Kids & video-game violence

It isn't just the Internet that pits child protection against civil liberties (for an example, see "Still undecided on COPA"). Now, with a recent proposal by Illinois's governor, it's video games too. Gov. Rod Blagojevich's proposed law, "which would make selling violent or sexual games to anyone under 18 a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison or a $5,000 fine, is just the latest maneuver in an ongoing battle among kids, parents, the game industry, civil libertarians, and politicians eager for parents' support," the Christian Science Monitor reports. The Monitor cites experts' view that the law wouldn't meet First Amendment requirements, but it raises "pressing issues" and an important debate about who's responsible for what games children buy or receive and about the current game rating system, which is much like the US's film ratings. "Like the movie guidelines, it's self-regulated. A store can card teenagers, and [as with some theaters showing R- and X-rated films] many refuse to sell M-rated [for "Mature" player] games to anyone under 17, but no law requires them to abide by the rule - and critics cite lax enforcement," according to the Monitor. It points to similar efforts to regulate video-game sales in Indianapolis, St. Louis County, and Washington State, which "have been struck down by courts as recently as July." The article does a great job of laying out a range of views and issues on this subject.



For more on games and ratings, see also "Check out the game ratings!," 10 worst video games," and "Kid-tested, parent-approved video games" in my newsletter.

Emails: Something for nothing?

Very unlikely. Tell your kids to be skeptical about messages promising free iPods, software, or laptops. If the programs are for real, at best, the New York Times reports, they're "riddled with problems" or hurdles. "Participants may have to spend a lot to qualify or may not get the reward if they fail to follow what can be complicated rules. Ultimately, they may end up with nothing more than a big increase in spam as their e-mail address and other information is passed along or sold." The messages are usually from marketing companies that get around $40-60 for each person who signs up. An example is a reportedly legitimate program called FreeiPods.com, providing hurdles such as required participation in a free, 6-week trial of some service such as AOL and getting 5 friends to do the same. You can read about people's experiences with these promotional programs at complaint sites like RipOffReport.com. The FBI told the Times it had not as yet received reports of fraud involving these programs but urged people to look them over carefully.

Tsunami relief: Contributor help on the Web

"In a disaster on a scale rarely experienced on planet Earth, it is perhaps appropriate that there are so many ways to use the most global of media - the Internet - to help the hundreds of thousands injured in the south Asian tsunamis and the millions suddenly plunged into homelessness," writes SafeKids.com's Larry Magid on his page linking to Web pages for donating funds and goods to support the tsunami relief effort and pages to get information on various charities. There are similar links at USAID, National Public Radio, the BBC, and the New York Times. This article at TurkishPress.com offers insights into what's being done on the ground in southern India. Though one would think the very last thing of critical need is technology, I was grateful to read in this piece how tech aid from the US came to the rescue at the central relief center in Nagapattinam, the "worst hit" city in Tamil Nadu State. "To bring some order to the relief effort, a US-based technology company rushed a team of experts to Nagapattinam to install a management information system" to get critical data daily to all the relief centers. "The system will use police radio sets to gather calls for aid and log it onto software for tracking purposes to set priorities and respond with supplies to the most needed sites quicker." For the bigger picture, here's a roundup of reports from BBC correspondents in affected areas all over the tsunami region.

'Always online' families

Now, more American families have high-speed Internet connections than dial-up ones, reports Reuters, citing Nielsen/NetRatings research. "More than half of all US residential Internet users [63 million] reached the Web via fast broadband connections in July, outpacing use of slower, dial-up connections for the first time [61 million]." What that means in terms of how they use the Net, says the Associated Press, is a lot more "infosnacking." AOL told the AP that broadband users go to the Net for "quick snippets" of whatever - a quick email, a quick look-up of a news piece a friend recommended, a quick check of a sports scores, a dip into friends' current IM conversation, etc. Then there's the growing phenomenon of all-family access. The AP points to the Suhre family in Maryland. "Most evenings, the whole family is online at once: [Mark] Suhre wrapping up work as a computer network engineer; his wife, Terri, preparing school lessons or ordering from an e-tailer; his teenage sons Gary, Josh and Brandon playing online video games, instant messaging with friends, maybe even researching homework. The Suhres' lives, online and off, have been transformed by their broadband connection." Has yours? Email me your own families' experiences - positive or negative - with having high-speed Net access (or click on "comments" just below and post here!).

Gamer buys virtual land

Now, here's a quite amazing sign of real value being attached to alternate-reality things - in this case, land. "A 22-year-old [Australian] gamer has spent $26,500 on an island that exists only in a computer role-playing game," the BBC reports. The island's in a role-playing online game called Project Entropia; it's called a "massively multiplayer game" because thousands of people play it worldwide. "Entropia allows gamers to buy and sell virtual items using real cash, while fans of other titles often use auction site eBay to sell their virtual wares," according to the BBC. "Earlier this year economists calculated that these massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs) have a gross economic impact equivalent to the GDP of the African nation of Namibia."



There's been a ton of gaming news of late, BTW: Here's a fascinating profile in the New York Times of electronic toymaker Jeri Ellsworth of Yamhill, Ore. Besides a lot of fun, "her efforts in reverse-engineering old computers and giving them new life inside modern custom chips has already earned her a cult following among small groups of 'retro' personal computer enthusiasts," among other things besides personal wealth (as yet), the Times adds. In Australia, "the rise of broadband Internet at home means more folks are having a crack at online gaming - but the learning curve can be steep." So Aussie ISP Netspace "has come up with Gameschool, a free service designed to attract more people to online gaming," Australian IT reports. The San Francisco Chronicle ran an at-a-glance gaming guide adding that many of the title are simply not geared for kids. And the New York Times describes the latest gamer gotta-have-it gadget: the Nintendo DS with two display screens, two microprocessors "to handle the color game graphics and the machine's many other functions," and slots for two kinds of game cartridges.

Toy ATMs: Sold out everywhere

Originally $25, it's now going for $70+ on eBay. It's a toy cash machine for kids, and it may be the surprise run-away favorite holiday gift this year. The Washington Post reports that Toys R Us sold 10,000 toy ATMs in four days, and TV-shopping channels QVC and the Home Shopping Network sold out of them in 3 minutes. "The machine's popularity is another illustration of how the toy industry is changing. Children are leaving traditional toys behind much sooner than in the past. Earlier this week, No. 2 toymaker Hasbro laid off 125 workers, citing struggles to adapt to a more electronics-driven market." Hmm, and what is this particular toy teaching kids? Maybe money does grow on trees, contrary to what my own dad always used to say.

Young and 'always online'

The Associated Press recently published a series that's not-to-miss for anyone interested in the Net's impact on today's youth. "The Internet has shaped the way they work, relax, and even date," according to the AP. "It's created a different notion of community for them and new avenues for expression that are, at best, liberating and fun - but that also can become a forum for pettiness and, occasionally, criminal exploitation." That's from Part 1, "Always online: Growing up on the Net," at Portland, Oregon's KATU TV. The series ran in news sites based all over the US (we even saw Part 1 in a South African site). KATU also picked up the parts about the instant-messaging phenomenon and online gaming (for more insights, see the sidebar, "Excerpts from Chip's Online Gaming Diary," at the Houston Chronicle. The Chronicle also had Parts 4 and 5: "Truth can be elusive online" and "Unplugging can be good for you."

Online dangers 'likely to grow' in '05

It's the sad reality, according to the Washington Post, really referring to PC security: spam, worms, viruses, phishing, and ID theft. Despite the arrest of conviction of 11 virus writers and "rounding up hundreds of people accused of computer crimes from credit card fraud to outright identity theft ... most fraudsters, hackers, and spammers managed to stay one step ahead of the law," the Post adds. PC security experts cite phishing as one of the worst. To zoom in on that nasty from a family-tech perspective, see my feature last week, "To foil phishers."

Beware 'CoolWebSearch'!

It's the worst example of spyware that Webroot, an anti-spyware company, has seen. It's a malicious, self-installing program that hijacks Web searches and disables security settings in the Internet Explorer browser, then takes control of your Web surfing, ZDNET UK reports. To avoid getting it, Webroot recommends that people be sure to stay up-to-date on Microsoft security patches (go here), avoid using freeware (free software that can be downloaded at sites like Download.com and Tucows.com), and disable downloads via ActiveX in Explorer (your kids will probably be able to help you with this last one). A lot of techies are also saying it's a good idea just to switch to the free FireFox browser. CoolWebSearch tops Webroot's list of Top 10 spyware threats .

UK: Teen worm writer sentenced

A British teenager who is believed to be part of an international Internet gang has been given a six-month suspended sentence for his role in writing and distributing a worm. ZDNET UK cites one PC security experts as suggesting the 16-year-old "escaped lightly because of his age." The Randex worm that he helped write turned computers it infected into "zombies" that its writers - or spammers to whom they sold a whole network of zombie computers - could control for distribution of spam or for denial-of service attacks on large Web sites. The boy was sentenced at South Cheshire juvenile court, ZDNET UK reports. For more on the zombie phenomenon, see "What if our PC's a zombie?!"

Teen 'antics'-cum-child porn

The number of reported incidents is growing. In the latest example, a boyfriend and girlfriend, both 16, were having "a bit of teenage fun," using a Webcam to record themselves "engaging in sexual acts," reports the Toronto Globe & Mail. The fun was over when they had a falling out and the boyfriend decided to email the video to his friends. The video of the girl "is on the Web for eternity," as a Hamilton, Ontario, detective on the case put it. And the boy "faces charges of possession and distribution of child pornography for filming what happens between thousands of teenagers each day," according to the Globe & Mail. The law in both Canada and the US (and probably everywhere) has yet to catch up with this phenomenon of self-published child porn. In Canada, "while teenagers older than 14 are legally allowed to have consensual sex, it is illegal under child-pornography laws to distribute material showing teens under 18 engaged in sexual acts," the Globe & Mail reports. The latter is a federal crime in the US as well. But not many cases of children distributing child porn involving themselves and peers have been through the courts to provide precedents. For perspective from the US's National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, see "Kids' self-victimization online" in my newsletter and an earlier piece, "Self-published child porn."

Protecting that new PC

Because a lot of spiffy new PCs will be pulled out of their boxes this time of year and because PC security is a bigger issue than ever, Washington Post techie writer Rob Pegoraro thoughtfully provides "Six Steps to Safer Surfing." Is this not music to our ears?: "It's completely feasible to put a computer on the Internet - even one running Windows, the most attacked, least secure operating system around - and never suffer a single successful attack," Rob writes. You just need to take some basic precautions, all spelled out in this article. Rob's sixth step is the hardest, especially if the PC will be used by kids: "to use the most effective security mechanism ever invented, the human brain." That means keeping one's critical thinking well-tuned whenever online - and, we would add, helping children appreciate and develop the best filter there ever was, the one between their ears. (See also "Critical thinking: Kids' best tool for research & online safety" in my newsletter.)

Mobile carriers balk at porn

It was looking like cell phones were going to have a dark, seamy side just like the Internet. But maybe not. Though the phones are basically little connected computers (with email, photos, audio, etc.), "the operators of phone networks are resisting new services that proved very popular on the old personal computer: pornography and violent video games," the New York Times reports. Cingular, for example, has announced that such content was "not compatible" with its brand. This is quite a development from a children's advocacy perspective, especially given the revenue phone companies stand to lose. But parents shouldn't hold their breath. As usual, there are censorship and free-speech issues involved. For example, the old fixed phone-line networks were carefully kept "open": "Historically, telephone carriers have not been allowed to censor what people say over the telephone or what phone numbers they call," the Times reports, adding that the FCC has said that cell-phone operators can't censor what consumers visit on the Net. The problem, in working this issue out, is that cell phones are much more like the Internet than regular talk-only phones, bringing with them all the same tension between free speech and child protection because they provide content (pictures, text, etc.) as well as a communications channel. So it'll be interesting to see if Cingular can fend off civil-liberties advocates and keep smut off its network; if not, maybe it should consider providing phone parental controls (see my first coverage of this last April).

India: Child porn by teens

Buried in a business story about the apparently unfair arrest of the executive in charge of India's version of eBay is the part of interest to parents of online kids. According to the Wall Street Journal, the arrest was over a pornographic video of two teenagers being sold for a short time on Baazee.com (which reportedly took the listing down as soon as it was alerted), an eBay subsidiary. Another teenager did the filming of what is probably the illegal kind of pornography (that involving minors), and an engineering student tried to sell the video on the auction site. The story is a reminder of how easy it is to film child pornography on digital video, upload it, and distribute it, whether for free via file-sharing networks, email, or instant-messaging or actually to try to sell it (here's the Associated Press's coverage). It has certainly happened in the US too - see "Self-published child porn" in my 8/27 issue.

Help in foiling phishers

Have you gotten an email from PayPal, eBay, Citibank, or even your own bank lately? Did it say something unnerving about a certain amount having been removed from your account, or you can't use your account until you update it - "click here to update"? Chances are, it's a phishing scam. The number of phishing emails that have been intercepted by MessageLabs (a large email security company serving businesses) increased 10-fold this past year - from 337,000 in January to 4.5 million last month, reported ZDNET UK.



Which means a growing number have been arriving in our families' PC in-box(es). The new news on this affects families even more: Now we and our Web-researcher kids can stumble on phishing sites just by using Google and other search engines, CNET reports. Fortunately, anti-phishing tools are emerging, and this week in my newsletter I look at one called FraudEliminator - a free toolbar - that makes a lot of sense to me. Please click to today's issue for more on this.

P2P ethics in lower school

With little kids who've never known life without the Internet, the ethic somehow came to be something like: if you can get it on the Net, it must be ok to have. That's why the media industry is taking file-sharing ethics ed to younger and younger children. Elementary schools in the Washington, D.C., area are inviting AOL's SafetyBot, a 5-foot-tall robot into classrooms to explain to 4th-, 5th-, and 6th-graders why it's illegal to download movies, music, and software from the Internet. According to the Washington Post, "the industry's approach is two-pronged: to terrify and to teach." The "terrify" part is where it's explained to the kids that they're not anonymous when their stealing media; they can be caught." Last month, the Motion Picture Association announced that it would begin suing those who download, one by one, to scare file-sharers away from the practice many believe has taken a chunk out of industry revenue in recent years," the Post reports. "With this, the movie industry followed the lead of the Recording Industry Association of America, which started its first lawsuits in fall 2003." (The RIAA announced today that it was suing 754 more file-sharers, taking the total number of lawsuits past the 7,000 mark, Reuters reports).



Older student perspectives on file-sharing can be found in a recent article at the news site of California State University, Chico, "Right, wrong? Good, evil? Who cares?", which points to FreeCulture.org, "founded by the student who sued diebold" (see Mother Jones) and probably a little to the left of Stanford Professor Lawrence Lessig's Creative Commons (but fans of it).

IM-ing in Arizona

Teenagers' avid instant-messaging is still news in a lot of local papers - and maybe even to some parents. In the East Valley Tribune, a Phoenix-area paper, the lead sentence went, "When East Valley teens have something to say, an increasing number put it in writing with instant messaging." The writer adds that IM-ers "write about sex, drugs, homework, parents or even the weather" and even threaten each other in this medium. I suspect this is news more to newspaper people than to parents, but I would like to get your opinion on this - do you feel parents in your community have a handle on what's being talked about among teenaged IM-ers? Email me anytime via anne@netfamilynews.org. [For more on the IM part of parenting and educating young people, see my series on "The IM life of middle-schoolers" - the home front, a school's role, and home tech options.]

Net crimes against kids: UK study

The victimization of online kids figured prominently in the findings of a recent British Home Office survey on Internet crime. The survey, of "53 Internet and technology experts" looked specifically at "criminal threats posed by new technology," The Scotsman recently reported. From the perspective of these tech professionals, 7 of the 10 "most serious Net crime threats" were related to pedophilia and child-porn. For example, "increased grooming [of children by online pedophiles] and possible stalking across the Net" led the list. Three others among the 10 crimes were "increased access to pedophile content [child porn] sold by organized criminals ... online"; "use of online storage for pedophile images to bypass seizure of home computers"; and "use of secure 'peer to peer' [file-sharing] technology for all types of pedophile activity."



The goods news is, the European Union recently announced a 45 million euro ($60m), multi-year program to help protect online kids, Reuters reports. The program follows a "38m euro ($51m) project "that led to the creation of 'hotlines' where parents could report illegal [child pornography] found on the Internet. It will increase the number of hotlines, finance technology to filter out pornography, and raise awareness among parents and children." According to EC figures, "around 60% of children regularly surf the Internet in Scandinavia and countries such as Britain, the Netherlands, Estonia, and the Czech Republic."

US: Parents & video games

Just days after the BBC reported on discussions in the UK about kids and game ratings (post just below), the New York Times came out with "Game Ratings: U is for Unheeded," an in-depth look at the subject. Writer Katie Hafner leads with an anecdote about a woman buying Grand Theft Auto (rated M) for a 10-year-old who very much covets it. "While many parents would not think of taking a 10-year-old child to see a film rated for mature audiences, young children routinely wander into the domain of mature games," Katie writes. One of her sources suggests that parents act on film ratings more than gaming ratings, for some reason (do you?). Also, "to some extent, the problem lies with the fact that few parents sit and play video games with their children." [Meanwhile, the governor of Illinois wants his state to make it illegal to sell games rated M to minors, the Washington Post reported today.] I would love to get fellow parents' thoughts on this issue - how you view game ratings. Do they help with purchasing decisions (have you seen them on game packaging)? Do they influence you less than movie ratings? Email me anytime via anne@netfamilynews.org, or post here by clicking on "comments" just below. Thanks!

UK: Parents & video games

"It may be a game, but it's not necessarily for children" is the basic message British officials and media specialists are sending. It's also a message that people who know video games feel is not getting through to parents on both sides of the Atlantic. This week, British government officials, video game industry representatives and the British Board of Film Classification met to discuss "concerns that children may be playing games aimed at adults which include high levels of violence, the BBC reports. "In 2003, Britons spent £1,152 million [$2.2 billion] on games, more than ever before. And this Christmas, parents are expected to spend millions on video games and consoles." For US news on the video-game front, see "Check out the game ratings!", "Kid-tested, parent-approved games," and "10 worst video games."

Communicating young Canadians

Now there's a twist: Canada's youth are "less active online than adults," ClickZ Network reports. Canadians 12-17 spend almost a third (27.8%) less time online than adults (13 hours/week vs. 18 hours/wk, on average), with their Internet behavior largely confined to social activities, according to a survey by market researchers Ipsos-Reid. The latter half of that sentence is less a surprise. Seventy-three percent of teens use email, 70% do instant-messaging, 49% use the Web for school research, and then the figures plummet to only 29% downloading music and go down from there. "Only 17% of teenagers reported having ever purchased something online, versus 50% of the adult online population." Parents, note the numbers that spark online-safety concerns related to all that online communication: "About 14% of teens reported that they had been asked at least once to meet in person with someone they originally met online. That number increases to 20% among respondents between ages 15 and 17, according to the survey."

Watch out: Xmas greeting worm

Tell your kids to be careful about opening any email that looks like a holiday greeting, even if it appears to be from a friend. It could well be the Zafi worm-carrying one that's going around the Net globally, CNET reports. It's "spoofing" email addresses in people's address books, so it could be coming from a friend or relative's infected PC. PCWorld reports that, "in addition to the Christmas well wishes in the subject line, Zafi-generated emails contain the message 'Happy Hollydays' and are signed "Jaime'." What it does to PCs is shut down the anti-virus software on them, in addition to harvesting email addresses and sending itself to them. Home users with Windows PCs are most vulnerable, CNET added.

Tracking teens driving

With GPS (global positioning system), that is. It tells parents how fast their kids are driving, notifying parents when a predetermined speed level is passed, the Associated Press reports. The idea is to get kids to carry a cell phone that contains a GPS chip that "sends out regular signals letting parents know where they are and how fast they're going." An alarm goes off in the kid's phone and a signal is sent to Mom or Dad when the family-set speed limit is reached. The organization behind it is "Teen Arrive Alive," and Gen. Tommy Franks just signed on as spokesman.

Good news for young researchers

And everyone else - maybe including parents, teachers, and librarians who worry that students have forgotten about libraries and media other than the Web! At least there will be more good material to find on the Web, with Google's announcement today. Google is adding some of the world's best libraries to its database, bringing them "to life online," as CNET put it. "Google itself was born out of a library digitization project at Stanford," CNET reported, "and its founders had planned all along to build a vast searchable index of books." Now it has the technology and the resources, the company told CNET. It has already reached agreements of various sorts to digitize at least out-of-print and copyrighted works in the collections of Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford Universities' libraries, as well as that of the University of Michigan (all of its 7.4 million volumes, as well as Stanford's), and the New York Public Library. Google is underwriting the cost of digitizing the books at each library (the process will take years), and they will be searchable exclusively at Google. This is in addition to the launch of Google Scholar, for searching academic papers online (here's an in-depth view of Scholar at Infotoday). [Google's search competitors, Yahoo, MSN, and Amazon, with it's new A9, are hard at work upgrading their databases too, CNET adds.]



The sooner the better, many educators say, according to the Associated Press, citing one student - after being told some sourcing for a paper needed to be from books - asking a Georgia Tech professor where one could find a book. "It's a paradox to some that so many young Americans can be so accepting of online information whose origin is unclear," the AP reports. Books in Google's database will be clearly labeled as such. This is the tech story of the week so far, arguably of 2004. The New York Times had a great piece offering libraries' perspective on e-books. And here's the BBC's coverage and the Washington Post's round-up, "Google - 21st Century Dewey Decimal System," which - the Post adds - "raises big questions about whether a for-profit company should become a gatekeeper to such vast storehouses of knowledge." For more on kids, research, and critical thinking, see my lead article in the 5/30/03 issue.

Help in reporting child porn

I hope the need to report child pornography never arises at your house. But if anyone in your family uses a file-sharing service such as Grokster, Morpheus, Kazaa, or BiTTorrent, it could happen, because illegal child porn is traded on P2P networks. [See "Porn exceeds music in online file-sharing" in my 3/21/03 issue, referring to an '03 study of what people were searching for specifically on the Gnutella-based P2P networks (42% for porn, 38% for music, 6% for illegal child porn).] We've known about the porn risk in file-sharing for some time, but it was confirmed once again today, when a file-sharing trade association announced the launch of P2P Patrol, a Web page with instructions on what to do if you inadvertently download child porn images while file-sharing and how to report it, CNET reports. Please note what P2P Patrol says about deleting and not forwarding any child porn images, because possession and distribution are illegal in the US and many countries. The page explains how to permanently delete it while providing sufficient evidence to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's CyberTipline.com, other hotlines, or law enforcement agencies. For on P2P risks, see "File-sharing realities for families" in my 5/28/04 issue.

On parents' minds

Your comments and experiences can be valuable to other parents, so - with the writers' permission - I like to publish as many as possible. Five readers have emailed me recently about Neopets.com, parent-teacher e-conferences, and the Net in the lives of children. For their complete comments, please click to this week's issue of my newsletter. On email communications between parents and teachers, Paula in Wisconsin wrote: "I have to tell you that this is a WONDERFUL way to use email. I keep in touch with the teachers of one of my sons on a weekly basis...." Carol in Massachusetts wrote: "I think that email is a great replacement for the typical teacher-written note: friendly comments, reminders, simple questions, and some kid praise, but I think that it would be a disaster to use email for a parent conference, because email can be misinterpreted...." But she thoughtfully provided some practical guidelines for real-time conferences via email, and they make a lot of sense. Ron in Massachusetts, parents of girls 13 and 16, wrote: "I am not an unabashed fan of the Web, but I am convinced that ... if a Web service (most likely a 'walled garden' on the Web) offered carefully chosen, professionally produced and imaginatively presented games, activities, news, arts and adventures with well-researched learning value, a healthy interactive [children's] community would flourish." Mom and reader Julie emailed us a "warning for all parents of teen-age/computer literate kids" who spend time at Neopets.com, a very popular kids' site, where - after registering - they can create, care for, chat about, explore, shop for, and play games with animated pets. She wrote: "This is my warning: Their message boards are not monitored by responsible adults." She gives some examples of people (ostensibly kids but there's not way of knowing) swapping personal information in chat and ends with, "Please supervise your children's online activities!"



Send in your comments, experiences, or solutions anytime, or post them here (click on "comments" just below). They are always welcome!

From blogging to podcasting

Does your kid podcast? If s/he's an aspiring DJ or standup comedian, s/he just might. Basically, podcasting is blogging, audio-style. "The idea behind a podcast is simple, yet brilliant," the Christian Science Monitor reports. On the listener end, it's the audio equivalent to TiVo. "Instead of using portable MP3 players such as the iPod only for listening to music, new software called iPodder allows one to download prerecorded [usually home-grown] radio shows onto the devices." The listener can go to a podcaster's Web site, sign up as a subscriber, and each time the DJ/podcaster posts a new "show," it automatically downloads onto the subscriber's PC so s/he can listen anytime s/he wants. Radio broadcasters like the US's NPR and Canada's CBC are beginning to podcast now, the same way print news sites like the New York Times (and Net Family News!) provide RSS feeds people can subscribe to. "For the most part ... the medium's pioneers are do-it-yourselfers" doing the audio version of local-access cable TV, the Monitor adds, pointing out a stay-at-home dad who podcasts his own talk show, "The Bitterest Pill," during his daughter's naptime. "After an introductory tune that sounds like a mash-up between a mariachi band and the funk bass of the 'Seinfeld' theme, the Los Angeles native launches into a breathless, free-form soliloquy" about everything from child-rearing to politics to "an embarrassing encounter with Meg Ryan at a party." For other examples, check out the podcast directories, iPodder.org and Podcast.net.

Teens can blog at MSN too

Move over LiveJournal, Blogger, Xanga, etc. As of today, Microsoft hosts blogs and online journals too - at MSN Spaces. As at Google's Blogger and so many others, it's free (for those with free Hotmail or MSN Messenger accounts), the Associated Press reports. The Washington Post says that, "in our testing, MSN Spaces performed so-so at best. The photo publisher choked over a dial-up connection and wouldn't accept any images," and text entries occasionally disappeared. The blogging community says Spaces censors people's posts, and CNET reports that the service "has sparked a new game for some of its users: trying to circumvent its censorship controls." More concerning is MS's legal fine print, which suggests that, once posted, bloggers' content is not their own. The legal verbiage says they're transferring it to Microsoft to "use, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, modify, translate and reformat," as quoted by SiliconValley.com.

Musicians ok with P2P

In ethical discussions about music file-sharing (to borrow from Jack Black's line in the film School of Rock), kids will often explain their guilt-free file-sharing as a way of "sticking it to The Man" ("he" being the recording industry, which has sued thousands of file-sharers to date). Ethics aside for the moment, we've heard a lot from the recording industry so far, but very little from musicians (and kids will tell you the artists get only a small percentage of each CD's price). The Pew Internet & American Life project actually got musicians' views; it surveyed 2,793 of them, mostly with "day jobs," MediaDailyNews reports, in what turned out to be the week's biggest tech story. "The vast majority [of these musicians] do not see online file-sharing as a big threat to creative industries," the study found (as quoted in the Washington Post's round-up on this story). "Across the board, artists and musicians are more likely to say that the Internet has made it possible for them to make more money from their art than they are to say it has made it harder to protect their work from piracy or unlawful use," according to the study, which also found that "two-thirds of artists say peer-to-peer file sharing poses a minor threat or no threat at all to them." MediaDailyNews reported that "the Recording Artists Coalition, which represents musicians signed by major studio labels, sharply condemned [the Pews] report," condemning its methodology (only 8% of Pew's sample said they supported themselves entirely with their music). And so we have a more detailed picture now: Emerging musicians and garage bands have a very different view of file-sharers than that of established, high-profile ones. Now Pew needs to survey file-sharers and ask them what kinds of music they're using the likes of BitTorrent and eDonkey to find!



Meanwhile, BNA Internet Law's Michael Geist took the time to figure out the real impact of file-sharing, at least on the Canadian music industry (he writes for the Toronto Star): The record companies' "loss claims are greatly exaggerated and ... P2P is only marginally responsible for sales declines." In a second article he reports that Canadian artists have not suffered financially from P2P.

New Delhi, New York: Students' jam session

It's the kind of networked-students project that would defy any backlash against the Internet. Some 450 high school students in New York and 200 in New Delhi communicated directly (online) with their peers, comparing northern and southern music in both countries and watching and listening to each other play pieces on giant screens in both locations. "The finale was a jam session over the oceans," the New York Times reports, describing an event in Carnegie Hall's annual Global Encounters series. "The musicians in New Delhi established a rhythm, the bluegrass band in [New York's] Zankel Hall gradually matched it, and eventually the brass band worked its way into the mix. Soon everybody was playing 'Sweet Georgia Brown.' A troupe of dancers in New Delhi twirled to the familiar refrain, their hands in the air, and the principal of Delhi Public School, Dwarka joined them as the American students clapped in time." Partly responsible: renowned Indian drummer Sandeep Das, who has worked with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Project. The Times says he "wanted Indian students to see that there is more to American music than MTV."

A teacher on video games

It's pretty amazing when you can read a commentary, then read a dialog between its reading public and its writer. That's the case with a Washington Post commentary by Patrick Welsh, who sounds like a very good, caring English teacher at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va. It's a fairly predictable but thoughtful observation about his students (mostly male, he says) as gamers. Then there's the discussion with what readers, many of whom appear to be parents, some of whom play video games themselves. Try to make it down to the comment of a 35-year-old IT director of a multinational company and that of a reader whose "63-year-old mother is addicted to role-playing games (RPGs), like Final Fantasy" and finally the one (+ Welsh's response) at the bottom by a programmer, who says, "Halo 2, like Halo, is an awful game.... They are the Danielle Steele novels of computer games. Try a game called 'Out of This World' for something stylistic, immersive, and compelling, yet fun to play." With these, the kids-'n'-video-games picture gets a little more granular. Readers, I'd love to get your reactions, at least to the discussion (if there isn't time for Welsh's opinion piece), especially if you have gamers at your house.



For context: As if to illustrate how pervasive video games are becoming (Halo 2's premier last month rivaled that of any Hollywood blockbuster), the Washington Post reported today that musicians are flocking to video games - it's becoming big money to get their songs onto game soundtracks.

Cell-phone cheating in Korea

This cheating incident looks more like an epidemic and probably has a lot to do with South Korea's high-pressure university entrance exam. "Police questioned 350 South Korean students [last week] and more were under suspicion in a widening probe into cheating that has uncovered a link between two national obsessions - education and mobile phones," Reuters reports, adding that the exam is seen by many young Koreans as the single most important, future-deciding event in their lives. Hundreds of the some 600,000 students who took the exam are alleged to have cheated with their phones (75% of the country's 48 million people have at least one mobile phone, according to Reuters). "Others are being questioned for paying college students to take the exam in their place using forged identification." [For redundancy, here's a link to the same report at CNET.] As for the US, 62% of 12,000 high school students surveyed "admitted to cheating on an exam at least once," according to a Detroit News report on what US educators are doing about it (thanks to TechLearning.com for pointing this story out).

New threat center for IM-borne viruses

If you haven't already, tell all instant-messagers at your house to look out for IM-borne viruses. They're now a big enough threat to family PC security to have their own threat center (a clearinghouse where "a consortium of instant-message and antivirus-software companies ... gather and disseminate intelligence on the viruses"), the Wall Street Journal reports. What should your kids know? To be suspicious of anything that a stranger tells them to download, click on, view, or listen to (especially if it has a .exe extension), but also that their friends send them, because these viruses utilize buddy lists' screennames to self-propagate. Here's an example of a mild virus that went around the popular MSN Messenger early this year, as reported by CNET (see also my "Instant-messaging risks & tips").

Users expect more of ISPs

Do you feel your Internet service provider should protect your family PC from viruses and other Net-borne nasties? That's what UK Net users apparently think. UK market research firm MORI found that 58% of consumers surveyed feel that ISPs need "to work harder to protect their customers," ZDNET UK reports. And 54% even said they'd pay more for worry-free service. As I reported earlier, AOL already figured this out and is trying to deliver on this expectation - its new version 9.0 just needs a little work, according to a Washington Post review.

Computers harm learning: German study

Excessive use of them, that is. The study, about the impact of computer use on students' math and reading performance, was huge: It surveyed 175,000 15-year-old students in 31 countries. It found that their performance in reading and math "had suffered significantly among students who have more than one computer at home," the Christian Science Monitor reports. "And while students seemed to benefit from limited use of computers at school," those who used them there several times a week experienced a significant performance decline in school too. On the other hand, the researchers "also studied the effects of computer use on test scores, and found that greater use of computers in the home impacted positively on test scores," The Register reported. The key problems cited by the University of Munich study's lead researcher, Ludger Woessmann, were overuse of computers and using them to replace "other kinds of teaching," according to the Monitor.



Reactions to the study were, predictably, mixed. Some educators felt the findings show how ed-tech research has come to resemble "conventional wisdom about weight loss, which seems to shift with the tide," the Monitor reports. Others see a "maturing debate," from either total rejection or blind faith in tech to better appreciation of where and how technology is useful in education. The Monitor cites journalist Todd Oppenheimer's survey of research in this field for his 2003 book, "The Flickering Mind," which found that "the most thorough studies have found computers to have little effect either way, although some guiding principles are beginning to emerge." Besides it sheer size and breadth, the other distinguishing factor about the study was its effort "to isolate computers as a performance-shaping factor," the Monitor says. My takeaway: Now that we're settling on a less starry-eyed, more balanced view of tech in the classroom, maybe we can get on with what's much more important: helping our kids develop critical thinking about how they use technology and what they find on the Web.



This news could be another bulleted item in my feature last week, "Family PC: Backlash coming?". Here's a 10/03 Monitor review of "The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom," when it was published by Random House last year.

Search engines: Getting to know you

We mentioned Jeeves-the-search-butler's makeover, as he gets increasingly cozy with those he serves. Well, it's a trend, the BBC reports. "Not content with providing access to the millions of Web sites, many [search engines] now offer ways that do a better job of remembering, cataloguing and managing all the information you come across. In addition to Jeeves, there's Blinkx, which builds on the desktop search feature that builds on search engine technology. In other words, it, like other search-engines-cum-desktop-search tools, are trying to become the new productivity software. For example, Blinkx desktop search "watches" what you're working on - document, email, etc. - and "suggests" sites, video clips, blogs, or documents on your own PC that are relevant to your task. "In the latest release of Blinkx, the company has added what it calls smart folders. Once created the folders act as persistent queries that automatically sweep the web for pages related to their subject and catalogues relevant information, documents or incoming emails, on hard drives too." The BBC also points to Google, Apple, Copernic, Enfish, and X1 as part of the trend (it appears the last three all charge for their products).



BTW, another new search engine just covered by CNET is Accoona.com - a slightly business-focused one that allows you to "super-target" your search by prioritizing the words you type into the search box (the name might be a little hard to remember - or to remember how to spell!).

Finding a sitter online

More and more parents are turning to the Net for a night out, the Washington Post reports. Pointing to sites like 4Sitters.com, MyNannyCalledInSick.com, Student-Sitters.com, and Chicago-based SitterCity.com (the largest, which boasts a database of 15,000 sitters in 15 cities), the Post says parents pay an average of $10/hour for child care offered by sites like these. That is, $10/hour plus a membership fee (monthly or quarterly ones of $5-10 or annual fees of between $25 and $40 (rates are typically lower than those of traditional child-care referral agencies). "Parents can log on to the site, specify when and where they need a sitter and identify transportation and other preferences. SitterCity, for example, offers 40 criteria from which parents can choose, including whether the sitter smokes, knows certain languages, or is available on holidays (New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day are the most popular)." The sites provide contact info, references and, as with sellers on eBay, feedback from other sitter seekers on specific sitters' quality of care. "Parents arrange their own interviews and negotiate pay with the sitter (some sites have minimum rates, others have suggested amounts)."

Family PC: Backlash coming?

It's actually kind of surprising that the question - about the family PC as the "WMD" of "family values" - hasn't come up much (I think it has been flying under radar because of the other digital divide: kids are just so much more tech-fluent than grownups, and grownups are the ones with "radar detection"). But it's coming up now, and Wall Street Journal columnist Lee Gomes this week asked the question: "If America gets serious about doing battle over 'values,' will the Internet-enabled personal computer be able to stay out of the crosshairs?" Maybe not, but that may not be all bad. If the question raises awareness about the need for parents and educators to help children keep Net use constructive, then it's good. A balanced, very public debate - airing the views of parents, researchers, educators, child advocates, policymakers, and the tech industry, would be even better. But parents mustn't overreact and pull the plug on our children's Internet use. Why? Please see my newsletter this week for more on this.

Get another patch!

You need this latest "critical" patch for your (Windows) PC if you use Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. A critical flaw in IE could allow malicious hackers to take control of your computer, Reuters reports. You don't need it if you're one of those extra-careful and/or tech-literate folk who have already downloaded Microsoft's comprehensive Service Pack 2 for PC security. Otherwise (or if you have any questions), go to Windows Update and just scan your system to see what it needs to be up-to-date. (If you have a high-speed connection, I hope you also have firewall and anti-virus software installed!) Reuters says MS issued this patch outside its regularly scheduled security update cycle - another sign that it's important.

Stuffing those iPods

No, not into Christmas stockings. I mean, stuffing those new iPods with music - entire CD collections, no less. It seems like a daunting task to some people, apparently, because a new service industry is filling this new niche: iPod-stuffing (maybe I even coined this!). The New York Times cites two companies in the New York City area - HungryPod and RipDigital - that convert the contents of people's CDs into MP3 files and fill up their iPods. "RipDigital does not load music onto iPods directly, but burns it to DVD; for an additional fee it will load an external hard drive with music," the Times reports. Companies like these probably need to be local, because who would want to ship their entire collections to distant locations? HungryPod's proprietor, Catherine Keane, will even go to your home or office and pick up your CDs. My husband says this is kind of silly because it's so easy to load tunes on his iPod, but it sounds like a good idea to me - if only for the time saved (Ron multitasks while loading). Better yet, it's a great way for teenaged techies to make some pocket change! Email me if anyone young at your house is intrigued with the idea - via (or click "comments" just below and post here!).

Tech replacing toys for kids?

There are definite indicators that it is, not least at your house and mine. "Researchers report what parents already know: that children as young as 8 and 9 are asking for adult toys, like cellphones and iPods, rather than stuffed animals or toy trucks," according to the New York Times. The article cites recent Kaiser Family Foundation research finding that that half of all 4-to-6-year-olds have played video games, a quarter of them regularly. But this is the most interesting point of the article, toward the end: "While some neurologists and childhood historians argue that the growing tendency of children to play with electronic toys may stunt their imaginations, others contend that even babies find a way to adapt electronic toys to their natural mode of imaginative play. Kids may be acting out their own scripts when they play with video games, and many still have imaginary friends." Do you find that to be true with your children, or are you concerned about their interest in video games? Do send in your experience with younger kids and tech!



While we're on the subject, the Wall Street Journal reports that not only are toys going high-tech, they're also going high-end: "In an otherwise-bleak retailing environment for playthings, premium-priced toys appear to be outdoing simpler, cheaper, Easy-Bake Oven-type diversions."

Parent-teach e-conferences

It's probably true everywhere: parent-teacher conferences as a scheduling nightmare, with 12-hour days for teachers and long waits for parents. In some Detroit-area schools, email "conferences" have become an alternative, the Detroit Free Press reports - at least for the parents of "high-achieving students." According to the Free Press, "many teachers agree that an alternative to the must-attend conference is necessary. But some are less certain about what will be lost and what will be gained with email. And even after years of computer training, not all teachers are at ease with email." What do you think? Is an email PTC just as good, or just better than nothing, when parent-teacher schedules just can't be lined up? Email me (anytime) via anne@netfamilynews.org.

Kids 2-11: Active Web-sters

Children 2-11 are the age group with "the fastest growing appetite for Web pages viewed," reports Net traffic measurer Nielsen NetRatings, adding that the number of Web pages they visit has grown 106% over the past two years. Nielsen points out that, though they don't spend more time online than their elders, they "digest more content at a faster pace." As for gender, growth of Web-page consumption for boys under 12 surpassed that for girls: boys' grew 55% over the past year, compared to 22% for girls. Most interesting, though, were their Top 5 picks. For girls, communications sites were tops; for boys, it was entertainment. Two-to-11-year-old girls' Top 5 sites were MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, and Macromedia (maybe to download its Flash and Shockwave players for online games and other multimedia features). For boys, the Top 5 were Disney Channel, RealOne Player (downloadable online audio and video player), Kraft Entertainment (e.g., "Arctic 3D Racer snowmobile game promoting X-Treme JELL-O Sticks), Amazon, and Cartoon Network. [See the charts at eMarketer.]

Top 10 Xmas films

...from classics to new releases, see this list of annotated movie lists at Epinions.com from fellow parents and avid moviegoers (real people like you and me). And along these lines, here's the Washington Post's DVD Holiday Gift Guide. (In its KidsPost section, the Post also recently published its toy picks for 2004 and a report on how other new toys scored in their tests).

Net at u.: TheFaceBook phenom

If you have a college student in your family, you may've heard about TheFaceBook.com (I spoke with just such a person about Gonzaga University's version over Thanksgiving dinner). The site/phenomenon "began 10 months ago with five Harvard students and is now the most popular way to either network or waste time for a million college students at around 300 colleges, from Yale to the University of the Pacific," the New York Times reports. It's not just the online version of the staple-bound collection of fellow freshmen's high school graduation pictures. It's a site-ful of an entire student body's ever-updatable photos and profiles, with lists of favorite movies, books, deliverable foods, tunes, etc., as well as relationships status, of course. Along the lines of "click here to see if this babe [male or female] is available." It's so entertaining, the Times says, that "it's the Swiss Army knife of procrastination." Examples at Princeton, where "students with a few hours on their hands can sit in their dorms and check out the profiles of the 395 members of People Against Popped Collars (the preppy look of rolling up the collar of your knit shirt)," the Times reports, or "he or she could join groups like People Against Groups (15 members, first meeting July 23, 2025) ... Future Trophy Wives of America and groups actually about real things like politics or the outdoors."



In its coverage of e-face books, USATODAY cites others, such as ConnectU.com and CampusNetwork.com, which have discussion boards and host students' blogs, or online journals. What does your university student think - do these services enhance or stunt his/her social development (the latter is what some critics say), or is s/he already pretty socially developed? Send an email or click on "comments" just below to post a message in this blog.