HELLO

Many gamers were overjoyed on Wednesday when Microsoft announced it would remove the most controversial restrictions for the Xbox One after much backlash. No longer would Xbox One owners need to connect their consoles to the Internet once a day or face byzantine restrictions on selling used games when they buy the systems in November. While the stunning change of heart showed the power of public pressure, the death of these features to quell angry gamers has brought out another set of critics. It's clear that Microsoft had envisioned a future of gaming that was really, truly always connected -- though some of their assumptions may have been a bit ambitious. The original page on the Xbox site regarding connecting online made the dubious assumption that "every Xbox One owner has a broadband connection." But Microsoft's original plan would have allowed digital games to be shared with 10 friends and family, with others being able to log in and play the titles. Th...

As a cadre of Google executives took turns touting Google's newest products at a conference in California on Wednesday, they also described how they were working toward a future in which technology would disappear. That might sound like a bizarre mission for a tech company. Yet they promised that by fading into the background of our lives, technology would become easier to use, more intuitive, more efficient and more anticipatory, even allowing people to speak to Google like it were a person, rather than a piece of software. Google would usher in this new world with tools that would bring web services into every crevice of our lives, from maps that know where we'll go next, to Google Glass, eyewear that puts the Internet mere millimeters away from our eyeballs.

  The University of Iowa study of hundreds of people age 50 and older found that those who played a videogame were able to improve a range of cognitive skills, and reverse up to seven years of age-related declines.WASHINGTON, May 2 — Playing videogames can prevent and even reverse deteriorating brain functions such as memory, reasoning and visual processing, according to a study released Wednesday.