"The game-makers (and matchmakers) at online-game site Nexon tell me that of the 26,982 in-game marriages that have joyously occurred in a game called MapleStory, 20,344 have ended in divorce. Because I happen never to have played MapleStory, nor indeed even wondered what it is, I am grateful to Nexon for offering me correspondence with respect to the details of the world's next great social plight. "I was young, naive, and thought I had met 'the one'," declared one player from Vancouver.

"According to the organization, which represents the game industry, the average gamer today is 37 years old. Moreover, the average game buyer is 41 years old. Because of that, a greater number of parents are playing games with their children. The ESA said that 45 percent of parents play games with their kids "at least weekly.""

"Adobe has released an emergency fix for a bug in Flash Player that is being used in attempted attacks on Gmail users, an Adobe spokeswoman said today. "We have reports that this vulnerability is being exploited in the wild in active targeted attacks designed to trick the user into clicking on a malicious link delivered in an e-mail message," spokeswoman Wiebke Lips said in an e-mail. "The reports we received indicate that the current attacks are targeting Gmail specifically.

"A British nonprofit has a novel idea for getting kids interested in computer programming--a computer that fits in a pocket and costs less than the latest video game.

It's called Raspberry Pi, and the prototype isn't pretty--it looks like a leftover scrap from electronics recycling day. But it's a working computer that game developer David Braben and his Cambridge-connected colleagues expect to make available for only $25 for a fully configured system.

"Two years after the original Dead Space exploded onto the gaming scene, we're treated to a proper sequel. Critics and gamers alike praised the original for its unique atmosphere and resurrection of the flailing survivor-horror genre. Dead Space 2 continues the story of Isaac Clarke and his seemingly endless run-ins with the once-human Necromorphs that have taken over a space station on one of Saturn's moons, Titan. Does Dead Space 2 deliver the screams of its predecessor?"

"Since at least the mid-1980s, major console makers have generally come out with new models every five years or so. For example, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) came out in 1985, followed by the Super NES in 1991, the Nintendo 64 in 1996, the GameCube in 2001, and the Wii in 2006. Sony put out the first PlayStation in 1995 and followed up with the PS2 in 2000 and the PS3 in 2006. And Microsoft introduced the original Xbox in 2001 and released the Xbox 360 in 2005." | more

Advanced Micro Devices passed Nvidia in graphics chip shipments in the second quarter, according to a report from a marketing research on Wednesday, adding to Nvidia's woes.

A federal court judge has likely dealt a death blow to LimeWire, one of the most popular and oldest file-sharing systems, according to legal experts. On Wednesday, CNET broke the news that U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood granted summary judgment in favor of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which filed a copyright lawsuit against LimeWire in 2006. In her decision, Wood ruled Lime Group, parent of LimeWire software maker Lime Wire, and founder Mark Gorton committed copyright infringement, induced copyright infringement, and engaged in unfair competition.

In the near future, you may be more worried about a hacker attack on your car than on your PC.

A group of researchers from two universities tested their hacking skills on two cars and found that they could remotely lock the brakes, the engine, and windows on a car; turn on the radio, heat, and windshield wipers; honk the horn; and change the speedometer display.

Following Friday's unofficial confirmation of LittleBigPlanet 2, Sony on Monday made the game's existence official. Monday morning, the PlayStation Blog took the wraps off the sequel, which first surfaced in April via a loose-lipped musician's Twitter post. That outing came five months after a level designer at the game's developer, Media Molecule, shot down sequel talk, saying a retail follow-up would be "counterproductive" to the game's massive community.