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The game industry's software rating board has updated its iPhone app and unveiled a new, identical Android app to try to make it easier for parents to decide if a title is right for their kids.

A new feature in the the Entertainment Software Rating Board's Rating Search App, allows people to snap a picture of a video game box to get more information about the title. According to the ESRB, the app identifies the title in the game and then displays a "detailed, straight-forward explanation--including specific examples--of the content that factored into a game's rating.&… Read more

Carcassonne is the extremely well-done iOS version of the popular, German-style board game of the same name.

The interface of Carcassonne is a faithful, interactive adaptation of the physical board game, in which players take turns placing small, square tiles to create a medieval landscape with roads, cities, cloisters, and fields. In some ways, the touch-screen Carcassonne is almost superior to the physical game. You can touch and drag tiles into place, rotating them with a tap, and the app highlights legal placement options (and marks with a scratched "X" any squares that can no longer be used). … Read more

It's a massive business, worth more than $20 billion annually in software and hardware sales alone. Its influence reaches every corner of our society and is as mainstream as it comes. I'm not talking about the television industry, believe it or not. I'm talking about video games.

Interactive games, like so many of the products and trends in the marketplace, come straight out of the "everything old is new again" file. Flashback to 1960, when CBS aired the show "Video Village," produced by Heatter-Quigley, the creators of "Hollywood Squares." The show … Read more

Here's a spectacular gift item for your favorite Wii user--especially if he or she is under the age of 10.

Buy.com has the Nickelodeon Fun N Fit board and videogame bundle for $69.99 shipped. That's about 30 bucks less than you'd pay at most places for the traditional Wii Fit bundle.

Nickelodeon's version includes not just the balance board (modeled in fairly hideous colors, I must admit), but also the Nickelodeon Fit game (which, FYI, sells for about $40 by itself). Needless to say, it's a children-oriented title aimed at whipping youngsters into … Read more

More than a year since Google CEO Eric Schmidt's departure from Apple's board, the company has elected a replacement.

Going in a completely different direction than Schmidt's expertise in online search and advertising, Apple today announced the appointment of Ronald Sugar, former chairman and CEO of aerospace and defense giant Northrop Grumman. Sugar will head the board's Audit and Finance Committee.

CEO Steve Jobs emphasized Sugar's engineering background in a statement announcing the appointment.

"Ron is an engineer at heart, who then became a very successful business leader. We are very excited to welcome … Read more

A federal agency recently brought a complaint against a Connecticut medical-services company for allegedly firing an employee over a Facebook post.

But it may not be wise to take that as carte blanche to go online and type in exactly what you think of your boss.

The general rule is that employers can still fire workers for off-color or unsavory things they say when blogging (or facebooking or tweeting) on the job or about their job.

"It would be a mistake for people to say that, 'Just because I'm on Facebook, I can say whatever I want,'" … Read more

Nintendo's been battling for control of casual gamers, especially when it comes to family-friendly entertainment. At the top of the heap are the "Wii" games, aka Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit, and the latest, Wii Party. Featuring the sometimes-overlooked Miis, Wii Party avoids any sort of physical fitness agenda in favor of casual group fun. We played Nintendo's latest in the comfort of our own homes, and have come back to tell the tale.

Scott: Virtual board games and endless minigame compilations have been inundating the Wii's software library, but Wii Party's formula is a little different. It's a series of game shows and virtual board games, at heart a sequel to the long-lived Mario Party games. Up to four players roll dice, jump around spaces on various boards, and compete in minigames to advance. My wife happens to love the Mario Party series. Every time I ask her to join me in some game-playing, she requests Mario Party 8, which I dutifully drag out of its dusty box. Mario Party 8 on the Wii happens to be some fun--but it's slow, and has letterboxed graphics. Wii Party freshens up the look and has a collection of 80 minigames that feel more streamlined and simplified, but very much in the vein of Mario Parties past.

There are also a number of game modes in Wii Party, tailored for play length (5 minutes to over an hour), number of players, and play style. A new two-player 5-minute game that feels like a condensed version of The Dating Game is a great and somewhat romantic little time-waster, but it's too short. The board-game-style experiences are more elaborate, but aren't quite as complex or as competitive as in Mario Party. All the Miis on your console--plus some added extras--gets shuffled in across the entire Wii Party experience, just like they do in Wii Sports and Wii Fit. It's fun, but it's not something we haven't seen before.

One of the most innovative new wrinkles in Wii Party comes from a series of room-immersive games that use the Wii remote's built-in speaker.… Read more

Like chocolate and peanut butter, The Settlers of Catan and the iPad are two great tastes I love, coming together to make something that should be even better. Board games and the iPad are a perfect fit, and Catan is arguably the very best board game.

How could this combination go wrong?

Well, it did: Catan: The First Island hit the iPad App Store this week for $4.99, and it's the biggest disappointment I've experienced this year. Yes, the larger board size suits iPads better than iPhones, but that's the only way this app succeeds. Instead, … Read more

If you've ever looked closely at a circuit board you know just how interesting they can be. It's one thing to look at a board and marvel at its intricate patterns, but Theo Kamecke does more than just look; he turns circuit boards into works of art. I first learned about Kamecke on the Dvice Web site.

I spoke with him by phone Monday to learn more about his methods. Kamecke prefers to use circuit boards (metal traces laminated to permanently dyed epoxy-fiberglass sheets) produced before the 1990s; they have bigger traces than more contemporary boards, and the older ones were mostly designed and laid out by hand.

Kamecke sees echoes of the ancient Egyptian aesthetic in the metal traces that make up circuit board patterns, though the traces are purely functional in layout. That's what makes them beautiful.

Kamecke feels newer computer designed boards aren't as visually interesting. … Read more