Representatives from the House proposed a new bill that would force retailers to check official identification from anyone purchasing video game titles rated “M” or “AO”. Representatives Jim Matheson and Lee Terry introduced a bill this week pushing for government regulation, just as the Federal Trade Commission released a report that found retail stores selling violent video games to children despite pressure for stores to check identification.

Matheson and Lee’s bill would include requirement of identification checks and stores to post explanations of what the ratings mean. Stores found violating the law would be fined $5,000 per violation by the FTC.

"Many young children are walking into stores and are able to buy or rent these games without their parents even knowing about it. Many retailers have tried to develop voluntary policies to make sure mature games do not end up in the hands of young kids, but we need to do more to protect our children," said Terry. Some stores currently already attempt to enforce age verification before game purchases. Best Buy for example, recently pressured its retail stores to check identification during the first week Grand Theft Auto 4 was launched. Wal-mart appears to already have ESRB ratings posted at their stores and has programmed its cash registers to automatically prompt for identification checks.

Illinois and Louisiana have attempted in the past to enact similar laws, but faced fierce opposition and were struck down as being unconstitutional. It appears Terry and Matheson would like to try their luck again on a nation-wide level.

"As a parent, I know that I’m the first line of defense against my kids playing Mature-rated video games," Matheson said in a statement. "But parents can’t be everywhere monitoring everything and some reasonable, common sense rules ought to be in place to back parents up."

Redmond (WA) - Microsoft continues its practice to announce Office service packs that are scheduled to become available via Microsoft Update automatic distribution at least 30 days in advance. SP1 for Office 2007 has been released in December of last year and is now ready to be distributed via the company’s Automatic Update service.

According to a message posted on Microsoft’s "Office Sustained Engineering" blog, the company will begin distributing SP1 automatically via Automatic Update beginning June 16th. Microsoft plans to ramp the distribution gradually, which means that not all users will see the update right away. The company expects "enormous" demand, but noted that "10’s of millions of downloads" have been delivered since December 8, 2008 - the date the service pack was posted to the firm’s Office 2007 SP1 is a massive, 218.3 MB heavy patch collection that addresses a total of 441 issues (including those published prior to December of 2007) in the software suite, according to the update list. The most heavily patched applications are Outlook (103 patches), Excel (86), Office (62), Access (36) as well as Powerpoint and Word (26 each).

Details of the update are provided in the Knowledge Base article 942995.

The Solid State Drive will completely replace the traditional hard drive in the coming ten years. This is the conclusion we’re drawing as the capacity of flash drives goes up and their prices come down.

SSD’s increase performance, by accessing data much quicker, and lower power consumption – with no mechanical parts moving around they’re quicker and draw less power. The main issue for the adoption of SSD’s today is their high prices – only 32 GB SSD’s are really priced in the consumer field.

However, according to an article published today on Tom’s Hardware that compared several flash drives, SSD’s with capacities of 100+ GB will soon reach the $500 mark, and prices will only fall further from there. The costs of SSD drives are coming down as the price of flash memory does as well. Today’s prices will be halved, at least, by the end of the year making solid state drives a much more attractive buy.

You can read Tom’s Hardware’s review of some very impressive SSD kit here.

Google is moving ahead on its plans to integrate display advertisements into image searches, moving beyond the days of displaying only text-ads on Google.com itself and none at all in image searches.

Google currently displays no ads, text or otherwise, in its search results after users were turned off at the idea, something that Google estimates costs it $200 million a year in revenue. Since acquiring DoubleClick in March however Google has the technology and wherewithal to move forward on smartly integrating visual ads into image search results.

Google AdSense does display image advertisements on third party sites, but what the company is proposing now is a much bigger initiative that will see image advertisements on Google’s own properties, as well as more advanced ones on AdSense.

“We haven’t found a proper way to monetize image search to date,” said Google VP Marissa Mayer, who oversees search products, in an interview with Bloomberg. “You may see us roll out an ads-image search in the future, but when we do you’ll know that’s because we found a way that ultimately enhances user happiness with the product.”

Google could net anywhere from $1 - $2 billion a year in revenue, according to some industry analysts, if it integrates visual ads into its own search results. With Google’s stock price falling the company needs to roll out this new kind of a money-generating service, rather than yet another “We’ll figure out how to make money on it later” type product the company is famous for.

The company has trialled some mock-ups of how to display the ads to users, but hasn’t tried them out on anyone yet. Expect the company to move quickly on this one.

Redmond (WA) - More than 140 million Vista licenses have now been sold, which averages out to around three copies every second since it went on sale last January.

"That’s a very rapid sales rate," said Bill Gates in a news conference, reports the Wall Street Journal.

However, critics are quick to point out a couple things that make the Vista sales number defy actual consumer demand. First off, almost all new computers come with Vista pre-installed, so a new PC equals a new license of Vista.

Even people who opt for the Vista-to-XP downgrade actually buy a copy of Vista, even though they may never touch it. Microsoft did not say how many of the licenses were for upgrades from XP.

Microsoft is struggling to convince consumers that Vista is strong and is the new wave for operating systems. Many people are clinging to their copies of XP, which is the longest-running and most-installed operating system by far.

The software giant recently released the first Service Pack for Vista, which has given new attention to the OS, but only for true enthusiasts.

Tokyo (Japan) - The Japanese government has proposed a new tax on iPods and other digital music players. The so-called Copyright Tax would add approximately $1 per device and the estimated $9.5 million annual proceeds would be distributed to recording companies and artists. In Japan, Minidisk and DVD players are also subject to a Copyright tax and it seems the law makers are just trying to level the playing field.

A similar proposal was floated in Japan in December 2005, but was quickly shot down.

Read more ... International Herald Tribune.

Washington (DC) - The National Association of Broadcasters, which has voice numerous concerns about people not being informed of next year’s digital TV switch, is now calling on George W. Bush to help inform citizens.

The organization’s CEO David Rehr has sent a letter to the White House, highlighting the fact that the digital TV switch is less than 300 days away.

On February 17, 2009, the government will pull the plug on all analog TV signals. This means anyone with an old TV and is still relying on antenna reception will be unable to watch anything.

Anyone with cable or satellite is already covered for the switch, but all others need a digital converter box. Consumers can apply for a coupon from the government that is good for $40 off a converter, which cost between $50 and $70.

Rehr said that millions of Americans will be affected and are still not aware of the looming change. "We are respectfully requesting your assistance in informing American households about the transition," he wrote in his letter to the president.

One suggestion Rehr reportedly made was that Bush and/or Vice President Dick Cheney appear in a TV ad informing citizens about what will happen next February.

"The DTV transition will fundamentally change the way the American people get news about their communities, emergency situations and entertainment. We want to enlist the help of the federal government and the Administration to ensure that happens as seamlessly as possible," said Rehr in the letter.

According to a report from the FCC, over one million digital TV converter coupons have already been redeemed, but several million more will need a converter because they are still using analog TVs with no digital service.

Real Networks today said that it plans to spin off its casual games business into an independent company and distribute shares of the newly created games company to its shareholders. The newly created firm could go into an initial public offering with up to 20% of the shares being sold.

According to Real Networks, the games business division reported 2007 revenues of $108.5 million, up 26% over 2006.

The company anticipates that spinning off its casual games business will result in "two more flexible and focused companies".

Redmond (WA) - Microsoft has started a new initiative that it hopes will make mobile phones more affordable for people in developing countries, in a move similar to the highly publicized "One Laptop Per Child" program.

The company already has a shell of a project called Fone+, which has been moving at a snail’s pace since it was first unveiled a few years ago. However, with the technologies for under-priveleged countries coming back to the spotlight, it decided to move Fone+ forward with a vengeance.

The move comes as Microsoft’s "Unlimited Potential Group," which focuses on developing nations, appointed a new boss. Craig Mundie, chief strategy officer at the software giant, said in a press conference in Indonesia, "All phones go from dumb to smart, and I think that’s a major focus for us in terms of how we can bring access to the Internet and some of these technologies ... to this rural population."

Mundie pointed out that mobile phones can do a lot of things other than communication, specifically go online and become more connected with the world. "It’s a lot cheaper than having to buy a whole separate computer," noted Mundie.

A project called OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) has been making a lot of headway, with third-world countries ordering low-cost computers by the thousands. It has also been dominating the market in those countries, leaving less room for other players like Microsoft.

"We continue to explore and look at both phone-up models and PC-down models as we look for the right devices for emerging markets," said Mundie.

There is an interesting feature in Mac OS X we haven’t known about so far: A user has found that the OS lets you run a screen saver showing off your Twitter friends. It is not really an official feature, but rather a programming example that comes with the Leopard developer tools. With few easy steps, users can take the code and turn it into a regular OS X screen saver.

The "hidden Twitter feature" can be found in the Twitterverse Quartz composition: Quartz composition is described be Apple’s developer documentation as a piece of code that processes and renders graphical data - such files are often created without writing a single line of code, but through the Quartz Composer development tool instead. The developer tools on the OS X Leopard DVD include various Quartz composition example files. Twitterverse is one of them.

The "The Twitterverse.qtz" file cannot be executed by itself, but needs to be dragged from the desktop onto the preview in the Screen Saver tab of the Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane available in the System Preferences. Add your Twitter username and password in the screen saver options and you are ready to go. The screen saver will show a wheel with your Twitter friends and their tweets, as illustrated in Thomson’s Flickr stream.