Hasta La Gadget!

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday kicking a challenge to the state’s new voter ID law back to a lower court that already approved it may force a close look at state efforts to issue identification for voters.

When that lower court upheld the strict voter ID law on Aug. 15, Judge Robert Simpson said state initiatives to educate voters and create a form of identification that can be used to vote made it unlikely that the law would disenfranchise voters. When Simpson takes up the case again, he likely will look closely at Pennsylvania’s efforts.

He will find what state officials say are sincere attempts to reach registered voters. And he will find signs of serious trouble. Few of the 2 percent of Pennsylvania voters who did not have state-issued ID when the law was passed have been able to obtain it, despite programs that state officials say are free and easy. The number of people who lack ID necessary to vote outstrips President Barack Obama’s 2008 margin of victory in the state.

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This week Japan’s capital city welcomes gamers from around the globe for some show and tell with the country’s finest at TGS. As for us, we’re particularly anxious to see what Sony may have in store. Will we see another PS3 redesign? Perhaps some buzz about it’s next-gen console? Will we see some energized color options for the PS Vita? We’re eager to find out. Worried you’re too far away to be in the loop with the happenings here? Fret not! We’ve got you covered on all of the proceedings at Makuhari Messe, so keep your peepers locked here for all of the latest news over the next few days.

Sean Buckley contributed to this report.

Filed under: Announcements, Gaming

We’re live from Tokyo Game Show 2012 in Tokyo, Japan! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Sep 2012 23:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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By Mark Felsenthal

WASHINGTON, Sept 18 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama invoked blue-collar workers on Tuesday to contrast himself with his Republican challenger Mitt Romney but later, he rubbed shoulders with a well-heeled crowd at a fundraiser in an elegant nightclub.

Romney struggled to steady his reeling White House campaign after a secretly recorded video showed him dismissing Obama’s supporters – almost half the country’s voters – as victims who are too dependent on government.

Obama chided Romney on “Late Night with David Letterman” for the comments, and talked about the hard work of single mothers and auto workers.

After his television appearance, Obama spoke at a fundraising reception hosted by entertainment power couple Jay-Z and Beyonce at Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club in Manhattan. Tickets for the event cost $40,000 each, and the Obama campaign estimated that there were about 100 people in attendance.

The president stood on a small riser addressing an audience of men in business suits and women in evening wear sitting on upholstered benches in the dimly lit club.

Beyonce, named the world’s most beautiful woman by People magazine this year, introduced the president and then sat with her husband, a hip-hop musician who has sold tens of millions of records, in the front row, looking up at Obama as he spoke.

Obama joked about the success of his hostess, comparing her charisma to that of his wife, Michelle.

“Jay knows what my life is like,” he said. “We both have daughters and our wives are more popular than we are.”

New York state is considered a safe win for Obama in the Nov. 6 election, but the president reminded his listeners he is likely to face a barrage of negative ads in what remains a tight election.

“We’ve got people writing ten million-dollar checks just to see if they can beat me,” he said. “The other side is full of passion and they are working very hard to beat us.”

The president spoke earlier to a reception with approximately 200 people at the luxurious Waldorf Astoria hotel. Tickets for the event started at $12,500 per family.

He recalled a friend in Chicago telling him: “… being friends with a politician is like perpetually having a kid in college – because every few months, you’ve got to write this big check. Well, the good news is I’m graduating. So this is my last race.” (Reporting By Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Eric Walsh)

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WASHINGTON -– Republicans could use a bit of advice from an unlikely source right now: Obama adviser David Plouffe, who in 2010 told Democrats worried about the mid-term elections, “No bed-wetting.”

Now it’s Republicans who are frightened. Mitt Romney’s recent troubles have created a sense of gloom, and a good dose of doom, in the Grand Old Party.

“I think there is a broad and growing feeling now, among Republicans, that this thing is slipping out of Romney’s hands,” wrote the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan, in a “come to Jesus,” in-your-face column posted on Tuesday night.

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Facebook already sports advertisements baked into its own website and mobile apps, and now it’ll begin serving ads on other handset-optimized websites and smartphone applications. TechCrunch reports that the firm has begun testing a new ad network that leverages user data to display hyper-relevant ads on third party turf. Instead of relying on vanilla tracking cookies to gain insight into visitor interests, the platform accesses information including age, gender, likes, location, which apps friends have used and other data points when users are logged into a site or application with Facebook credentials. Zuckerberg and Co.’s solution lets advertisers bid on certain demographics and uses existing networks such as iAds and AdMob to serve appropriate ads based on anonymous ID’s tied to Facebook accounts. For now, Menlo Park’s new program is limited to the all-important mobile market, but don’t be surprised if the service finds its way to the desktop.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Internet, Mobile

Facebook’s new mobile ad network goes into beta, serves advertisements on third party sites and apps originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Sep 2012 22:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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