Playing video games improves vision

Playing high-action video games for a few hours each day can improve vision, according to researchers in the US, reports PC World.

The researchers from the University of Rochester, in New York, found people who play video games for a few hours a day over the course of a month can improve certain aspects of their vision by about 20%.

Playing the games changes the pathways in the brain responsible for visual processing, as the brain adapts to the additional pressure that playing such games puts on the visual system.

The total number of mobile telephone subscriptions in Japan topped 100 million for the first time in January, BusinessWeek.com reports.

Mobile phone service subscriptions rose to 100.22 million as of 31 January, a 0.4% increase from 99.83 million the previous month, said Japan's Telecommunications Carriers Association.

The figure combines data for mobile phone contracts with subscriptions to personal handyphone systems, a type of mobile phone service developed in Japan.

Keeping information secure in this age of laptop-lugging workers is the technology industry's most formidable challenge, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates says, reports CNN Technology.

Speaking to an annual gathering of 15 000 computer security experts in San Francisco, Gates invoked the metaphor of a medieval castle to explain the problem: Programmers build bigger moats and thicker fortress walls - but they don't bother to protect the corporate crown jewels when members of their fiefdom exit the castle and leave the drawbridge open.

"We used to think of the data centre as a glass house that was very isolated," Gates said. "But if we look [at] what actually goes on - consultants come into your company, employees who are not onsite need full access - we cannot think of that glass house as the way to define what can connect to what. We need a far more powerful paradigm."

ESPN is relaunching its shuttered cellphone service through Verizon Wireless, this time delivering its feed of sports scores, news and video highlights through an established industry player instead of competing for subscribers with its own full-blown wireless brand, Forbes says.

The multiyear agreement, giving Verizon Wireless exclusive US rights to offer the Mobile ESPN application on its V Cast phones, is expected to be announced today, executives at both companies said.

The companies also plan to introduce a broadcast TV service for cellphones, which will feature an ESPN channel with much of the same programming shown on its sports cable networks.