A Digital Will For Your Google Goods

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Google recently announced a new tool to help users manage and plan for their digital afterlife. The tool is called the “Inactive Account Manager” and allows users to delete or appropriate trusted contacts to their Google properties once they have passed.

“Whatever the reason, we give you the option of deciding what happens to your data,” Google stated in their blog.

Users can choose to have their data deleted three, six, nine or twelve months after it becomes inactive. Idleness can also prompt the system to take effect.  Google won’t automatically delete the information after the allotted time. Rather, the service’s “timeout” period is wired to warn users through a secondary email address or a provided phone number before taking any permanent action.

Besides the most popular Google features, Gmail and Google+, users can choose to have their YouTube account, Blogger, Google Voice and Picasa Web Albums passed on to determined beneficiaries as well.

Providing a way to address digital properties when someone passes, similar to a will, is becoming necessary as people trust more of their personal data to online services and communities. Social networks, cloud data storage services, online photo albums and other digital platforms are housing more personal information than ever before. The number one social network Facebook already allows members to have their accounts “memorialized” or deleted after they pass on.

Twitter has similar option where users can contact administrators to either completely delete or obtain a permanent backup of a deceased user’s account information, including tweets.

These moves could be in response to the fact that written laws in the United States and other countries don’t seem to be fully equipped for how to deal with digital data after death. The fate of digital property rights after someone passes is vague, with complications and legal controversies over loved ones’ accounts more prevalent over the past few years. One recent highly publicized instance {link no longer active} is the story of a young Canadian girl who committed suicide because of relentless bullying from peers. After she died, the taunting messages posted to her account continued to live on her Facebook page.

Google is urging a little planning now to help prevent having personal and vulnerable information out there after someone passes.

“We hope that this new feature will enable you to plan your digital afterlife — in a way that protects your privacy and security — and make life easier for your loved ones after you’re gone.” Google stated.

Learn how to set up the Inactive Account Manager here.

Source: Washington Post

 

Smart Car – The Unfiction Series

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Smart Car is a growing car brand, but there are always questions many people have about safety and size issues. The car company has responded with a few positive testimonials on the backdrop of marker artwork on a Smart Car.

 

Official GTA Radio Playlists Now Available

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Rockstar Games has compiled the entire radio history of Grand Theft Auto on both Spotify and iTunes.  The official playlists feature tracks from all the music stations featured in Grand Theft Auto IV, Episodes from Liberty City, San Andreas, Vice City and more. Some songs that were originally featured in the game aren’t currently on either Spotify or iTunes, but Rockstar is hoping to be able to add the original songs where possible soon. And for those nostalgic for some of the commercials from these games, be sure to check out The Advertising Council repository if you haven’t before – a proper collection of radio adverts from the archives of LC, VC and SA‘s historical radio dials…

 

 

 

Chris Avellone On ‘Cult Of Personality’ And Kickstarter

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Kickstarter for video games so far has been very personality driven, with the best known personalities receiving the highest amount of funding. Chris Avellone has been involved in a few such Kickstarters, though he’s hesitant to say that gaming needs to be more personality driven.

“I think I’d probably take a step back from the answer and just see how AAA titles treat that, because I even feel like even when you’re dealing with games like Ultima or if you’re dealing with Gears Of War,” said Avellone. “I don’t necessarily feel that common public knows who Richard Garriott is, nor would they know who Cliffy B is. People in the industry obviously will but I don’t know if that cult of personality status ever goes beyond the people who actually are more inside the gaming arena. My feeling is that is doesn’t.”

“So therefore my question with Kickstarter is, I don’t think most people outside the gaming arena actually get as involved with Kickstarter as a result, it’s more like a subset of really dedicated gamers that already know who those personalities are or know what that type of game is or know why that game concept is interesting or they know why those people left that studio or what their personal story is. And I think that all factors in.”

“But in terms of whether figures like that can alienate or sort of upset the rest of the team…I suppose that’s always a danger,” he continued. “I think that the thing to do is, I think personalities like that have a responsibility to call out specific people who have done great work on those titles. Just because obviously those personalities certainly have not come up with all of the systems, or even a good percentage of the systems for those games even though they might be the mouthpiece for the game. So I think that’s a real danger and I think that in their role they have a responsibility of making sure that the people that contributed the work that is making everybody successful is being called out specifically and I guess that’s my thought.”

Source: GamesIndustry International

Fez Sold Over 200,000 Copies

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Polytron announced that Fez has sold over 200,000 copies on Xbox Live Arcade. The Indie game, which is being ported to PC, released a year ago to critical praise.

“Since it came out last year, Fez has now sold 200,000 units on XBLA alone. Which is completely f***ing crazy when you think about it,” said Polytron founder Phil Fish. “The game really found its audience (or the audience found it ). Everyday we get far more love mail than hate mail. Every other day people send us fan art, or a picture of a Gomez cake, or a quilt they made, a Drawing, a plushie. seeing people’s notebooks filled with deconstructions of the puzzles and mysteries I had so much fun putting together has been a particularly rewarding experience.”

Consumer Spending Drops In March 2013

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Purchases fell 0.4 percent during March 2013, the most in nine months. The outlook from consumers also took a hit to 72.3 in April from 78.6 a month earlier as employment slowed down.

Economists were optimistic for the best quarter in two years. However, hiring and wage gains will be needed to offset any slowdown as federal budget cuts and an increase in the payroll tax hurt the expansion.

“It’s not as if things are falling apart, they’re just softening relative to a strong start to the quarter,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. “The first quarter still looks better than had been expected a few months ago, particularly in the face of the headwinds.”

Growth this quarter is expected at 1.5 percent as consumer spending cools and sequestration has an impact. “By the time we get to the second half of the year, some of the more severe fiscal headwinds should be fading and second- half growth will look better,” Feroli said.

“Clearly the economy is still pressuring the consumer out there,” Ken Martindale, chief executive officer of drugstore chain Rite Aid Corp.

Consumer spending had held up early in the year, despite a fiscal pact on January 1 by Congress that allowed the tax used to finance Social Security to revert to 6.2 percent, where it was in 2010, from 4.2 percent. “Households are now making those difficult choices on how to adjust spending,” said Ellen Zentner, a senior economist at Nomura Securities International Inc. “We have no steam going into the second quarter.”

Source: Bloomberg.com

Nintendo Retiring Certain Wii Online Services

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Nintendo announced that many of the online channels for the Wii will be discontinued on June 28, 2013. These channels include the Forecast Channel, News Channel, Everybody Votes Channel, Nintendo Channel and the Check Mii Out Channel.

WiiConnect 24’s data exchange between Wii friends will also be discontinued. This means that message exchanges on the Wii Message Board, Mii exchanges on the Mii Channel, and data/message exchange in some game titles will no longer be possible.

Source: Nintendo.com

Random House Enters Free-To-Play Realm

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Random House has announced that it will release the Black Crown, a free-to-play narrative title. This is being done in conjunction with Failbetter and their StoryNexus browser-based tool for creating interactive fiction.

“Supported and funded by Random House, Black Crown is powered by Failbetter Games’ StoryNexus platform, with special functionality created for the Black Crown project,” Random House announced. “The author will be revealed on launch in May.”