Biofuels are more environment-friendly than fossil fuel, sure, but is it worth the price? According to a leaked report, Biofuel production has forced global food prices up by as much as 75%. When you use food to create gas instead of eating it, a tug-of-war was inevitable. Read more about it in the full article.

The European Union (EU) took a big chunk out of Nintendo's assets as the video game company was recently levied a fine of €149.1 million (US$ 232 million) due to price fixing issues. The court filings from the commission mentioned that Nintendo failed to pay "particular vigilence" in preventing price collusion with distributors as their role as producer. For more details regarding this story, check out our full article.

What would you do to protect minors from violent images? For the European Union, that would mean coaxing the video game industry to come up with a widely-accepted code of conduct for that very purpose. The EU has set a deadline for that, too. More politics follows after the jump.

It's not too long ago that video game firms in the UK voiced out how their own government "strangles" one of its own thriving industries, and they noted how the Canadian government could be so wise to encourage their game industry by pushing out helpful programs and incentives. Incidentally, the UK has noticed that too - but only after losing many studios to the pro-gaming nation. More industry news at the full story.

The use of mobile phones on planes is currently prohibited because these gadgets cause interference with on-board communication and navigation systems. Interestingly, we found out today that members of the European Union are devising a technology that would permit passengers to make calls 3,000 meters above Earth.

The said technology uses an on-board base station called pico cell that will communicate with the headsets of the passengers. Aside from having low power consumption, this pico cell is able to create a network area that will re-route the phone calls to a satellite.

The satellite, then, will be the one responsible for connecting the phone calls to mobile networks on the ground. Because of these processes, making calls from a plane will cost significantly higher than normal mobile phone calls. Regulators around Europe are saying, however, that they will monitor the rates charged by networks to avoid abuse.

One spokesperson from carrier Virgin Atlantic said, "We are monitoring customer demand and will act if they say they want to use their mobile phones. If we were to introduce this service in the future we want to ensure we do it in a socially acceptable way." EU regulators added that the technology could be available next year.

Ar first, this will only be implemented with 2G phones. But if consumers respond favorably to the service, the same will also be offered to 3G phones and other standards.

Just because it's big doesn't mean that it's invincible: Microsoft, creator of the widely popular Windows operating system and the Xbox 360 console, had its request to overturn a 2004 anti-trust ruling rejected by the European Court of First Instance.

The court ordered Microsoft to honor the March 2004 commission order, which required Microsoft to ensure that its products will work with other systems. A US$ 689.4 million fine was also placed for allegedly abusing their dominant status over the market.

The official statement delivered by the European Union has stated the following:

The court has upheld a landmark commission decision to give consumers more choice in software markets. Microsoft must now comply fully with its legal obligations to desist from engaging in anti competitive conduct. The commission will do its utmost to ensure that Microsoft complies swiftly.

Many are ecstatic with the European Court's ruling, and considers the ruling a victory for the software market. "This is an incredibly huge victory. The doors are kept open now for competition," said Carlo Piana, a lawyer representing the Free Software Foundation Europe.

Looks like that's one anti-trust case over and done with for the European Commission (for now, at least). With high-profile cases like the unofficial HD-DVD and Blu-ray probe, the EU Commission doesn't have much time for rest.

61-year-old Israeli pediatrician Igal Kushnir and his company Deep Breeze has developed a new technology called Vibration Response Imaging (VRI). What it does is measure energy generated in the lungs, analyze it, and then display an image of the person's lungs in one go.

This new technology has been found to accurately diagnose lung conditions such as asthma, pneumonia, and lung tumors.
 
What makes this method so amazing is the fact that it uses no radiation. It works by analyzing acoustic vibrations resonating or sounds from a person's lungs, much like a stethoscope. The lung vibrations are then fed to a computer, where it's displayed as images.

Deep Breeze was given approval by the US Food and Drug Administration last July 23 to begin marketing a VRI device in the U.S. Other countries such as Israel, the European Union, and South Korea have also cleared the product for distribution.

While the technology is still expensive at an average price of US$ 40,000 to US$ 50,000 per unit. Deep Breeze is working to create cheaper versions of it which will go for as low as US$ 10,000 per machine. This is big news in the medical community as this device will undoubtedly save a lot of lives by removing a lot of the guesswork usually experienced in using the common stethoscope.

The European Union has once again shown its commitment to fight global warming by taking the initiative to replace most of its current lighting systems with energy-saving light bulbs.

By the end of the decade, the 27 member states of the European Union hopes that all of the lighting systems from homes to offices and even street light will be energy efficient. "We're not saying people should throw out all the bulbs in their house today but people should start looking at what's in the shops" says German Chancellor Angela Markel.

Multinational light bulb makers like Philips may get their shot at contributing to the action by developing means to improve the current lighting technology. The average European is willing to use energy savers, they say, but energy-efficient lights aren't quite as bright as the conventional ones.

Energy-efficient lights help slow down global warming because they consume less power. When less power is consumed, there is less need to burn fossil fuels, thus less smoke is emitted by generators, thereby preserving the integrity of the ozone layer and lessening chlorofluorocarbons which trap the heat in our planet.

Ahah! Straight from Electronic Arts' Battlefield 2142 site, we have found that they have scheduled an all-weekend online ranked event.  The event will feature all unlocked weapons (yes all of them) so that players that haven't had the chance to try out or dreamed of trying out the unlockable weapons in-game can preview them.

The unlockables will be available during the course of four days. Count them: from this Friday to midnight (PST) of Monday, EA will be granting each unlockable to every player who logged in and are playing during the period.

The grants will come one-by-one, progressively, as players continue to battle each other in the epic battle of the European Union and the Pan Asian Coalition.

So what are you waiting for? Log in now!

It is the nature of every company to do everything in its power to promote its product. It's only logical, when you really think about it. With that said, can we ask you one thing? What do you think about viral marketing?

Before we proceed, we guess it is only proper to provide a definition of this practice for the purposes of discussion. As applied to the gaming industry: Viral marketing is a kind of advertising wherein a major company promotes its own product by coming up with a seemingly independent media like a blog and/o other amateur websites.

There. At the surface, it seems like a normal and harmless practice - the companies are just trying to create a word-of-mouth snowball effect to maximize profit. However, we have to take into consideration that these people are journalists as well. This practice is bordering on being unethical because how can one be objective if he's being paid by his news source?

This is the exact same reasoning given by the European Union as it announced plans to block and ban viral marketers or what it refers to as sock-puppets. The law, which states that it is illegal for companies to self-promote through websites which give the illusion of independence, will take effect on December 31, 2007.

The said law also covers people with vested interests reviewing their own products on various sites such as Amazon. Those who will violate the new directive will be named and shamed by Trading Standards or taken to court.