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A24 TECHNOLOGY
Thursday 26 sepTember 2019
Green gaming: Video game firms make climate promises at U.N.

By JENNIFER PELTZ Among the initiatives:
Associated Press —WildWorks intends to in-
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — corporate new materials
Gaming is going green — about habitat restoration
and some of the biggest and reforestation into its
game companies hope children’s game Animal
players will, too. Jam, and to plant a tree
The companies behind for every new Animal Jam
PlayStation, Xbox, Angry player.
Birds, Minecraft, Twitch —Microsoft plans to make
and other video games 825,000 Xbox consoles that
and platforms pledged are carbon-neutral — or
Monday at the U.N. to don’t cause any net in-
level up efforts to fight cli- creases in heat-trapping
mate change and get their carbon dioxide — and to
throngs of users involved. promote real-life sustain-
The promises range from ability activities through its
planting trees to reducing massive-selling game Mine-
plastic packaging, from craft.
making game devices —Angry Birds maker Rovio
more energy efficient to Entertainment is offsetting
incorporating environmen- carbon emissions generat-
tal themes into the games ed by each of its daily, ac-
themselves. In this Nov. 3, 2017, photo, visitors play FIFA 18 video game on Playstation 4 Pro (PS4) at the Paris tive players charging one
“I believe games and gam- Games Week in Paris. mobile device per day for
ers can be a force for social Associated Press a year.
change and would love to set in drowning coastal cit- than 2 billion video game into staring at screens. The —Game streaming giant
see our global community ies, educate children about players globally, “this is the U.N.’s World Health Orga- Twitch, owned by Amazon,
unite to help our planet to wildlife or otherwise address most powerful mobiliza- nization this year recom- intends to spread sustain-
survive and thrive,” Sony environmental issues. For- tion channel in the world,” mended no more than an ability messages through its
Interactive Entertainment mer U.N. Secretary-General David Paul, the Marshall hour of screen time a day platform.
CEO Jim Ryan said on the Ban Ki-moon anointed the Islands’ environment minis- for children under 5, and —Google’s upcoming Sta-
sidelines of the U.N. Gen- Angry Birds character Red ter, told the gaming CEOs. none at all for those under dia streaming service is fi-
eral Assembly gathering of as an “honorary ambassa- His low-lying Pacific island 1. nancing research on how
world leaders. dor for green” in 2016. homeland faces an exis- Gaming company lead- people can be inspired
Ryan said Sony’s plans in- But the idea of gaming tential threat from rising ers say that not all screen to change their behavior
clude outfitting the next- green got new visibility with seas as the planet warms. time is of equal value. They through games.
generation PlayStation Monday’s commitments The “Playing for the Planet” believe their products can “They’re participatory.
system with a low-power, from 21 companies, facili- pledges come from an in- engage players on such They require the player
suspend-play mode. He tated by the U.N. Environ- dustry that isn’t always seen serious issues as climate to take action. It’s not just
said if 1 million players use ment Program and show- as nurturing societal good. change. absorbing a message from
it, they could save enough cased against the back- Parents and psychologists “We try to provide enter- the outside,” said Erin Hoff-
electricity to power 1,000 drop of Monday’s U.N. cli- have fretted for years about tainment with substance,” man-John, Stadia’s lead
average U.S. homes. mate summit . games and other digital Clark Stacey, CEO of Wild- designer for research and
Some games already are With an estimate of more diversions sucking youths Works, said in an interview. development. q

Google wins case over EU’s ‘right to be forgotten’ rules

By RAF CASERT ers from going outside the added that the U.S. in-
Associated Press EU to find the deleted infor- ternet search giant has
BRUSSELS (AP) — Handing mation. The decision high- worked hard “to strike a
Google a major victory, lighted the growing tension sensible balance between
the European Union’s high- between privacy and the people’s rights of access to
est court ruled Tuesday public’s right to know and information and privacy.”
that the EU’s “right to be underscored the difficul- Those who wanted to see
forgotten” rules that allow ties in enforcing different the rule extended beyond
people to control what jurisdictions’ rules when it the EU argued that on the
comes up when their name comes to the borderless in- internet it is easy to switch
is searched online do not ternet. It also illustrated the between national versions
apply outside the 28-nation way the internet is regulat- of Google’s website —
bloc. ed more heavily in Europe from google.fr to google.
Over the past five years, than in the U.S., where au- com, for example — to find
people in Europe have had thorities are constrained by missing information.
the right to ask Google and This Nov. 1, 2018, file photo shows a photo of the Google logo at the First Amendment guar- Since Google started han-
other search engines to their offices in Granary Square, London. antee of free speech and dling “right to be forgotten”
delete links to outdated or Associated Press freedom of the press. requests in 2014, it has de-
embarrassing information Google’s search engines, erator” to abide by the rule The U.S. has no laws equiv- leted about 1.3 million web
about themselves, even if it even those outside Europe. beyond the EU. alent to Europe’s “right to links from its search results,
is true. But the European Court of It said, however, that a be forgotten” measure. or 45% of all requests pro-
More recently, France’s Justice declared there is search engine operator Peter Fleischer, Google’s cessed, according to the
privacy regulator wanted “no obligation under EU must put measures in place senior privacy counsel, company’s transparency
the rule applied to all of law for a search engine op- to discourage internet us- welcomed the ruling and report .q