Instead of talking about death and destruction and the callousness and emptiness of some sad human souls, let's focus on something bright and cheery for news today. Something even better than Ponies and Kittens: customer service done right!

Saska recounts the story of her three-month old Wii, which, as is customary in these types of stories, wasn't working properly. Luckily for her, she was able to get in contact with Nintendo's customer service rep, who not only did some quick thinking about Saska location to the CSR's position, but also offered to fix their broken console in thirty minutes if she could come up to their offices in Washington, D.C. It gets even better:

In those 25 minutes, they'd transferred all of my Miis, friends, and saved games from the old console to a new one. She logged on to make sure my 500 points transferred to the shopping channel. She sent me out with a $0.00 invoice showing a warranty replacement of my Wii and a reset of the warranty clock, meaning the Wii I took home has 15 months of coverage from today, even though I bought my original one almost 3 months ago.

It seems unbelievable, but the pictures we're showing here are of the actual place she went to with her son, complete with demo stations and a sweet Ninty display. In any case, definitely read the link. It's a great story that speaks of stellar customer service and a motherly opinion on a monolithic gaming company.

  

Last month we posted an article about the confirmation of Doug Lowenstein's resignation as President of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). Further reports have revealed that Lowenstein will be making his last speech as ESA President before attendees and guests at this year's DICE Summit.

According to Games Industry, Lowenstein's talk is titled "The ESA: Past, Present and Future". He will be delivering the talk on the second day of the summit, which will take place at the Green Valley Ranch Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas from February 7 to February 9. Later in the month, Lowenstein will start his new role as as head of the new Private Equity Council in Washington DC.

The keynote speaker for this year's DICE Summit will be Yair Landau, vice chairman for Sony Pictures Entertainment. Personages such as Sony's Phil Harrison and Will Wright, creator the popular Sims games, will also be speaking at the summit.

Corporations, institutions, and business setting up shop in Second Life seems to be the trend now-a-days, and it seems that there isn't any slowing down.

The Washington Post reports that this month, Sears Holdings Corp, in partnership with International Business Machines Corporation (er, IBM) unveiled Sears Virtual Home, a showroom on Second Life. There are also reports that Circuit City Stores Inc. have built a showroom in Second Life with IBM's help.

As trendy as it is at the moment, industry watchers are warning that the popularity of setting up shop in virtual worlds could backlash. Gartner Group analyst Steve Prentice has said earlier this month that SL was "heading toward the peak of the hype cycle" and faces the possibility of growing disillusionment among its community.

Playing it safe, the showrooms that Sears and Circuit City are just that, showrooms. Visitors can browse products, but they cannot purchase. However, despite the caution, there are hopes that consumers will eventually be able to redesign areas of their own homes (with the products) using the virtual online showroom.

Paul Miller, senior vice president of direct commerce at Sears had this to say:

The real goal here is to introduce people to the brand and in doing so, increase people's level of awareness. Does that translate into sales at some point? I think so.

With all the increasing information about Mars, it is but fitting that NASA starts scouting for proposals that would further pursue Mars missions and studies. On Monday, they have narrowed down the search to two, which are proposals for future robotic missions. Included in the objectives of these proposals are the study of the red planet's atmosphere, climate and potential habitability.

According to Mary Cleave, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, NASA headquarters, Washington, "These mission selections represent unprecedented future research that will lead further advancing our knowledge of [Mars'] climate, and atmospheric composition."

The two finalists for the mission search are:

• Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, or MAVEN: The mission would provide first-of-its-kind measurements and address key questions about Mars climate and habitability and improve understanding of dynamic processes in the upper Martian atmosphere and ionosphere. The principal investigator is Bruce Jakosky, University of Colorado, Boulder. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., will provide project management.

• The Great Escape mission: The mission would directly determine the basic processes in Martian atmospheric evolution by measuring the structure and dynamics of the upper atmosphere. In addition, potentially biogenic atmospheric constituents such as methane would be measured. The principal investigator is Alan Stern, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado. Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, will provide project management.

Each will be granted an initial funding of approximately US$ 2 million for a nine-month implementation feasibility study. From these two proposals, NASA will then select by late 2007 the one that will be pursued for full development as a Mars Scout mission. The chosen one will then have a budget of no more than US$ 475 million, and may be ready for take-off by 2011.

Here on Earth, the common notion is that a lake is a body of water surrounded entirely by land. But imagine a lake on Saturn's largest moon, the Titan. The planet itself being so far away from the Sun, it comes as no surprise that the temperature there would be much lower. On Titan, it is 90 degrees Kelvin, in fact.

Surely, this has an effect on the kind of elements present there. If you are to think that nothing else but a body of water can be a lake, then you are highly mistaken. Because on Titan, over 75 lakes ranging in size from about a mile and a half to 40 miles across have been detected, and they are not filled with water. Instead, cradled in the lakes as liquid is methane. Here on Earth, it is a form of gas. But out there, it's clearly liquid.

Dr. Ellen Stofan of the Proxemy Research in Washington DC, as well as a member of the Cassini Radar team explains this as being caused by the really low temperature on the moon. They also believe that the lakes have another kind of hydrocarbon compound of some sorts in them, called ethane.

Interestingly enough, although the chemistry is apparently different on Titan, the lakes' behaviour do resemble their Earthly counterparts. Says Stofan, "The methane-ethane would become transparent, the way water is on Earth, it would be behaving like water, the lakes could have small waves on the surfaces." What also got them into thinking that these are, in fact, lakes is the way that other channels feed into then, their shapes, shorelines, and all of those geological aspects of the lake.

The team's discovery is featured in this week's journal "Nature".

The Emsdetten shooting in Germany has only fired up even more the likes of Jack Thompson into pushing for not only having stricter gaming regulations, but actually making the creators and the consumers liable. Their battlecry: We must protect our children, and these video games are only feeding their minds aggressive and potentially criminal tendencies.

Now, who would dare contest that noble goal? Who wouldn't want to protect their children, and who would want them to grow up as criminals? No one, naturally. But if that is the case, then why is this issue making such a ruckus, if in the end, we only want to forward what is best for the children's interest?

Because the issue goes way deeper than just what these kids get their hands on for entertainment. Blaming the violent video games for the criminal actions of teenagers is but the tip of the iceberg. Considerably, the proposed legislations of prohibiting the sale of violent video games to minors and penalizing the producers and players alike of the said games encroach into other deeper primordial issues, such as privacy.

But let us not get into that yet. Allow me first to lay out to you what exactly are the basis for the aforementioned proposals. We all know for a fact that this anti-violent video games campaign is nothing new. Several countries, at one point in time since video games became such a hit, have already come face to face with legislations that would curb the reach of video games.

While there may be a lot of cases involving minors and shooting sprees, the landmark case would have to be the Columbine High School shootings. The event proved to be absolutely shocking, that people for the most part were just dumbfounded at what transpired that fateful day. The perpetrators, mere students themselves, did not show any signs of aggressive behavior prior to their killing spree. They were, however, avid fans of first-person shooter games.

To see more analysis on whether or not video game censorship is the way to go, read on to Full Article.

This next one is about Wiimote straps. You know what, we can give you links after links of the unfortunate accidents that caused a lot of broken TV sets and a swap scheme now being employed by Nintendo. However, we reckoned we don't have to anymore because we are pretty sure you all know (or have experienced) what happened.

Anyway, we're bringing up the matter once more because it came to our attention that a certain law firm just filed a nationwide class action lawsuit against Nintendo. Green Welling LLP, accordingly, is suing NoA as result of the defective nature of the Nintendo Wii. On the firm's official site, they mentioned:

Nintendo's failure to include a remote that is free from defects is in breach of Nintendo’s own product warranty. The class action lawsuit seeks to enjoin Nintendo from continuing its unfair or deceptive business practices as it relates to the Nintendo Wii.The lawsuit also seeks an injunction that requires Nintendo to correct the defect in the Wii remote and to provide a refund to the purchaser or to replace the defective Wii remote with a Wii remote that functions as it is warranted and intended.

Whoa, hold it right there. Sure, some of the straps may have been defective but are they certain Nintendo would do this on purpose? It would have been less absurd if Nintendo is selling TVs or something. They would ship weak straps so TVs would be broken and in turn, people would be buying new sets.

Sounds silly? Yeah, same here. Welcome to the club. At any rate, the lawsuit has been filed already in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. We now await NoA's response...

Traditional robots have been (and still are) controlled by remote control, a set of pre-programmed movements, or a set of algorithms to create a so-called "intelligent" robot with it's own personality.

However, scientists at the University of Washington have been working on a new way to control a gadget fan's best friend - not through technology but using the immense power of human thought. The technology is proving to be a huge success with an alleged 94% accuracy between the thought commands and the robot's movements. Of course, this isn't an episode of "Star Trek" - the commands the robot can accept are currently limited to moving forward and taking an object from one place to another.

Rajesh Rao, the leading researcher on the project at the University of Washington, said, "It suggests that one day we might be able to use semi-autonomous robots for such jobs as helping disabled people or performing routine tasks in a person's home."

This is certainly one robot that would make a real change in the home for the better, and not in the style of the film "I, Robot." Hopefully this technology will advance further. Rao sees a bright future for this technology and is looking forward to the robot accepting more complex commands and tasks.

Watch the video here.

One very cool way of earning money is by playing videogames and joining competitions. While it sounds easy and heavenly, it is actually not. Just imagine the number of participants in any given gaming event. Of all those players, only the top three would be getting prizes normally. So if you want to make a living out of playing games, you better make sure you end up on the top of the heap.

Anyway, to all of you who are interested, the Electronic Gaming League (ELG) will be hosting a regional tournament this coming January 19 to 21 at the Sheraton Reston in Washington, DC. This is actually the fourth regional tournament of the league's inaugural interstate U.S. pro tour for this season. According to EGL Tournament Director Ryan Baron:

The D.C. tournament is one of our most ambitious venues yet and promises to be a real battle of wits. We're expecting to see some of the most intense gaming of the season. We've got people coming from all over the east coast to either make a name for themselves or defend their reputations. The area is known for fostering some the world’s elites and it's definitely going to be a shootout.

Speaking of shootout, the games roster for the competition include Halo 2, Super Smash Brothers Melee and Dead or Alive 4 as well as some unannounced ones. Group or team competitions involve cash prizes of US$ 3,500 while individual winners can bag in up to US$ 750.

The EGl 2006-2007 season will end sometime in May of 2007. Top teams and players by then will be invited to  a post-season finals in Las Vegas to contend for the National EGL.  Prizes there, needless to say, are much higher totalling up to US$ 15,000 for the grand winner.

Yes, we love our violent video games, but the truth is, we're entitled to them. Most of us gamers are over 18 after all, so we should be considered "mature" enough to handle and at the same time be entertained by all the blood, sex, and gore that we immerse ourselves in while playing our favourite games.

The problem with that, is that's all that the outside world thinks about us. Outsiders generally view the gaming sub-culture as a collection of violence addicted pre-pubescent-underage or overage-yet-still-stuck-in-the-basement, pimply anti-social avoidant, self indulgent, will never enjoy the company of the opposite sex, individuals. Despite the presence of gamer-culture/geel-culture centric websites and TV channels, a lot of old farts in power still don't "get it."

They tend to forget that a lot of gamers now-a-days aren't only young people who play games, but are people who make art, people who earn billions making games, people who have children of their own, and people who are care.

Think of this post as a collection of recent news stories that show very good examples of how we gamers should represent ourselves to the world.

Giving back to the community...

You've got to hand it to those guys from Penny-Arcade, they know how to give back to the community. They really do their best to make claims that say that gamers are know-nots or that gamers are violence addicted yahoos irrelevant. For one thing, officials of the Child's Play Charity, a gamer-focused toy drive organized by Penny Arcade, has recently announced that more than $495,000 worth of toys, games, and books on the wish lists of more than 35 participating children's hospitals have been donated as part of the gamer supported charity.

It doesn't stop there. The annual charity auction dinner of Child's Play is set to be held next week. All proceeds from the auction will be set to assist hospitals within the charity's network. This year's dinner is scheduled to take place on Wednesday December 13 in Bellevue, Washington.

Items up for bid this year include a Wii console autographed by Reggie Fils-Aime, a speaking line in Halo 3, a PS3 console, an appearance in the Penny Arcade comic strip, Penny Arcade artwork, tickets to the Halo 3 launch party, an Xbox 360, ATI Radeon video cards, collectors edition of Guildwars Nightfall, and a whole lot more.

With items like those, people will definitely bid.

Get the rest of the article after the Jump!