up to a wider audience.

Thursday’s release is the largest so far, totaling more than 6,000 pages of material from 1994 to 2000.”

(Source: Britain releases new UFO files – CNN.com.)

“At first sight it seems the ultimate in child cruelty – a two-year-old boy chained to a lamp post to stop him getting away.

Yet his parents say this is the only way they can guarantee not to lose him.

His father Chen Chuanliu works as an unlicensed rickshaw cyclist in Beijing, taking fares all over the city, while the boy’s disabled mother collects rubbish at the roadside. “

(Childcare, Chinese style: Father chains two-year-old son to a post while he’s at work | Mail Online)

“Spooky, secretive, titanic US military contractor SAIC has bought out Forterra, a company that makes virtual worlds for government agencies. I sat on a panel at an SAIC event on games and public diplomacy a few years back that turned out to be filled with CIA and other spooks who wanted to know if Al Qaeda was recruiting in World of Warcraft. Wonder what they’re going to do with World of Fedcraft? “

(Source: World of Fedcraft: SAIC buys virtual world company Boing Boing.)