Suspicions about China slipping eavesdropping technology into computer exports have been around for years. But the recent spying attacks, attributed to China, on Google and other Internet companies have revived the hardware spying concerns. An IT World blogger suggests the gear can’t be trusted, noting that it wouldn’t be hard to add security holes to the firmware of Chinese-made USB memory sticks, computers, hard drives, and cameras. He also implies that running automatic checks for data of interest in the compromised gear would not be difficult.

Imagine a Scrabble iPad game that used iPhones as letter holders. You could hold up your iPhone so that no one else could see your letters and when you were ready to make a word on the Scrabble iPad board, you could slide them on to the board by flicking the word tiles off your iPhone. What we’re trying to say is that Apple has opened the door for people to create Jumanji-style games – music-filled, fun-packed experiences that can be shared in a novel way. The iPad is an interactive board game platform that could easily revive board game culture and introduce new generations to classic family games. It’s up to developers though to take advantage of this opportunity and show us the future of family-based digital games.