Wednesday marked an important ruling by a Dutch judge who decided that selling ‘mod-chips‘ and flash cards, especially those for the Nintendo DS (so called R4 cards) and the Wii, is now illegal (and the web shops who sold the mod-chips have to pay the court costs). [N]Gamer’s Nik Wouters has more on the story and interviewed Nintendo.

For Wednesday’s evening news (NOS Achtuurjournaal) I was interviewed as part of a segment on the ruling. The entire clip is below.

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As part of a special summer project, we did an extra Bashers podcast with (Dutch) Microsoft country manager Paul Naber. It turned out to be a very worthwhile conversation with the five of us talking about all things Xbox. Paul was very generous with his time and comments and I really enjoyed our discussion. Go check it out: “In gesprek met Xbox-baas Paul Naber over Microsoft, Xbox 360, Kinect en meer“.

As part of a pilot project, I wrote a review of Apple’s iPad (from the perspective of an academic/PhD student). I am very happy with the device and it is particularly useful to read books/PhD theses/articles. The review (with some pro’s and con’s and a couple of apps I like) is downloadable as a .pdf here (3 pages in Dutch).

*update* (July 10) Democracy in action! Dutch member of parliament Tofik Dibi (of Groen Links) asked the minister of justice a series of (very spot on) questions. Our combined efforts (of gamers, academics and journalists) to argue for better media literacy among parents (and against censorship), seem to have made a difference! Read the questions here. */update*

Our Dutch minister of justice Hirsch Ballin send a letter to the “Tweede Kamer” (the House of Representatives) regarding the banning of violent video games. His letter is emblematic of a (political) culture in which key politicians are utterly media illiterate and build their arguments on selectively quoting solid research. On top of that, a ban on violent film would be less desirable because that would lead to civil unrest (as opposed to games?). Well, I/we obviously disagree.

At Bashers, there’s more information. I wrote an op-ed to ask gamers to have their voices heard. “Neem contact op met Hirsch Ballin en bewijs dat een verbod op gewelddadige games weerstand oproept“.

At game industry magazine Control there is a crucial piece of information (of prof. Jansz) slamming the minister’s letter.

And at Petities.nl there’s a petition to sign.