It’s the unofficial start of the Labor Day weekend. For real, you’ve earned it. Take some time off. I will. I’m on with Mark Starling, Seth, John, and the First News 570 crew. This week’s news: Chinese gamer kids are limited to 3 hours of play, NASA x Joby test flying cars in Big Sur, and Arizona and Georgia get iPhone drivers licenses first. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.
CHINESE GOVERNMENT DOES WHAT PARENTS CAN’T: TAKE GAMES AWAY
In a bid to keep Chinese kids at the top of the class, or as the State puts it; reduce gaming addiction among teens-the Chinese government has introduced a law restricting teens 18 years and older to 3 hours of video game play per week! Not only that, kids can only play games on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights between 8pm and 9pm. Oh! They’ll also be allowed to play on holidays. The law forces companies like Tencent to enforce realtime game usage. China’s President, Xi Jinping, called gaming addiction a teenage social problem, and obviously the government cured that. I get it. I have to kick my oldest kid off video games. It’s one of the reasons I sent them to camp. But, having the government impose this type of control on media is a bit too far. It’s not like they are keeping kids away from unsafe material, they’re just cutting them off from everything.
NASA AND JOBY AVIATION TEST FLY AIR TAXIS
NASA is raising the profile of flying cars by testing Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing vehicles (eVTOL). NASA is conducting test flights of eVTOL cars with newly IPO’d Joby Aviation. The test flights started this past Monday and will continue through to September 10th in Big Sur. The flights are part of NASA’s National Advanced Air Mobility campaign. NASA will be collecting performance analytics and noise data to measure the impact of the flying cars. The idea is that these vehicles will perform well and be quieter in highly populated urban areas.
APPLE SIGNS UP ARIZONA AND GEORGIA FOR DIGITAL DRIVERS LICENSES
Yesterday, the Fruit Company, announced that Arizona and Georgia will be the first states to support digital drivers licenses via the iPhone and Apple Watch’s Wallet app. Users will be able to add the licenses to Apple Wallet the same credits cards are added today. DL issuing states will provide verification of a valid license after the user enters the information. The really clutch move is that TSA will also support drivers licenses stored using Apple Wallet at select airports. Flyers can now tap their phone at a TSA identity reader to ID verification. Apple and States are saying users will have full privacy. States WILL NOT KNOW when and where users showed their ID, DL data is fully encrypted by Touch ID and Face ID, and DL storage is based upon ISO standards. No dates on when licenses go digital yet. I like the idea. I really do. But…anything and everything electronically shared can be snooped. There…I SAID IT.