The UpStream

Remember when children used to spend their free time messing with tinker toys and playing sports? It seems as if toys aren't intriguing enough for kids as they used to be and many in England have found a new way to occupy their time.

Apparently, the art of hacking has shifted from a difficult task that only few gifted and corrupt people could master, to a fun activity for teens and even children. A recent survey performed in England showed that 26 percent of children and teens interviewed have attempted to hack a wide variety sites from Facebook to school websites and even corporate sites. What was even more shocking, some succeeded. This is despite the fact that of the 1,150 interviewed, 78 percent believed it was inappropriate to hack into other's accounts and 53 percent believed it was actually illegal to do so.

Everyone knows the name William Shatner but not everyone knows the name Maurice LaMarche. If you are a regular UpStream reader, though, you probably know his voice. Maurice has voiced many popular animated characters including The Brain on Pinky and The Brain (and Animaniacs of course), Lil' John McCain on Lil' Bush, Egon Spengler on several Ghostbusters series and our favorites Hedonism Bot, Kif, Calculon and many others on Futurama.

One thing that stands out about Maurice is his love of William Shatner, especially his voice. Maurice claims to be the world's third best Shatner impressionist, and in honor of Shatner's birthday, has created International Talk Like William Shatner Day. Now, I know what you're thinking: "How can anyone talk like William Shatner ALL DAY?" Well, my friends, it is easier than you think. In fact, Maurice LaMarche has made a few videos to help you on your quest.

Hit the break to see how Maurice LaMarche can help you talk like William Shatner all day.

It is no secret that we have had a lot of complaints about the iPhone and the things that a device in its product category should do that Apple seems to have no interest in doing. It is also no secret that we have been excited about the future of Windows Phone 7 Series as a replacement product for the iPhone seeing as we have all had several WinMo devices over the years (I still use one for a TV remote). Well, some recent revelations about the next generation of WinPho indicate Microsoft has lost their way.

The #1 selling point of WinMo has always been multi-tasking. The ability to listen to Pandora while using your navigation is wonderful (if not a huge drain on the battery). Unfortunately, Microsoft seems to have decided that no one would want to keep using this feature because the iPhone doesn't have it available on its platform and Apple is kicking WinMo's butt.

Another feature that has been available on WinMo forever is Copy/Paste. In fact, Microsoft pioneered the feature in the mobile space in even the early editions on their mobile OS. Well, who needs that? WinPho 7 will not offer Copy/Paste at launch. A statement from Microsoft on the topic said,

It seems like there is a whole department of people at Microsoft that need to justify their jobs, so Microsoft sends them on conventions... every week! Last week was MIX10, Microsoft developer and web designer conference in Las Vegas, and there were lots of exciting events happening. We got to join in on a live webchat with Gian Wilson, Microsoft's Gaming Mobile Product Manager. Apparently, he's quite the SkiFree pro!

Wilson's primary area of focus is Mobile Gaming for the division's Windows Phone business. In this role he is the organization's industry and product subject matter expert for all things mobile gaming. He holds a bachelor's degree in computer science and management from the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine campus and an MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business.

We are currently working with our existing game publisher partners to make sure that we build great games and great experiences for the Windows Phone 7 Series. As you can imagine playing a game on your phone is a little different than playing a game on your Xbox with a TV, so the experiences that we create will be a little different as well. For Xbox LIVE games, yes they will both be connected to LIVE, and will likely have achievements and activities that will increase your Gamerscore, but exactly how these games will be further related will be left up to the discretion of the publisher.

We saved the entire transcript and here are some of the highlight questions that can explain Windows Phone 7 Series' functionality with mobile gaming better than we can.

Apple has been telling its customers for years how its operating systems have been safer than Windows. While technically true, the reasons may not be the same as what Apple's pompous advertising suggests. They would want you to believe that it is because Apple is gifted by God to be the best but Charlie Miller, an expert in computer security, says, "Mac OS X is like living in a farmhouse in the country with no locks, and Windows is living in a house with bars on the windows in the bad part of town."

We all loved our Legos as kids, but some kids never grew up. Felix Greco of the Greater Florida Lego Users Group (GFLUG) talks with me about their group and all the hard work that goes into building such intricate designs out of Legos. We met these guys last year at MegaCon and were so impressed we knew we just had to get their wonderful creations on video. For pictures of their work, check out the PLuGHiTz Live! Radio page on Facebook!

Hit the break to see the interview with Greco and some of the incredible creations.