The Japanese government is so concerned that kids are spending too much time with Internet-linking cell phones that it is warning parents and schools to limit their use. Most mobile phones in Japan are 3G, which grants high-speed Internet access.

Masaharu Kuba, a government official overseeing the new initiative, stated elementary and junior high school students spend long hours exchanging mobile e-mails and suffer other negative effects from mobile phone overuse. Some students have even been victims of cyberspace crimes.

“Japanese parents are giving cell phones to their kids without giving it enough thought,” he said. “In Japan, cell phones have become an high-priced toy.”

One fad among school aged kids in Japan is “the 30 minute rule.” If a child doesn’t respond to an e-mail within 30 minutes, that child becomes the target for teasing by others.

An education reform panel is asking cell phone manufactures to develop a child friendly device. Such a phone would only grant voice communication and GPS tracking, to help further a child’s safety.

Via Mobilecrunch

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CNET has a very long interview with Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky, the guy in charge of the Windows 7 project. Sinofsky dekes and jukes like the great Walter Payton to provide nearly zero details about the next version of Windows, despite an almost 4000 word long article. Here’s what we know, though. 1. Windows 7 will […]

CNET has a very long interview with Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky, the guy in charge of the Windows 7 project.

Sinofsky dekes and jukes like the great Walter Payton to provide nearly zero details about the next version of Windows, despite an almost 4000 word long article.

Here’s what we know, though.

1. Windows 7 will be available “about three years after the general availability of Windows Vista,” which means sometime around January of 2010.

The timing of it depends a lot on what we wanted to achieve, and you’ve certainly heard us, and we’ve been very clear, and will continue to say that the next release of Windows, Windows 7, is about three years after the general availability of Windows Vista, and we’re committed to that, and we’ve signed up publicly to do that.

2. Windows 7 will be not be built upon a new kernel. It’ll be built on the Windows Server 2008 kernel, which “is an evolution of the kernel in Windows Vista.”

We’re very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7; in fact, they’ll work the same. We’re going to not introduce additional compatibilities, particularly in the driver model. Windows Vista was about improving those things. We are going to build on the success and the strength of the Windows Server 2008 kernel, and that has all of this work that you’ve been talking about. The key there’s that the kernel in Windows Server 08 is an evolution of the kernel in Windows Vista, and then Windows 7 will be a further evolution of that kernel as well.

3. Windows 7 will be available in 32- and 64-bit versions.

Finally, we are going to make sure that the release is available both in 32 bit and 64 bit, which is an additional help for maintaining compatibility, particularly with device drivers. As the 64-bit ecosystem catches up, we anticipate more and more people, particularly enthusiasts, to be running 64 bit.

Read the whole shebang here.

Via [crunchgear]

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this is a new approach. Looking into using carbon as an electrode.

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Via [Gizmodo]

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Via [Gizmodo]

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