The Pin Factory Blog

Teachers have been instructed in some areas to teach their pupils the wrongs of "file-sharing," but apparently they don't seem to be getting anywhere. According to an article in the Scotsman teachers are finding it hard to explain why illegal downloading is bad and even what it means.

In a 2003 Gallup Youth Survey, only 15 percent of youngsters aged 13 to 17 thought that "in general" downloading music was "morally wrong". Yet 81 per cent agreed cheating in tests was morally wrong.

As the article properly points out, its not a clear cut issue. The consequences are hard to explain because there is unlikely to be any outcome should a child admit that they are illegally downloading.Considering many teachers have a hard time teaching children the difference between right and wrong, asking them to explain the intricacies of file-sharing illegality might just be too much to ask.

In the past the European Union has been accused of being virtually deaf to the wants and needs of its members populace. The recent reactions to referenda being a classic example. Well it seems the EU is mending its ways and is going to listen to them. They are planning to listen to them all the time, whatever they are doing.

"Project INDECT aims to mine data from television, internet traffic, cellphone conversations, p2p file sharing and a range of other sources for crime prevention and threat prediction.

So rest assured whatever you are doing the EU will be listening to your every word or online action. Reassuring isn't it?

Children are being attacked from all sides these days. Firstly there is a recommendation that children should not start "formal" education until they are six. As someone who started school at four, I can't imagine waiting so late, but obviously others take a different line.

Dame Gillian Pugh, review author, said, "four and five-year-olds tended to be at a stage where they were just "tuning in" to learning and that they could be "turned off" if they were made to follow too formal a curriculum, too early on." Perhaps, but not for all children. The mandated age for children to enter school is questionable as the parents should decide, an issue Douglas Carswell eloquently puts forward here.

On top of this, or indeed in direct competition to it, the European People's Party believes that children should be given lessons in the benefits of the European Union from the earliest of ages. Of course, some would question how long a lesson it would be.

They claim that, "knowing and understanding, from a young age, the principles, the procedures and the successful history of the European Union, the generations of tomorrow will be immune to any distortion of the perception of the role of the EU and will much better embrace the advantages of this unique project of voluntary sharing of sovereignty." They want to 'instruct' young children in the "benefits" of the EU before they have a chance to formulate their own opinions on the institution.

Clearly both of these examples highlight why government needs to stand aside in the provision of education. The temptation to meddle and mould children's minds to be in sync with the government thinking of the time is too great. Free enterprise in schooling is best for parents, the taxpayer and the children themselves.

The Herald Scotland reports that several successful Scottish computer game companies are thinking of moving to Ireland, tempted by the available tax breaks. This includes the maker of the much anticipated online role-playing game All Point Bulletin by Realtime Worlds.

As the Herald reports:

Colin Macdonald, studio manager of Realtime Worlds, the Dundee venture which employs 300 people and which has created globally renowned games such as Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto, said that the Irish overtures were enticing. “If the package on offer in Ireland was attractive we’d have to give it serious consideration," he said. “Dundee is a great place to be based, one of the main hubs for computer games in Britain, but at the end of the day we’ve got to look after our bottom line."

It will be interesting to see if these companies take up the offer from Ireland. The UK has proved a successful site for the game industry, but it remains to be seen for how long this will the case.

The never ending blame game that is politics has turned now to DVD ratings. Lady Thatcher, David Cameron and the current government have all come in for criticism over the fact that legislation was not passed on properly to our masters on the continent.For most anti-censorship types the ratings system is better off on the ctting room floor and for good reasons too. Ignoring the efficacy of banning stuff in the age of the interent, its arbitrary nature has been shown to be questionable. Caligula was banned while torture porn like Hostel (I,II) and the Saw series have been approved.

If there is a banned film you have always wanted, now might be the time to go seek it out. Be careful though, the government is claiming that it will carry on fining people regardless of the fact that no longer have the legal footin to do so. Graham Barnfield has an excellent and comprehensive article on this over at Spiked. His conclusion is to be aplauded:

The idiocies of the BBFC would be less frustrating were they not also the springboard for prosecutions. Why should the subjective decisions of a quango form the basis for fines and incarceration? The bottom line is that criminal law needs to butt out of the cinema and home entertainment industries. If consenting participants in film productions emerge unharmed from the production process, then the resulting films would meet a revised, forward-looking minimum legal threshold in future. (Whether they should go ahead on aesthetic or commercial grounds is a separate issue.) This latest humiliation for the Video Recordings Act 1984 should be a chance to wipe the tape clean and treat adult viewers as adults.

Its not just in music and radio that the BBC distorts the market and creates an unfair playing field. It has the same effect on the UK's online space. Even though the BBC is neither a newspaper nor magazine it competes with its huge online prescence, paid for by the taxpayer via the TV tax.

The Conservatives have been complaining about this Gorilla in the room before:

Back in 2003, John Whittingdale, the Shadow Culture Secretary of the time, said that the website should be closed down. Last year, Phillip Davies, another Conservative, said: "Basically the BBC with its massive licence fee does completely distort the market and makes it virtually impossible for its competitors." But given bbc.co.uk's popularity, closing it down would not be a sensible option for any government.

The trouble is that the BBC is trying to do all things media and its site suffers for it. Its not just the Conservatives that are concerned about this either:

Do we really have to count on the BBC to reveal that "Blue Square Premier side Tamworth have completed the signing of former West Brom youngster Anthony Bruce"? Surely this would be better left to theTamworth Herald's website, or the Blue Square Premier's site, or theNon-League Paper. Tamworth are, after all, a non-league football team which last season had an average gate of only 815.

Harry Underwood has it right. This is why Murdoch is mad enough to start charging for content.

No its not the newest cute character for the "family friendly" Wii, PEGI is the new censorship system for games. Instead of having PEGI competing with Britain's BBFC, the Labour government has surrendered yet more power to Brussels.

MCV reports that Tanya Byron, author of last year's Byron Review: Safer Children In A Digital World, has welcomed the adoption of this new system. The Byron review was not exactly welcomed by many in the gaming world including me. It should be a bit worrying that a "TV expert" with no experience with the gaming industry has had her recommendations made into policy by the government.

In the light of the moves in Germany and Europe to ban "violent" video games it remains to be seen if this is good news for computer games companies in the UK like Rockstar (Grand Theft Auto etc) and others.

In Sweden the Pirate Party (Piratpartiet) have won a seat in the European Parliament. This party was formed after the increased prosecution of various online sites.

When asked, Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge told TorrentFreak: “We’ve felt the wind blow in our sails. We’ve seen the polls prior to the election. But to stand here, today, and see the figures coming up on that screen… What do you want me to say? I’ll say anything".

The party has been formed as a libertarian/civil liberty party who are particularly aggrieved, about the mass surveillance so prevalent in Europe and the increasing state of cyber-surveilance.

Rumors that upon the news of the win the gathered fans shouted "arrrr" have yet to be confirmed.

It would seem that BT broadband users might actually be getting less download speeds they thought they were. Long suspected by many of their customers, it seems BT does not actually give the correct speed for their cheapest packages the BBC reports. The BBC is irked because its affecting their iPlayer, paid for by a licence fee that should mean it can be accessed easily.

BT is not alone:

Mr Weller, from uSwitch.com, said BT was not the only internet service provider trying to cope with growing demand by throttling back speeds.

I am not surpised. I use two 7mbs lines, one in central London and one in Maine USA. They seem to have rather different actual speeds. At least users now know that their suspicions look to be well founded.

P2P is reporting that the EU is funding the development of game tables that allow older people to play video games:

According to Amparo Ruiz, an occupational therapist in Galicia, Spain who helped supervise some of the trials, “The elderly people like it when they play and feel integrated into the new technologies. “It’s also very important that I can get information about their attention, memory and other functions while they are playing, and then choose games that emphasis the areas where they have problems.

Surely we are old enough to remember ATARI game tables that ended up in bars and nerdy pubs? They are probably pretty cheap to pick up these days. I know a few people who have then at home. Why bother with a new "system" when one already exists? Is there something that the EU finds offensive about Pac-Man, Defender and other ATARI classics?