Not exactly the most likely candidate for making an explosive device, nonetheless a Game Boy and a cellphone fashioned into a bomb-like device resulted in the evacuation of a Florida school on Monday.

"Authorities have arrested 18-year-old Lars O'Mara, who allegedly admitted to making and placing the device in order to gain popularity and get people out of school Lars is facing felony charges for manufacturing a hoax explosive device, using a Game Boy."

If he was willing to blow his Game Boy into smithereens, then clearly he had never discovered the addictive wonder that is Tetris.

Source: http://kotaku.com/5530646/game-boy-used-in-high-school-bomb-scare

This year I made a resolution to read more, so this blog post is a record of how successful I have been, which will be useful as a point of future reference, and also to illustrate my accomplishments thus far. This list will be update whenever I finish reading another book, which will probably be in the near future, as I have a couple on the go at the moment. So far, in 2010, I have read;

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Misery by Stephen King

Carrie by Stephen King

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Pretty neat. Spotted on the University of North Carolina campus in Charlotte.

The picture says it all.

Source: http://kotaku.com/5505174/the-greatest-school-bus-in-japan

I have to say, this can only be good news. The video games industry has had a habit of being snubbed on this side of the pond, so its pleasing to see that the Government has recognised the huge contribution that it makes to the economy.

Hopefully this tax relief can help to cushion the implications of worldwide recession, so our dwindling number of developers can stick with it.

"The games industry in the UK supports about 27,000 workers, including more than 9,000 developers, and rather than being concentrated in London, it is spread across the country with clusters of developers in the West Country, north-east England and Scotland."

This indicates the sheer impact a lack of investment would have. It is clearly a sector that yields a large amount of potential growth, and I think that concentrating on video game development would be a wise move for our economy to take. Clearly the industry is developing and evolving all the time, and its important that the UK gets a slice of that action.

The initiative designed to increase broadband speed nationwide is also welcome news, in order to keep the UK at the forefront of technological developments.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/24/budget-2010-video-games-tax-relief