brett@brettjenkins.co.uk

This is an interesting way to attract younger voters:

Xbox Live in youth voting drive

Americans will soon be able to use Xbox Live to register to vote in the November presidential elections.

Microsoft has signed a partnership with activist group Rock The Vote to boost interest in the upcoming election among young people.

As part of the tie-up Xbox Live members will also be able to take part in polls to gauge their voting intentions.

A forum on Xbox Live will also be used to gather opinions from gamers that will be shared with candidates.

Party politics

“To realise our goal of registering two million young Americans by this fall, we need to go where young Americans are,” said Heather Smith, executive director of Rock the Vote, in a statement. “There’s no doubt in our minds that many are on Xbox 360 and Xbox Live.”

Microsoft said that the Rock The Vote campaign to use Xbox Live would begin on 25 August.

In the past Rock The Vote has also worked with MySpace to encourage bands that promote their music via the social networking site to get fans to register to vote.

Through the partnership with Rock The Vote, Microsoft is also planning to have a presence at the Republican and Democrat party conventions to educate politicians about it and its members views.

Some aspects of Xbox Live are free but for a monthly fee members can take on other console owners in online games. In the UK the annual fee for the service is £39.99.

In May 2008 Microsoft announced that it had 12 million subscribers for Xbox Live spread across 26 countries

Will this work? Well, I don’t think it will. People playing on an xbox, won’t suddenly decide to register to vote… will they? However time will tell, it will be interesting to see how this ends up.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7576956.stm

This is very scary, and hopefully this will fall through and not be implemented:

The government has plans to create a massive database that will store all phone calls, emails, and internet logs of all UK citizens. The information can be stored for as long as 2 years.

The database will take time to create, but there are trials and tests set in place with pre-determined people.

This is a feasible solution to solving criminal cases, and lowering crime rates, however, many will see it as a very large invasion of privacy.

UK Home Office minister, Lord West, noted:
“It is a cross-government program, led by the Home Office, to ensure that our capability to lawfully intercept and exploit data when fighting crime and terrorism is not lost.”

http://neowin.net/news/main/08/08/20/uk-to-invest-in-massive-spy-database

It is unacceptable that the UK government would even be allowed to do this, this is a serious invasion of privacy. I’ll be watching this story with great interest.