Nintendo has unveiled the 2DS. The console is essentially a cheap version of the 3DS, lacking the 3D capabilities and the hinge. From a design perspective, it’s not the prettiest device in the world (the screen alignment is particularly grim), and the clamshell was one of the best things about the DS hardware, protecting the screen and also making it more portable. By contrast, the 2DS looks unwieldy.

That said, I find it curious people are using the 2DS as some kind of proof Nintendo is doomed. Apple pundit John Gruber said on his blog:

It’s $129. I say they should just give in and start making iOS games. They’re not going to win this battle.

This is a nonsensical argument, especially from someone who has a habit of publicly slamming people who’d say anything remotely similar about Apple. I might think the 2DS is ugly and might not be that nice to hold, but that doesn’t make it a dumb idea. It’s cheap and very obviously positioned for holiday sales. It’s $100 cheaper than the cheapest iPod touch (i.e. about half the price), which immediately places it in a totally different market. And it’s pretty clearly a stop-gap—Nintendo doing its usual thing of wringing out the last drops of income from a hardware line before a refresh. We saw the same thing with the Game Boy Advance—although I’d argue the Micro was a smarter-looking device than the 2DS.

After presumably getting some stick online, Gruber elaborated further:

“Isn’t this like telling Apple to give up on hardware and license Mac OS to other PC makers?” numerous readers have asked. Maybe a little, but it’s a bad comparison. The main thing is it never seemed to me — never — that Apple was incapable of producing excellent industry-leading hardware. They just needed focus and better execution. Nintendo, to me, looks incapable of producing handheld hardware that can compete with the iPhone or iPod Touch.

The question is whether Nintendo wants to compete and whether it needs to. Anecdotally, I hear an awful lot of people telling me their kids no longer bother with Nintendo hardware, and instead use iOS devices; similarly, many teen and adult gamers have ditched Nintendo handhelds for smartphones and tablets. Also, Nintendo’s financials of late haven’t looked nearly as rosy as in the past. Still, I also hear from various parties that the 3DS line has sold very well, and that Nintendo is starting to get the message regarding working with indies and pricing games more sensibly. Last year, I figured that rather than leap to iOS, Nintendo really needed to place more emphasis on digital, embrace more devs, and link with the wider world; I still believe that.

Gruber instead made a more common argument for what Nintendo should do:

I think they’re out of the game and might never get back into it. If they can do it, great — where by “do it” I mean produce a device that’s a better buy for $250 or so than an iPod Touch. But I don’t think they can do it. And if they can’t do it, their next best bet is is to expand to making iOS games. I’m not saying drop the DS line and jump to iOS in one fell swoop. But a couple of $9.99 iPhone/iPad games to test the water wouldn’t hurt.

There’s certainly a possibility that with the new iOS games controller APIs, Nintendo could create a custom controller for iOS, giving relevant iOS Nintendo titles the precision that they’d need to not end up being somewhat unplayable on the platform. I still question this as anything but an absolute last resort. For some reason, Gruber either ignores or dismisses that Nintendo is the Apple of the gaming world—it has succeeded through controlling everything, not just through the games it creates. To say Nintendo should create games for iOS is little different from suggesting a less fortunate Apple should rapidly get iLife and iWork on to other platforms. Even testing the water would be an admission of failure, which would damage the brand.

Perhaps Nintendo’s long-term future is as another Sega, crafting games for hardware that it doesn’t make itself. But the 2DS certainly doesn’t make the case this should happen now. Really, it’s what happens next that will seal Nintendo’s fate. What follows the DS line and the Wii U will be critical for the company, and although plenty (including, at times, me) have largely written off the company, Nintendo has also shown in the past how it has the ability to create something new and innovative seemingly from nowhere, thereby securing its survival and success. This sounds rather like a certain other tech company, and is why certain pundits should know better than to entirely dismiss Nintendo’s future chances.

Further reading: Nintendo, by Lukas Mathis.

You’d think the BBC might have learned, but after mis-quoting Paul Chambers’ Twitter Joke Trial tweet as part of a general ‘bereft of senses’/social media shitstorm, it’s now done much the same with Justin Carter case: Should online jokes be criminal?

If you’re unfamiliar with the story, US teen Justin Carter unwisely posted something stupid online and an anonymous tip-off led to him languishing in jail on suicide watch, faced with a potentially lengthy jail sentence. What did he post? Well, according to the BBC, this:

I think Ima shoot up a kindergarten

And watch the blood of the innocent rain down

And eat the beating heart of one of them.

Dumb, right? I mean, really dumb. But, you know, he’s a teenager, and, as reported by the Washington Times and plenty of other places:

the next two lines were lol and jk,” said Jack Carter, Justin’s father.

You won’t see those lines in the BBC’s article.

I don’t doubt people should think more before they rattle off some kind of obscene stupidity online, and it’s true online ‘anonymity’ leads certain people to be, frankly, arseholes, safe and secure in the knowledge the person or people they’re broadcasting to won’t be able to retaliate. However, organisations like the BBC do no-one any favours by shaving off bits of the story. An exclamation mark and word or two in the Chambers tweet, and the ‘lol’/’jk’ additions in the Carter case totally change the context of what was written.

Fortunately, the BBC’s article subsequently at least attempts a level of balance, exploring both sides of this kind of incident. That said, I do worry that we’re now seeing government agencies attempting to make examples of people, in order to stifle any kind of online dissent. If not, they’ve actually lost the ability to distinguish between idiotic banter and genuine threats, which is just as big a concern.

British media is again buzzing with demands to clamp down on online porn, a stance broadly backed by politicians. The movement this time was triggered by the tragic death of April Jones, with various figures and charities now claiming a “proven” link between porn and sexual assaults, without offering much actual proof. The problem, as ever, is the vast majority of reporting and commentary on this subject remains a mishmash of half-truths, ignorance and outright deception.

Here are the problems as I see them.

Blocking technology simply doesn’t exist

Politicians and the media now regularly argue porn should be blocked by default, and customers should apply to have an ‘unfiltered’ feed should they demand it. Leaving aside the obvious issues of what prosecutors would no doubt dub “a demand for hardcore porn” from those who simply want unfiltered web access, the big problem is there is no magic bullet technology.

At best, blacklists will cover some porn, but some will leak through, meaning it will still be accessible to all, including children. It also won’t require more effort to find—there would just, by default, be less of it. This creates a false sense of security—people expect technology of this sort to be flawless, but it’s far from it.

A better solution would be teaching parents about whitelisting technology, and also more general openness about sex (and even the realities of porn) in British society, rather than the ongoing clampdown to remove even basic sex education from British schools.

Blacklisting blocks access to other content

Blocking technology is, as already noted, imperfect. Often, it’s compiled algorithmically, and it’s driven by a set of rules dictated by the viewpoints of those dictating policy. On that basis, through error or design (or both), blacklists don’t block everything they should and can also include false positives.

There was a case in Australia where a dental surgery was caught in a blacklist, which was clearly an unfortunate error. Sexual health websites are routinely blocked by blacklists, which probably isn’t. This has the potential for a huge negative impact, especially on teenagers genuinely trying to learn and find out information about sex and sexuality. The UK already has a fairly puritanical stance and one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the west; blocking information to such subjects will only make matters worse.

The media is hypocritical

One of the more astonishing aspects of the Independent Parliamentary Inquiry into Online Child Protection was The Sun’s agony aunt, “Dear Deidre” Sanders, being the Inquiry’s first expert witness (PC Pro). When asked about the fact a child can very easily stumble across Page 3 (which, for those who aren’t aware, features topless women, who are often only 18), she said:

They often say one person’s erotica is another person’s hard-core pornography, it is really really hard to draw that line and I would like to point out certainly that the Editor of The Sun thinks it’s okay, but it’s 9 million people actually; 3 million who buy it and 9 million read it.

So the editor of The Sun thinks it’s OK. Phew! And nine million read it, which is a lot! Surely, that’s far more people than who use the internet! Her subsequent clarifications are that online porn is “too much”, but, as noted The Sun’s Page 3 is “OK”. On that basis, will Rupert Murdoch be pushing for the government to only block hardcore porn by default? Will it still be OK for softcore porn sites to be viewed by default in the UK? What about the Daily Mail’s regular pictures of famous girls in bikinis, alongside innuendo-oriented headlines and remarks that they “look old beyond their years”?

For me, this is all about context. I for the life of me cannot see any justification for Page 3 in a national newspaper (or on its website). But in the context of a silo where that’s what would be both what’s expected and also appropriate on visiting (rather than a child stumbling across such material while within the same silo), that seems acceptable, so long as the content is legal.

Additionally, the media’s falling over itself (including, surprisingly, The Observer), slamming Google for not blocking pornography involving children, and saying something should be done. This ignores the rather pesky fact that the IWF already works with ISPs to do this very thing (PC Pro; also, the IWF’s own site). Still, facts get in the way of good stories (and, in the case of The Sun, teenage breasts), so they’re probably best ignored. Unless you’re Ministry of Truth, out to tear apart the claim that 1.5 million British adults have somehow stumbled across online child porn.

This can be a slippery slope

It’s a bit of a tin-foil hat thing to say, but once you start blocking bits of the internet by default, where do you stop? Should the UK government succeed in its efforts to block ‘porn’, would it be satisfied with that? Or would it continue to nibble away at things it doesn’t want online (for our children’s safety, obviously)? I’m not suggesting the UK’s version of the internet would become North Korea’s overnight (nor, for that matter, ever), but once precedent has been set, it would be relatively easy for a government to start blocking something else it doesn’t like—perhaps anti-government political movements.

Porn is being redefined

Finally, one of the more curious things happening during this recent flurry of media activity has been the redefinition of pornography, or more accurately lumping it all together. The path has been that child porn is unacceptable (which is true, but really that should be termed assault) to hardcore porn being unacceptable to the generic ‘porn’ being something that should be blocked online.

Conflating lots of separate issues is good for headlines but bad for everything else. We shouldn’t be lumping in something that’s perfectly healthy (porn for consenting adults) with something that’s abhorrent and illegal (child porn, i.e. sexual assault on children). By the same token, we also shouldn’t be making knee-jerk reactions against tragedies because they play well with pollsters and get eyes on websites.

If there is a problem in the UK that involves pornography, there should be wider investigations, not least involving education. Whatever solution is found, it should put the power into the hands of parents (provide information and education for those who need it; offer blocking but as an opt-in), rather than being a prescriptive decision forced on everyone by politicians looking for a boost in the polls, and that in the long run won’t be nearly as beneficial as its advocates claim.

Slide to Play on Tetris Blitz:

It’s fun, it’s quick, and if you can look past its unsavory freemium trappings, it ought to satisfy your modern puzzle needs.

“It’s tasty, it’s quick, and if you can look past this burger being laced with glass, dead frogs and poison, it ought to satisfy your lunchtime needs.”

Something that’s cropped up in my Twitter feed a lot recently is the assignment of gender to items for purchase, notably magazines and children’s toys. I’m largely against this practice, and responses to that stance have roughly fallen into one of four categories: I’ve got a daughter, this seriously pisses me off, and I agree with you; I just agree with you anyway; I disagree and assigning items by gender in stores is necessary; it doesn’t matter and you are an idiot-face who should get a life.

I’d like to address the last two of those points. I strongly believe gender stereotyping does matter, because it leads to a prescriptive society, one where we’re conditioning both children and adults regarding what’s “not for you”. From a young age, we see a sea of pink for girls and blue for boys; girls are presented with saccharine kitchen equipment made from plastic, whereas boys are offered science kits. As for adults, I today saw a photo from Tesco that faced the following magazines in a section indented for men: The Economist; Private Eye; New Scientist. I’ve seen similar myself in a number of stores (and not just Tesco, although it’s a common offender, even in stores with plenty of shelf space), with the women’s section mostly including things to do with fashion, houses and gardens.

As noted, this kind of behaviour impacts on society, by aligning genders with certain tasks and expectations. The result leads to terribly sad stories: a girl who says she wishes she was a boy, so she could one day go into space; a designer recounting how when she visited a local school, none of the girls had considered going into a technical career, because it just hadn’t occurred to them—it was something boys did.

In stores, we should place more emphasis on listing by category and eliminate listing by gender unless absolutely necessary; the counterpoint I’ve heard to that from several parties is item assignment by gender is frequently necessary and, indeed, in direct response to consumer demands. I’d argue it’s in response to consumer habits, which isn’t quite the same thing, and habits are sometimes there to be broken. Sexism still exists in advertising, but not to the extent it once did (“Christmas morning, she’ll be happier with a Hoover”—without irony), and yet consumers still accept (and claim to want) an immediate gender split when searching for certain products, both in stores and online.

Offline, such categorisation makes little sense and also doesn’t expose someone to a full range. With toys, splitting your audience immediately by gender not only restricts said gender to whatever the seller has deemed appropriate for them, but also essentially eradicates happy accidents, where someone might pick something they’d not previously considered, but perhaps within a category that they enjoy. (For example, games and kits are often split by gender, regardless of whether a girl would, say, actually prefer something on a stereotypically male pursuit like football, or a boy would enjoy making jewellery.) With magazines for adults, such a split seems insulting rather than merely ill-considered, with the possible exception of magazines specifically targeted at a single gender—most style/fashion magazines, for example, although those could just as easily be grouped under that category.

Online, things are trickier, because you can’t just turn your head and see a large selection of products that are available—you instead have to start filtering immediately. With toys, most people would consider whether they’re shopping for a boy or a girl and immediately filter based on that. Online stores therefore cater for this, categorising toys accordingly, in order to maximise sales.

There’s an obvious point that people should really gift-search for a child based on the things that child enjoys rather than specifically aiming at its gender, but the biggest offender here remains assumptive categorisation—the aforementioned ‘pink plastic kitchen for girls’ and ‘science kit for boys’. Stores should by all means attempt to make recommendations by gender (or list top toys for boys/girls, based on actual sales figures) if they feel they’ve no option, but they should also take far more care to categorise items as appropriate for boys and girls. At least then, the result is a wider range for all children. This in combination with gender-based lists is imperfect, but it at least moves things on from the equivalent of a default barely different from those vintage sexist adverts and towards something more befitting of a modern and open society where children have equal opportunities, rather than being shoe-horned into whether they’re ‘pink’ or ‘blue’.

Further reading:

• Let Toys Be Toys campaign
• Gender Agenda, by Laura Kirsop
• Boys will be boys, by Christopher Phin
• How parents are battling sexism in toy shops (Independent, May 2013)
• Tesco keeps chemistry set as a boys’ toy despite protests (Independent, May 2013)
• At Boots, science is for boys and pink princess toys are for girls(Guardian, May 2013)
• Hamleys’ baby steps towards gender equality (Guardian, December 2011)