"Ok, we give in" say Microsoft "mandatory 'time outs' to go check out porn sites aren't as popular as we expected,

and so we are abandoning the 'you've spent long enough on your X-Box, so time to go search the internet for porn' feature on the new X-Box" announces Don Mattrick, the President of Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, "but it does mean we will have to now have some design compromises which will mean that 'wherever we go my games are always with me' won't be the case, unless of course you already carry them around with you, say in a case, when you want to take your games with you and carry on doing that or buy a case and start carrying it around with you when you want to take your games with you; in which case they will".

Criticism against the Xbox One for its original restrictions on game sharing and its need to connect to the internet came not only from the public and the press, but also from Microsoft’s rivals. The unveiling of the PS4 by Sony at E3 even included a 22-second spoof video entitled 'Official PlayStation Used Games Instructional Video' showing two Sony employees simply handing a game from one to the other.

Marc Whitten – the vice president of Xbox Live also confirmed another change, abolishing the Xbox One’s proposed region locking: "You could buy a console in any country and use it any country," said Whitte. "You can use any disc in that console."

Whitten also clarified the future for Xbox One’s digital policy in an interview with gaming website Polygon, saying that "While we are adding in the ability to use physical discs, we still believe in the power of a digital and cloud-powered future played out at launch and rolled out over time. You are going to see us invest a ton in all of the ways digital builds experiences."

"Deadly new virus emerges from Middle East where it has killed 38,000 people in a year"

From The Daily Mail:

A deadly new virus that has emerged in the Middle East is thought to be more dangerous than SARS after it killed 38,000 people in a year.

More than 60,000 cases of SCWS (Syrian Civil War Syndrome) have been reported in the last year by the World Health Organisation. Most of those who have the disease, which can spread easily between Sunnis and Shiites, were in Syria, reported Fox News, with isolated outbreaks in Lebanon.

There was a global outbreak of SARS in 2003, killing 800 people, and some experts note the resemblances between the two as both spread easily between towns and cities.

Symptoms are also similar, with many homeless refugees suffering from a fever and cough that develops into pneumonia. Other symptoms include profuse bleeding from bullet wounds and in extreme cases missing limbs or instant death.

But, doctors note that the fatality rate is higher. Eight per cent of SARS patients died, while 65 per cent of SCWS cases are believed to have been fatal. However, the illness so far has not spread as quickly as SARS did.

Dr. Trish Perl a senior hospital epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine said that she thought it was a lot like SARS. She added: "In the right circumstances, the spread could be explosive.

"In fact, explosives appear to be the underlying transmission mechanism in the majority of cases."

"Invisible poor children let down by schools, says Ofsted head"

From the BBC:

Many of the children being left behind in schools now are in suburbs, market towns and seaside resorts rather than big cities, England's chief inspector of schools has said.

In a speech, Sir Michael Wilshaw said most teachers found it difficult to pay attention to the needs of pupils whom they could not actually see, even in schools rated good or outstanding in quite affluent areas.

'Invisible children'

He wants a new team of "National Service Teachers" sent in to help who will wave their hands a few inches above all apparently empty seats at the beginning of each lesson and will alert the class teacher to where the invisible pupils are sitting.

Sir Michael has praised big improvements in London schools. And he says other big cities, such as Birmingham, Greater Manchester, Liverpool and Leicester, have also made great strides.

'X-ray vision'

"Today, many of the disadvantaged children performing least well in school can be found in leafy suburbs, market towns or seaside resorts," he said in the speech in London.

"Often they are spread thinly, as an 'invisible minority' across areas that are relatively affluent. These poor, unseen children can be found in mediocre schools the length and breadth of our country.

"Or more to the point, they cannot be found."

'Shape shifters'

"Professor Xavier has shown what can be achieved, and we call on the parents of children who are invisible or suffer other learning handicaps, such as X-ray vision or the ability to shape-shift, to take advantage of the free schools programme and set up new schools based on his School for Gifted Youngsters.

"But I'd draw the line at those nutcases who can throw fireballs from their bare hands. They're always trouble."

Brief tremor in earth's gravitational field

Look at the first three pictures of this week's Celebrity Bust-up Couple.

In the first picture, the surface of the wine on each glass is level, as you would expect.

In the second picture, the very localised tremor manifests itself in and around Charles' glass and the surface is at an angle:


By the time the third picture was taken, the tremor has passed and the surfaces are both level again.

Just Fancy That - or "compare and contrast"

To be found at the personal web site of Hazel Blears MP

Item 1: Name and shame firms which use unpaid interns says Hazel

Hazel is calling on treasury chiefs to name and shame companies found to be employing unpaid interns.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has revealed that during 2012/13 it ordered nine firms to pay £200,000 to people who had worked for them as unpaid interns. But it has refused to identify any of the companies involved.

Under the law, anyone with set hours and responsibilities should be paid at least the National Minimum Wage.

Hazel called for Treasury officials to do more to enforce the law when she met with Treasury officials and employment minister Jo Swinson about the problem in January...

Item 2: Kids Without Connections was launched by Salford and Eccles MP Hazel Blears last year when young people did placements with local firms.

Ms Blears began the scheme after becoming increasingly concerned by the number of young people who told her they had missed out on jobs because they did not have the experience, but they could not get the experience because they had not had a job.

But within a couple of months of celebrating their involvement in the first Kids Without Connection at a special Parliament reception, around half of the 23 young people involved had found meaningful jobs.

Ms Blears is now inviting companies interested in offering a young person up to four weeks of unpaid work experience during the second Kids Without Connections scheme to learn more about what is involved...

Obviously some types of "unemployed people" deserve to be paid at least national minimum wage whilst gaining all important work experience and some - those from poorer backgrounds, whose families may not have connections among relatives, friends and colleagues to help them get work experience, it would appear - don't.

No doubt Hazel can explain why the distinction?

"200 stone driver is rescued by 320 emergency workers in £200,000 operation"

From The Daily Mail:

An obese driver was trapped in his vehicle for more than a day as emergency services staff struggled to transfer him to a specialist ambulance for overweight patients.

The middle-aged man, thought to be from West Sussex and parts of Kent, was injured when his Humvee crashed into the back of several buses on the A29 road in Adversane, near Billingshurst.

In a rescue operation involving 320 emergency services staff the man was cut from his vehicle and moved into a bariatric ambulance – designed to cope with patients weighing more than a ton.

It took 180 firefighters, eighty police officers and sixty paramedics to haul him from the wreckage and the cost of the operation is thought to have been around £200,000...

Martin McKilligin, of the Falmouth Sealife Centre said: "Once he has recovered from his injuries, the man will be released back into the English Channel where he will delight whale watchers for years to come."

"The DWP conned us, and our members" says a visibly upset Employment Related Services Association

"dangling the carrot of 'easy money' for 'helping' those out of work find work, and now we find we are expected to actually do something for the money, it isn't fair..." or if you prefer the properly balanced BBC version of the tale:

Work Programme 'not doing enough'

"The costs of helping jobseekers on ESA back into work are significant and cannot all be met by the Work Programme," says the Association's chief executive, Kirsty McHugh. "In order for there to be a significant step change in performance in helping these jobseekers into employment, we need greater use of skills and health budgets."

And to give the BBC credit it manages to sum up that plea from ERSA very nicely indeed :-

The call for spending from other parts of the public sector to be channelled in to support the Work Programme is an embarrassment for this flagship government scheme.

Well yes, another example of the "do it so much better" private sector asking that it be allowed to pass the burden of doing what it is contracted to do over to the failing "public sector" whilst this not impacting on its "payment by (sic) results" profits.

But interestingly ERSA are not castigating Atos, holder of the DWP issued contract for reassessing Incapacity Benefit holders for ESA, and new ESA claims, which is resulting in all these "people declared not ill and suitable for undertaking work" who are now being directed at the Work Programme providers to actually complete the chain and find them that work.

The Department for Work and Pensions says the payment-by-results contracts agreed with Work Programme providers already give them "a clear financial incentive to support the hardest to help into work".

Oh dear, the initial DWP response to the "can we renegotiate the entire contract two years in" plea from ERSA seems to be a firm, if carefully worded "no way". Wonder how long that line will be maintained.

Of course, the "What would you prefer, to have a benefits sanction or ahem freely admit that

 'this test and the DWP are both simply brilliant; both make me feel so much better about myself'" question, may have influenced that just slightly.

"The Cabinet Office, which is handling press inquiries about the investigation, has said the tests are supported by "strong academic literature and  that they had received "strong positive feedback from jobseekers who took the test"

"The strengths survey is a voluntary exercise jobseekers can undertake to help rebuild self-confidence and identify character strength," a spokesman said. "It is important to note that this is not a workplace test and the survey output is for use by the claimants themselves."

The tests, called My Strengths, were exposed by bloggers in April and include questions such as: "I never go out of my way to visit museums," and: "I have not created anything of beauty in the last year".

A letter to job seekers said the character test was "scientifically shown to find people's strengths" "Failure to comply with this direction may result in loss of benefit," it added.

The DWP has always maintained that taking the test was never mandatory but in an FOI response at the end of May, the DWP were forced to reveal that although it was policy not to threaten jobseekers to take the 48-question survey, a small number had in fact been "directed" to complete it."

"Traffic light labelling introduced for politicians"

From The Daily Mirror:

A traffic light ­labelling system is being brought in for all the major political parties and taxpayer-funded bodies from today.

At-a-glance data showing levels of duplicity, dishonesty, laziness, self-importance and corruption will be used for each MP or local councillor, franked from green (trustworthy), through amber (take with a large pinch of salt) to red ('on the take' or 'downright stupid' and can be ignored).

Guideline Bullshit Amounts (GBA) have been replaced by "Reference Outputs" to show how much of the maximum permitted daily output of propaganda and thoughtless tub-thumping is in a typical 100-word section of their speeches, letters or articles.

After years of politicians running their own ways of misrepresenting facts and figures, the Office for National Statistics has drawn up the traffic light charter to make the choice easier for voters.

It comes as politicians pump out yet more made-up figures, such as the baseless claim that health problems associated with being overweight or obese cost the NHS more than £5 billion a year, which was promptly marked with red.

Almost two thirds of MPs in England are corrupt, stupid or lazy, a third of local councillors and a quarter of Assembly members, all of whose public utterances will now be clearly marked with the red traffic light.

Public Health Minister Anna Soubry said: "The UK already has the largest number of wild claims which are complete and utter bollocks and we know that people get confused by the variety of lies that are used. We're not even consistent, are we? Research shows that, of all the current schemes, people like this label the most and they can use the information to make better choices at the ballot box.

"We all have a responsibility to tackle the challenge of double-dealing and corruption, including the quangocrats and academics. By having all major political parties and most media outlets signed up to the consistent label, we will all be able to see at a glance whether a politician is to be believed. This is why I want to see all newspapers and universities signing up and using the label."

Campaign and pressure groups welcomed the scheme.

Which? executive director Richard Lloyd said:

"This labelling scheme will encourage our leaders to do more to reduce the amount of complete and utter dissembling in their pronouncements. The National Trust and the CPRE will have to add bright red stickers to each baseless claim suggesting that England is being concreted over."

British Heart Foundation chief executive Simon Gillespie added:

"This is undeniably a first-class scheme that will make it easier for shoppers to scan the shelves for what they would really like to eat and ignore the petty-minded nonsense that comes from my own taxpayer- or Big Pharma-funded lobbying fronts such as my own.

"All of our tosh about high levels of diet-related chronic diseases in the UK, including heart disease has confused shoppers quite a lot and it's essential we have clear and consistent labelling on all BHF press release so that journalists and readers can cheerfully ignore them.

"We're solid red, by the way."

"Well it works for us" say Crest ....

Crest Nicholson has reported increased revenue and profit off the back of  the government’s latest drive to support house building.

In half year results released yesterday, the house builder reports a 75 per cent rise in profit for the six months to 30 April compared to the same period the previous year, from £12.5 million to £21.9 million. Revenue is up 30 per cent across the same time frame, and completions increased 9 per cent, from 746 to 810 homes.

Gross profit margin fell slightly from 28.3 per cent to 27.8 per cent.

Stephen Stone, chief executive of Crest Nicholson, said: 

‘Purchaser demand for high-quality homes on well-designed developments remains robust and signs of improved access to mortgages together with the initiatives that the government has put in place should help to stimulate activity in the industry and assist people in purchasing a new home.

With this improving sentiment and the opportunities available to the business, the board remains confident in the outturn for the year.’