Sony’s family-friendliness is generational
Santa Monica: Sony is a little puzzled at all the plaudits Nintendo is receiving at E3 for its family-friendly gaming.
Wasn’t it Sony who earlier introduced the EyeToy and a range of games that depended on body movements rather than controller buttons? There have been karaoke, fitness and dancing games to play and the PlayStation3 controller has more motion sensitivity built in than the Wiimote. Read more
Nintendo chief’s game recipe is no diet fad
Santa Monica: When Satoru Iwata, Nintendo’s president, took to the stage at the E3 video games summit this week he talked about cookery, vision training exercises, brain teasers, word games and lifestyle coaching.
The latest Super Mario and Legend of Zelda adventures were left to others to demonstrate. The 47-year-old Nintendo chief is focusing on the non-gamers as his company leads the way in expanding the market with titles for its DS portable and Wii console aimed at nine year olds to 95-year-olds. Read more
Was it something we said? China blocks FT Tech Blog
China’s policy of blocking overseas websites has been noted here on more than one occasion, but it still comes as a surprise to find that FT Tech Blog itself appears to have become a victim of the government’s shadowy censors.
In recent days it has not been possible to access this part of the ft.com website from Beijing and Shanghai, with page requests just timing out – the usual symptom of a blocked site. The blog loads fine if accessed through an offshore proxy site designed to evade the censor. And a quick check on the block-checker site greatfirewallofchina.org (see picture) also suggests we have been blacklisted. Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
