Russia: Extreme Censorship

Few countries have as extensive a history of censorship as Russia, though many of the Soviet-era restrictions had been lifted during the 80s and 90s. Clearly Vladimir Putin has a touch of nostalgia, however. Obviously the big news was the introduction of legislation against the positive portrayal of homosexuality brought into law earlier this year, but this doesn't seem to have sated the need to crack down on free expression.


Stalker, one of the classics of Russian
cinema, will be restricted by the law

Putin has signed a new law banning swearing in Russian media. That's all books, magazines, newspapers, films, television, theatre, music etc. Those breaching the new law will face a hefty fine. Existing media containing swearing will have to be clearly marked with a warning, though the threat of shutting down traders not adequately warning their audience will presumably convince many that stocking such material isn't worth the risk. Disputes as to what constitutes a swear word will be handled by an expert panel (hopefully made up of Gordon Ramsey, Samuel L. Jackson and Quentin Tarantino).

The move will also presumably prevent the showing/publication of many foreign works (I can't see Game of Thrones slipping through!). It's also unclear how it'll affect online services such as Facebook and Twitter.

Any one want to place bets on what Russia will ban next?

Original story: BBC News

Electronic hiking - sightseeing in video games

I'm not normally in a habit of just posting links to stuff, but this is a great article that I simply wouldn't have thought of:

Dear Esther's atmospheric Scottish island is well worth a visit

The ten most beautiful walks in gaming (Guardian)

As games become more visually appealing, there is more opportunity for some stunning level design, especially in open-world games. Sadly too many games rely too much on uninspired linear, cover-based gauntlets, but sometimes I do enjoy just wandering around (especially if there are collectables to hunt!). I maybe add Assassin's Creed to the list...

Return of the video cassette?

Way back in the mists of not all that long ago, the video cassette revolutionised the movie industry, allowing you to watch what you wanted, when you wanted. For the benefit of younger readers, with the exception of the convenience, tape technology was inescapably terrible - poor picture quality that degraded the more you watched it, machines that would damage or destroy your tapes with alarming frequency, and you had to rewind the tape at the end (which never happened, leading to 100% of family arguments in the 1980s). It may come as a surprise then that Sony have pushed on with cassette research with some astounding results.

The latest Sony prototype cassette can hold a remarkable 185TB of data (equivalent to over 3775 dual-layer Blu-ray discs). The production process also sounds pretty cool, involving "shooting argon ions at a polymer film substrate, which produces layers of magnetic crystal particles." No lasers though, I do love a laser.


Sadly even this is unlikely to see a return of video cassettes to the home. They would still suffer from the same problems as old cassettes, and you would still have to fast-forward through the entire tape to find the thing you wanted to watch (tiresome enough when it was one TV episode, let alone 3775 movies!). The tapes are, however, likely to be welcomed into the much less interesting data archiving industry.

Original story: IT World