The Wii has figured prominently in areas mostly detached from the video gaming sphere. Still, this one made me do a double take. The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly using Wii Balance Boards to figure out if people entering an airport have hostile intent.

Look back for a sec and try to remember which brand has been the most talked about, most advertised, and most hyped last year. Well, social media services provider Vitrue did more than just that, measuring the amount of mentions of around 2000 brands, naming the 100 most social brands of 2008. The top, the runners-up, and the gaming brands are all in the full article.

Monday morning in Virgina, a 6-year-old kid misses his bus to school. What's a kid to do? He's about to be late! Well, obviously, take your family's car and get your tardy butt to the campus, of course! And that's just what the kid (name undisclosed, so we'll just call him "Lil Nicky" - you'll know why in a bit) did. Aren't kids just amazing these days? If they're not fighting battles in court to legalize hedgehogs, they're driving themselves to school.

*Update* CNN video included!

How far would you go for your favorite video game character? This kid went all the way to court. 11-year-old Judson King was such a Sonic the Hedgehog fan that he decided he wanted the real thing - only to find out that hedgehogs were illegal in his city. What's a boy to do but take the case to court?

Most of us can agree that the PlayStation 3 desperately needs a price cut. But when CNN says it, whoa nelly: "Tell yourself the PS3 has superior graphics if it makes you feel better, but a $400 console with a mediocre game library simply cannot compete against an Xbox 360 priced at $200 in this economy."

Ouchies.

Novint Technologies Inc. announced that it will be releasing drivers for the Falcon game controller which will allow users to experience "realistic game actions and force feedback" while playing Blizzard's World of Warcraft. More in the full article.

Good news, Rock Band fans! We've got some juicy new details related to the upcoming Rock Band 2. Find out the platforms the game will be headed on, the number of tracks, and the general release date of the game after the jump!

Players may have been able to get their hands on Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto 4 already, but that doesn't mean that the game has escaped the notice of certain concerned parties. In fact, Jack Thompson and Gavien Mckiernan of the Parents Television Council are still speaking out on this controversial game. It's all in the video after the jump.

Talk about rubbing it in: Best Buy is giving out US$ 50 gift cards to all of its customers who bought HD DVD players or HD DVD attachments before February 23. What's with the date? This was within the week that Toshiba dropped the format and sealed HD DVD's fate. Details in the full article.

Remember the news about the satellite that the US lost contact with back in late January? Well, someone believes that it might be harmful to denizens of planet Earth once it re-enters after all. The Pentagon's top brass that think shooting it down is the best way to stop NROL-21, the recon satellite, from burning up in the atmosphere and releasing its poisonous rocket fuel.

*UPDATE*: They're gonna shoot it. And they've probably launched now!