Net school for Katrina victims

This is one of those Internet-as-hero stories that need to be told. Thanks to Michigan Virtual High School (MVHS), a state-funded nonprofit organization, "28 students at Pass Christian High School will still get a shot at passing chemistry," Internet News reports. Since Hurricane Katrina "took their high school down and their chemistry teacher left town, the students had to go online to finish the course, and MVHS was there for them. "Students from public or private high schools are eligible to take the online classes," according to Internet News. "Those who make use of the service include gifted or other special needs students, those who need to make up credits and kids who are home-schooled. The service also includes tools for preparing for common achievement tests, as well as career-development tools. Some schools purchase access to classes or tools on behalf of students; individuals also can pay to take courses. Except for home-schoolers, classes and credit are managed by the child's school."

Sites for family (& other) videos

It's getting very easy for anyone to put video on the Web for all to see - at no cost. Parents may want to note that, as with blogging sites, anyone can start his/her own account from anywhere there's a Net connection. The Los Angeles Times reviews three free video services: Grouper.com (which is also a well-established music-sharing service), YouTube.com, and Google Video. The first two allow a user to select a friends-only setting to restrict viewing. But Google, unlike Grouper and YouTube, reviews all videos before publishing them, according to the L.A. Times. To writer David Colker's credit, he addresses the question on many parents' minds: Doesn't video sharing on the Internet open a big Pandora's box - amateur porn?... Executives at both [Grouper and YouTube] said there had been few instances of anyone trying to slip porn onto their sites [all three have anti-porn clauses in their user agreements]. And soon after subscribers complained about such clips, the executives said, they were deleted." With no other safeguards from kids' exposure to X-rated content, one can only hope the companies stay vigilant.

Webcam kid going public: Results

Exposure is child pornographers' worst enemy. So the New York Times's milestone profile of Justin Berry, who starting selling images and video of himself online when he was 13 (see "Kids & Webcams"), has already had positive results: "Some of the most trafficked Web sites that directed potential customers to minors' online Webcams have shut down," the Times reports. The Times doesn't provide numbers but gives Michelle Collins, director of the Exploited Child Unit of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children as its source of this development. The closures, though, affected boys more than girls. "Not every portal to teenage Webcam sites has disappeared. While among the most popular, the portals that have taken down their links to adolescent sites are only those that in the past featured links to Justin's sites. As a result, each one is primarily a listing of boys' sites, or both boys' and girls' sites. However, other portals that link solely to girls' sites are still up and running. The ones that have disappeared, however, were significant parts of the Webcam infrastructure." Another result: Justin's biological father, implicated in the now-19-year-old's case against child pornographers, "has approached American officials in Mexico through his lawyer with an offer to turn himself in."

Net gender gap closing: Study

Though there's still a gender gap (men are the early adopters and women the communicators), the sexes are "more similar than different" in their use of the Internet, the Pew Internet & American Life Project found in its latest study. They both value the Net for its efficiency (where shopping's concerned), as "the gateway to limitless vaults of informaation." And where there is a gap, it's closing fast: 68% of men and 66% of women go online. Here are a few more key findings:

* Men are "slightly more intense" Net - they go online more often, spend more time online, and are morely to be broadband users than women.
* Women are more "enthusiastic online communicators, and they use email in a more robust way." They're also "more likely to feel satisfied with the role email plays in their lives, especially when it comes to nurturing their relationships."
* Men and women are "equally likely to use the Internet to buy products and take part in online banking, but men are more likely to use the Internet to pay bills, participate in auctions, trade stocks and bonds, and pay for digital content."
* Men are more avid consumers of online information, more likely to use the Net as a destination for recreation, and download and listen to music online than women, and the former are "more tech savvy."

That last item continues a theme found in research about online boys and girls nearly a decade ago, finding boys more likely to play and tinker with computers themselves and girls more likelyl to use them as a communications tool, a "means to an end." Some things change, some things seem not to.
There was lots of coverage of this, including at ABC News in the US.

Contest for phone 'filmmakers'

The prize for this "film festival" is for "best student film shot entirely with a camera cellphone," for presentation, of course, on a 1-to-2-inch screen, eSchoolNews reports. High school and university students throughout the US are eligible to enter their 30-second films for a $5,000 prize. "It might seem like an attention-grabbing gimmick, but [Ithaca College's Roy H. Park School of Communications, Dean Dianne] Lynch leaves no doubt of the contest's academic purpose. In today's media marketplace - where cell phones can take pictures, play music and games, be a personal secretary, or connect to Web sites - it's all about thinking small and mobile" at a time and in a country where it seems to be all about thinking big: "bigger houses, bigger cars, bigger portions at the local fast food joint," etc. The deadline for film submission is January 10. Winners will be announced at the end of the month. But Ithaca College isn't the first in this space, the Associated Press reports. For example, there's MTV's "Head and Body," a series of programs for phones; last year's Zoie Films festival, which dubbed itself "the world's first cell-phone film festival"; and, in Paris last fall, the Forum des Images's Pocket Film Festival.

Phone alerts for gamers

Microsoft is working on further blurring the line between game and phone communications. In about six months, it'll introduce a system that will alert Xbox 360 users on their phones when their friends are playing on the 360. "The alerts would be sent over the Internet via Xbox Live and come to a mobile over the air as an instant message," report GameSHOUT and the BBC.

Cellphones *disconnect* us?!

"Addicted" is a word being used in connection with technology a lot these days (see this item on "Net addiction"). In its report on a study in the Journal of Marriage in Family, the Christian Science Monitor quotes a woman teaching stress management as saying a lot of her clients are "addicted to staying in touch." They never turn off their cellphones, so that even when they're at home with their families, they're not really there. Sociologists are calling it "absent presence," the Monitor reports. "For employees on electronic leashes, cellphones and pagers raise questions about who draws the line between work and home, and where that line is." What the article, full of family anecdotes, seems to indicate is that the line is drawn differently at different times, and it depends on intentions and goals. Is one just being a workaholic at family members' expense, or is the phone actually helping parents be with children? The answer could be different from one hour to the next. In other words, it's complicated, and the answer isn't necessarily just to turn the phone off when at home or on vacation. One parent cited in the piece could only go on vacation because he had his phone with him. What's *your* family's experience with cellphones (both parents' and kids')? What answers have you found? I'd love to hear from you about this.

2005: Big year for movie/games

Before this year, most movie-spinoff videogames were either "abysmal" or "drably formulaic," writes New York Times "Game Theory" columnist Charles Herold. "Last month's release of the video-game adaptation of "Peter Jackson's King Kong" caps a year that proves those days are over." "Blade Runner" and "The Thing" weren't bad, Herold says, but "Charlie's Angels" and "The Crow: City of Angels" definitely went into the Abysmal category. "The Chronicles of Riddick" turned the tide, when game developers finally seemed to realize that more people would play a good game than a bad one - sales weren't necessarily tied to a film's box-office intake. "While nothing else this year has been as impressive as 'King Kong,' a healthy number of fun movie games like 'Madagascar' and 'Batman Begins' have appeared."

Songbird: Web-wide iTunes?

Playlist for the people? It sounds like a tool that would interest a lot of digital-music fans because of its flexibility (something the music industry hasn't provided a lot of yet). The idea is to allow people to make a playlist of tunes that don't just "live" on their computer harddrives, but rather one that pulls together their favorite songs from wherever they are, out on the Web or on their computer. Called "Songbird," it's software "based on much of the same underlying open-source technology as the Firefox Web browser," CNET reports, and it's the brainchild of "digital-music veteran Rob Lord" and the other five people of Pioneers of the Inevitable, the start-up developing it. Lord says iTunes is like the Internet Explorer browser if it could only access Microsoft.com - why he's creating Songbird.

Teen blogs' pros & cons

There are more and more stories in papers US-wide about teen blogging, pointing to both pros and cons. "I see incredible value to teen blogs," writes Joyce Valenza in a commentary in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Valneza knows a lot about blogging, not just because she has her own professional blog, but also because she's a high school librarian in the Philadelphia area and the mother of a blogger. "I know many teens who are newly motivated to write and who find themselves, for the first time, writing for a real audience. Groups of friends, remote and local, are brought closer in online communities." She also sees value in classroom blogging as "building a habit for the valuable sharing of knowledge." But she also acknowledges schools' legitimate concerns about "potential liability for personal blogging on school computers during recess and study halls. Bullying and unpleasant clique behaviors are part of teen culture." The Tuscaloosa News quotes a University of Alabama psychology professor as saying there's "ample research" showing that revealing secrets and sharing strong feelings is good for physical and psychological health - of course not when so much is revealed that an online predator can groom or stalk an unsuspecting blogger. Teen bloggers, the News reports, don't often think about the potential downside.

Court blocks CA game law

The law, which would make it a crime to rent or sell violent videgames to minors, was blocked by a federal court, the Los Angeles Times reports. Signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in October, it was to go into effect January 1. "Game makers noted Thursday that Whyte's decision marked the sixth time that a judge had ruled in their favor on sales bans. Most recently, a similar law in Illinois was blocked this month."

Teens risky online: Study

A just-released survey of 1,468 US tweens and teens turned up a lot of risk-taking in their online activities, USATODAY reports. The study, by the Polly Klaas Foundation, found that 42% of 13-to-18-year-olds who use the Net post personal informaation so people can contact them, 30% have talked about meeting someone they encountered online, and 27% have talked about sex online with someone they've never met in person. The Klaas Foundation, a member of the Association of Missing and Exploited Children's Organizations, says it conducted the survey because "the recent explosion in online networking [as at MySpace.com] puts young people at increased risk of sexual encounters and abductions by predators." In other findings from the survey…

* More girls than boys 13-18 are posting a profile (56% vs. 37%), sharing personal information (37% vs. 26%), and being asked about sexual topics (33% vs. 18%).
* 54% have communicated with a stranger via IM, half via email, and 45% via chatroom.
* 56% have been asked personal questions online; 25% weekly; 10% daily.
* Online teens frequently communicate virtually with someone they have never met: 54 percent have done so using Instant Messaging; half via e-mail; and 45% in a chat room.
*12% have learned that someone they were communicating with online was an adult pretending to be younger.

The Klaas Foundation's press release cites Justice Department data showing an 84% increase this year over 2004 in complaints nationwide about predators enticing minors online or traveled to meet them. Here's the San Francisco Examiner's coverage.

Teen's blogged confession...

…at Blurty.com led to a guilty plea (Blurty is a blogging/social-networking site). "An 18-year-old passenger who caused a fatal crash … pleaded guilty to DUI manslaughter after prosecutors discovered a confession on his online blog," the Associated Press reports. The blog post was dated three days after the crash, though the boy, Blake Ranking, "had previously told investigators he remembered nothing of the crash and little of its aftermath." His sentencing is December 28. Here's the Orlando Sentinel's coverage.

'Neopets addiction' ok for your kid?

Before one even looks at Neopets.com's numbers it's clearly a phenomenon: designed by a young British couple who love animals, art, and writing software code, marketed by an American who based its business model on the teachings of Scientology and trademarked the phrase "immersive advertising," and acquired by Viacom last June for $160 million. Then there are those user numbers, 25 million members wordwide, 80% of them under 18 and 20% under 13, interacting and caring for their neopets in 10 languages - "the stuff of marketers' dreams," as Wired magazine put it in a thorough take-out on planet Neopets. But the site is not without its critics, because "half a million of its users are under age 8," and people that age can't mentally fend off persuasive sales messages, Wired reports, much less distinguish between playing a game and immersive advertising (as in the "'Lucky Charms: Shooting Stars!' game, in which kids navigate a series of marshmallow treats" of breakfast cereal fame), even when it says "this page contains paid advertisements" at the bottom of the page. There is profanity screening, according to Wired, and "Neopets bars kids under 13 from using the messaging features … but with no credit card numbers to verify identity, nothing prevents an 8-year-old from registering as an 18-year-old to post instant messages. And although they can't select a username like Phuckhead, because it's blocked, they could choose Childmolester - if it weren't already taken." For more, see "Beware chat on Neopets" from a mom/NFN reader and "Advergames & the nag factor."

'Game moms': Dazed & confused?

They seems to have fewer clues than soccer moms, anyway. Not all, but a lot of them, based on the impressions given by a Washington Post reporter observing game moms behavior in what is not generally their natural habitat: game stores. "Salespeople at the game stores, as amused as they are a little agitated, say they can easily spot the three types of game moms: the indifferent, the clueless and the hip." The salespeople don't seem to mind this sub-category: clueless with a list. The *other* lists game moms and dads might want to check against is the National Institute on Media & the Family's lists of games to avoid and recommended games (p. 11 of its 2005 report) and the ESRB's list of game ratings and what they mean. For further insights into the gaming phenomenon, see "A (Virtual) World of Their Own: Computer Gaming and Your Patients," by Jerald Block, MD.

'America's Army' morphs

What was created as a recruiting tool for the US Army is now "one of the most popular computer games on the planet," the BBC reports. "America's Army," a free massively multiplayer online combat videogame, has "6 million registered users worldwide and scores of fansites worldwide," the BBC adds. But that's not all. From recruitment to entertainment, the game is now morphing into a third mission: combat training. "The Army believes that the real power of this technology lies in the fact that it is multiplayer, and can be securely networked across the globe. That would allow combat-hardened soldiers in the field to assist new trainees." This third, more realistic phase of the game, called "Full Spectrum Warrior" and developed Army-funded Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California, teaches soldiers other skills besides those developed in combat, though: e.g., how to interact and negotiate with all kinds of people in "mission-critical areas," such as average citizens, doctors, clerics, and political leaders.

Lawsuits not 'helping'

At least not in the UK. I'm referring to lawsuits by the music industry against file-sharers and a just-released study about it cited in The Guardian. The survey, conducted by market research firm Mori for AOL UK, found that "51% of those who currently download tracks do so illegally." It also indicated "a large degree of confusion among consumers about whether or not they were breaking copyright laws by using illegal sites. Only four in 10 said that they understood the law." Even so, more than 75% of respondents said they'd illegally downloaded music at least once (one in six said they use music retail sites exclusively).

Santa worm in IM

It's a sad day when we have to tell our kids to be very wary of any instant message about Santa Claus! You can tell them they're too smart to fall for this little social-engineering trick: the "IM.GiftCom.All" worm that's spreading through the AIM and MSN and Yahoo Messenger networks. CNET reports that this worm too will look like it's coming from someone on their buddy list, but - when clicked on - it installs a "rootkit" that spreads by sending itself to all the contacts of IM-ers who've clicked. "A rootkit is a tool designed to go undetected by the security software used to lock down control of a computer after an initial hack." It needs to be drilled into everybody's head not to click on anything in a message (a link, a file, etc.) before seeing if the person who *seems* to have sent it actually did! (See also "Tips from a tech-savvy dad: IM precautions.")

Oz parent-teen gap: Study

A just-released study in Australia found "a huge disconnect between parents and their teenage children over online behaviour," according to its press release. The study - conducted by NetAlert, the Australian government's online-safety body, and Web portal NineMSN.com.au - looked at teen blogging/social networking, "illegal content downloads," and parental supervision of kids' online activity. It found, for example, that…

* 24% of teens claim that their parents are never around when they're online; 6% of parents said they were never around when their kids were online.
* 71% of parents believe their children use the Net for research; 23% of teens say they research online.
* 80% of parents claim they have set ground rules for Internet usage; 69% of teenagers agree that such rules exist.
* 40% of teen respondents said they'd "potentially" meet in person someone they'd "met online"; 12% said they'd get their parents' permission.
* "As many as 63% of teens have "downloaded content from the Internet that they didn't want their parents to know about."
* 50% of parents believe they always know what sites their children visit.
* More than half of parents surveyed claimed that they had better Internet knowledge than their children.

Granddad settles & other music news

It's a case people have been watching: that of a Wisconsin man, who was sued for $600,000 by the film industry because his 12-year-old grandson downloaded four movies via a P2P network. Fred Lawrence said he knew nothing about file-sharing at the time his grandson did the downloading, and they owned three of the movies anyway. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that Mr. Lawrence will be giving talks to schoolchildren about Internet piracy as a part of the settlement with the Motion Picture Association of America (here's earlier coverage). Meanwhile, the music industry has just sued 751 more music file-sharers, CNET reports.

There have been lots of digital-music developments lately…. Playing a bit of catchup, Google is beefing up music searching, providing "more information about artists, album cover art, reviews, and links to stores where users can download a track or buy a CD," Red Herring reports. MTV and Microsoft are teaming up, with the former announcing its plan "to launch its long-anticipated Internet service, called URGE," the Los Angeles Times reports . MTV wants to "exploit the flexibility and ubiquity of Microsoft's Media Player software, which comes preinstalled in the Windows operating system." There's now an alternative to the video iPod: the Creative Zen Vision:M. Here are Engadget and The Register on it.

US videogame law introduced

The trend at the state level is courts blocking laws against violent videogame sales to minors. It could be reversed at the federal level, though. "A trio of Democratic senators with presidential ambitions introduced federal legislation" that basically would turn the gaming industry's current voluntary ratings into law and would fine retailers for selling to minors games rated "Mature" or "Adults Only" or with "ratings pending," the Wall Street Journal reports. The Journal says the senators "believe [their law, unlike the state laws so far] can pass constitutional muster." The senators are Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, and Evan Bayh of Indiana. The article details what's been going on at the state level. Here's the page at the Entertainment Software Rating Board that describes the current rating syst em (ratings can also be found on the front of videogame packaging, with descriptions of their meaning on the back).

Kids & Webcams: Terrible trend

The story resulting from the New York Times's six-month-long investigation starts with Justin Berry, who got his start at age 13 buying a Webcam to meet other teenage friends online. Within weeks he was getting paid $50 "to sit bare-chested in front of his computer for three minutes" for a man who helped him instantly set up a PayPal account. Over five years, Justin developed an audience of 1,500 that paid him "hundreds of thousands of dollars." The connected computer was in his room, and he hid the Webcams behind it during the day so his mother wouldn't see them, the Times reports. Worse: Justin's activities were only part of the "Webcam Matrix," a term dubbed by another teenager cited by the Times, who, also for money, operates his own site of self-published child porn.

The Times article is the first I've seen in 8+ years of following reportage on kids and tech pointing to a trend or a generalized pattern of actions and genre of Web sites. The pattern of behavior and sites/blogs, on the teenagers' part, are about money, naivete, the need to connect, or combinations of the above. The pattern of actions on the adults' part are well known to law enforcement. What was much less known is how wide-spread self-published child porn has become. There have been scattered reports of teens exposing themselves for intimate friends, before the friendship "goes bad" and photos are maliciously IM'ed or emailed around (e.g., see "India: Child porn by teens" and "Self-published child porn"); The Times also tells of how these photos' subjects, too, wind up as "pornographic commodities" on the Web. But now we know these social-context incidents with tragic results are only the tip of the iceberg. "Easy money" for teens is aided by Internet companies large and small "wittingly and unwittingly" (the latter including PayPal and Amazon, but non-financial services and technologies are involved too, of course). And this investigative reporting has led to "a wide-scale criminal investigation." The Times says it persuaded Justin, now a very courageous 19-year-old, to shut down his business and help the Justice Department with its investigation, possibly facing prosecution himself.

It's a long article, with Justin's complete story. The companion video interview shows what Justin's been through and the integrity that compelled him to tell his story for other kids' sake. Here are some key points in the article that parents might want to know: 1) "As soon as Justin hooked the camera to his bedroom computer and loaded the software [back in 2000], his picture was *automatically* posted [emphasis mine] on spotlife.com, an Internet directory of Webcam users, along with his contact information." 2) "No one Justin's age ever contacted him from that listing" and "within minutes he heard from his first online predator ... followed by another, then another." 3) Video-hosting is offered by many services now, including blogging/social-networking sites, and IM services allow users to attach videos, but kids can also easily create their own video-enabled Web sites (so many services are free - no credit card bills to alert parents). [Here's a story from Agence France Press on the rapid rise of vlogging, or video blogging.]

For bloggers of all ages

It's simple, in name and mission: BlogSafety.com. And it's about blogging smarts on the personal, online-journal (as opposed to the news) side of the blogosphere.
Created by Larry Magid of SafeKids.com with help from NetFamilyNews, BlogSafety offers advice on safe blogging for teens and their parents, teachers, and other caregivers.

But it's not just about online safety. Larry wants young bloggers to think about the implications of public blogging for applying to schools and seeking jobs in the future, as well as maintaining good relationships (at home and beyond) right now. What people say in the very public space called the Internet is nearly always impossible to take back. There's also the school part of the blogging scene, so check out the Teachers' page. The site welcomes your views and recommendations - go to its blog (click on "comments" under any post) or email anytime at feedback@blogsafety.com).

More moms on monitoring

It was great to hear from four more parents after last week's feature, "A mom on monitoring," uploaded: one who basically agreed with Heather's approach, three who decidedly didn't. The three who didn't - Ann in Minnesota, Kathy in Connecticut, and Nancy in Oregon- are a youth librarian, an educator, and a children's online-safety expert, respectively. As Ann puts it, we definitely hit "a vital nerve" in the online-parenting community - not a bad thing, right?! Here's this week's issue of my newsletter, with their views. [Don't miss Nancy's helpful "three stages of monitoring" (Nancy Willard is director of the Center for Safe & Responsible Internet Use).]

Social-*bookmarking*

First there were social-networking sites; now there are social-bookmarking sites. Call it online group think: "Social bookmarking and social content sites rely on the opinions of users to determine what Web sites are most worth reading," as Forbes.com puts it. Take Del.icio.us is the prime example (Forbes focuses on this pioneering glorified-bookmarking site because Yahoo just acquired it. Sounds rather culinary, but Del.icio.us is as general as its 200,000 registered-user group (the figure before Yahoo started marketing it). Then "there's Digg, Memeorandum, Flock, NewsVine, RawSugar and Wink … (all in various preproduction phases)," Forbes adds. Different bookmarking, or "tagging," sites focus on different things. Digg is about collaborative newsmaking. "Users submit and either promote or demote tech-news stories via a voting system called 'digging'," according to Forbes. "The more people who 'digg' a story, the higher up on the Web page it goes. About 500,000 people visit the site daily."

Gamers 'outsourcing'!

They're like gamer sweatshops - and they're serious, in some cases exploitive, business. There are "well over 100,000 young people working in China as full-time gamers," often in 12-hour shifts and meeting strict quotas, the New York Times reports. Why? Because "from Seoul to San Francisco, affluent online guamers [among the some 100 million worldwide] who lack the time and patience to work their way up to the higher levels of gamedom are willing to pay the young Chinese to play [online games' boring] early rounds for them." The practice is controversial - "many hard-core gamers say … [it's] distorting the games," the Times reports. The article provides fascinating insights not only into gaming in developing countries (China has some 24 million gamers) but also into the maturing worldwide "industry" of MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games). In this alternate world, people are making real six-figure incomes for designing virtual clothes and selling virtual real estate, and less but real money selling advanced-level characters, weapons, pets, armor, etc., in games like The Sims and World of Warcraft (see "Lively alternate lives"; "$100k virtual land," 11/4 and 10/28; and "Games' shadow economy").

Toddler tech: Educational?

Healthy skepticism is in order when it comes to tech-toy and baby media makers claiming their products will give your child a headstart or "stimulate his cognitive development." That's my takeaway from a just-released study by the Kaiser Family Foundation: "A Teacher in the Living Room?: Educational Media for Babies, Toddlers and Preschoolers." As attractive as titles like "Brainy Baby: Left Brain" and "Math Circus" are to many parents, there just isn't enough research backing up the claims on this genre's packaging, the study found. In addition to videos, it looked at software and videogames (29 products in all, to check for educational claims and whether they include parental guidelines) and lists of best-sellers in the category. Then Kaiser conducted a "systematic review" of the research available and interviews with representatives of the top 3 makers of videos, software, and videogames. For its report on the study, the New York Times actually found an 11-month-old, Jetta, who "has it all" - LeapFrog, Baby Einstein, even a grownup laptop computer, her mom told the Times. Like many parents, probably, she figures it can't hurt, and there's a chance Jetta will be smarter because of her ed-tech collection. The Times provides a range of views that make up the current collage of (or should I say experiment in?) toddler tech.

Kids' high-tech wish lists

Oh, the lengths they go to when they want something! There's the 11-year-old who, the Washington Post reports, wants a virtual snowboarding game and a chocolate fondue fountain so much she put links to them in retail Web sites into a PowerPoint presentation. And the 11- and 13-year-old brothers who changed Mom's screensaver to say "I love you" over and over again, ending with "a request for a video game." And the 16-year-old who emails parents and relatives her wish list "with links to specific CDs" to avoid the embarrassment of walking around a mall for hours with her parents, showing them what she wants. In this fun article, the Post also describes how hard some retailers work to earn "one of the coveted spots on kids' wish lists."

'Happy [media] Meals'

Instead of toys, McDonald's-style Happy Meals of the future will come with parts of movies, if Disney has its way. The Register reports that, according to a patent application Disney has filed, each time a family visits a restaurant, more of the movie will be downloaded automatically (via the restaurant's wireless Internet connection) to the special branded media players the restaurant will be selling. The New York Times adds that "earning a large file, like a movie, might require five trips - a compelling incentive for a customer to return to the restaurant." McDonald's, which the Times says began outfitting its restaurants with wireless Internet connections in 2003, now has wi-fi connections in 6,200 restaurants worldwide.

Mobile porn coming...

...to a phone near you. We know this because content-filtering is now being offered by Cingular Wireless. "The nation's largest cellphone service provider, quietly has launched filtering devices and password-enabled blockers that help thwart underage consumers from buying adult content," USATODAY reports. Besides filtering, the availability of video-enabled phones is what will make mobile porn happen in the US (as usual, there's a downside to exciting new tech features, for which kids are often the earliest adopters). Worldwide mobile porn sales for 2005 are projected to be $1 billion, up 175% from 2004. "US sales [projected for '05] are just $30 million, mostly because carriers, fearful of a backlash, haven't provided easy access to X-rated theater. Still, a Cingular spokesman told USATODAY it's up to parents to control kids' access, which is why Cingular's making parental controls available. Of course, though, parents can't control what children see on other people's phones, e.g., those of kids whose parents don't know filtering's available filtering. Meanwhile, USATODAY says "scores of marketers are lining up to tap the US market. Xobile, a content provider for Web-capable wireless devices, will offer 50,000 video clips."

Home PC security: Still lax

We're getting better, but home PC users are still slackers where PC security's concerned. A survey of US households by AOL and the National Cyber Security Alliance found that 81% of us lack "at least one of three critical types of security," CNET reports. Those three critical things are firewalls, updated antivirus protection, and anti-spyware software. The survey also found that 56% of us have no antivirus software, or hadn't updated it within a week (ideally, you have an antivirus *subscription* service, because daily updates is barely enough); 44% didn’t have firewall software properly configured, and 38% lack spyware protection. The good news is, the number of family PCs with correctly configured firewalls "rose to 56% from 28% a year ago" (attributed to the firewall installed by Windows XP Service Pack 2), and 44% have virus protection, up from 33% a year ago. See also InformationWeek's "Microsoft's OneCare goes live" and, in NetFamilyNews recently, "PC security in a nutshell" and "New PC security tips."

Fresh patch needed!

If you have a Windows family PC with patches automated, you should be fine (you can always check at Microsoft's site). Anyway, Microsoft has just issued a fix for a "critical security flaw in Windows that is being exploited in online attacks against Internet Explorer users," ZDNET reports. The patch also fixes other security flaws in the Explorer Web browser and "tackles part of the fallout from Sony BMG Music Entertainment's rootkit debacle." ZDNET is referring to the "digitial-rights management" (or DRM) software on many Sony CDs that makes PCs playing them vulnerable to malicious hacks (see "Sony's risky CDs" and "Death to DRM?").

Move over, MySpace?!

Specialty spin-offs are already emerging. The MySpace "juggernaut," as the Philadelphia Inquirer puts it, is just two years old but already has 41 million+ registered users, making it "the prime gateway to marketing's dream demographic: 14-to-30-year-olds." [According to the Inquirer, "MySpace says it already carries more than 10% of all advertising viewed online. The ads range from cola and cell phones to dating services ('eSpin-the-Bottle: Search for Hotties near you')."] But watch out, MySpace, an upstart is now on the scene with the message that it's for *real* music fans. CNET reports that TagWorld.com launched this week with "support of a core group of popular indie rock groups, including The Shins and Death Cab for Cutie." It, too, is about social-networking around music, designed to harness the combined power of blogging with music, text, photos, profiles, and "tags" (a way of ID-ing oneself by flagging and organizing one's favorites sites, films, music, celebs, etc.).

Giant scrapbook in cyberspace

Watch out, Flickr. This new service does a lot more than let families share photos - it may even give Google Base some competition (you know, the Google project that intends to be the world's own multimedia database?). It's nearly as ambitious. The service is called "Glide Effortless," I guess because they say it allows you to glide (i.e., upload), store, and share your photo, music, video, etc. files effortlessly onto the Web via its site, GlideDigital.com. The New York Times's David Pogue took the time to kick the service's tires, mentioning that, "for all of Glide's genius, it's also tainted by some profound problems," which you'll need to read about. But the basic concept is "unassailably fresh and useful," David adds: a multimedia "Web-based scrapbook." Once users can really customize its look and feel (and express themselves beyond the family videos they upload), it'll at least have a very decent-sized built-in market: all those scrapbook maintainers out there!

Braincandy for cellphones

Just what parents need: something that makes kids (and adults) want to spend *more* time on their cellphones. I'm talking about Digital Chocolate, which is not actually chocolate but rather a company that makes games that are meant to make cellphones just as "addictive." As USATODAY reports, this cellphone gamemaker is pretty smart, and not just in its marketing. Its games' key ingredient is interactivity, not fancy graphics. Why? Because, CEO Trip Hawkins thought about it ans decided that, as people become ever more busy and mobile, they need more connection and community (thus, possibly, the rapid rise in popularity of massivly multiplayer online games). "If you're going to make games, make them social and mobile," was Digital Chocolate's decision. So far the two-year-old company is in the Top 10 of mobile gamemakers, but it's a brand-new "industry." Watch this space.

File-sharer loses case

The operative word in that headline is "loses." This is one of the rare cases in which the defendant didn't settle with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). But it's interesting that the defendant was mainly identified as a mother in the coverage: Nearly all of the 100+ news sites and papers around the world that picked up the story have "mom" in their headlines. In this case, Syliva Gonzalez, not her children, was the one doing the file-sharing, according to the Associated Press. Ms. Gonzalez, who was among the first 261 file-sharers sued by the RIAA back in 2003, "contended she had downloaded songs to determine what she liked enough to buy at retail. She said she and her husband regularly buy music CDs and own more than 250. However, the appeals panel [the federal court that last week upheld the original decision in favor of the recording industry] said Gonzalez never deleted songs off her computer she decided not to buy." The AP adds that this case "represents one of the earliest appeals court victories by the music industry in copyright lawsuits it has filed against thousands [some 17,000]." Here's the decision at FindLaw.com. We'll keep watching for the results of a case in which a parent or guardian was sued for a child's file-sharing (see this story). Meanwhile, another tactic the industry used to discourage file-sharing (by sharing millions of fake music and movie files on servers around the world) is going away. Seattle-based Loudeye is "shuttering its Overpeer division … in an attempt to bolster the parent company's bottom line," CNET and the BBC report. [Thanks to BNA Internet Law for pointing this news out.]

ID theft risk 'overblown': Study

Rarely do we hear good news on this subject, but people who've had their credit cards or personal info stolen are at little risk of becoming identity-theft victims, a just-released study found. Even in cases where thieves get social security numbers and other sensitive information, "only about 1 in 1,000 victims had their identities stolen," Reuters cites the researchers, ID Analytics of San Diego, as saying. The fraud detection firm analyzed "four recent data breaches involving a total of 500,000 consumers," including an unidentified "top 5 US bank." As for reasons why fears about stolen credit cards are overblown: people usually cancel them quickly, and it's "hard work" to piece an identity together just from info on a credit card. For link redundancy, here's Reuters at USATODAY too. But it's still important to protect our privacy. Here's the New York Times on "proper data destruction" on the family PC.

New Firefox: Parental point

It's a very brief, positive look at the latest version of the Firefox browser (for Mac, Linux, and Windows) in the New York Times. Sounds great: powerful, fast, stable, easily customizable, etc. But parental antennae go up upon reading this: "One valuable new feature for those browsing on shared computers - or at work - is a one-click 'Clear Private Data' function that flushes out any record of browsing, downloading, or saved passwords." You see it too, right? Kids able to erase where they've been on the Web, hide passwords, or cover their downloading tracks at the click of a mouse? Firefox is a great browser that keeps getting better, but sometimes there are kid-protection and PC-security downsides to new features in any Net-related software.

A mom on monitoring

The more I hear from parents, the more convinced I am that there are as many "right" ways to parent online kids as there are kids online - even within a single family. There are so many factors, from age and maturity levels to a family's own values. Which means, of course, that, in this Digital Age, more is demanded of parents all the time. So it's great to hear from you and - with your permission - to publish your stories and comments. Whether or not parents agree on approaches, the discussion is extremely valuable.

Heather in California, parent of four, emailed me recently about how well monitoring software has worked for her. I asked if she'd be willing to elaborate a bit, and she generously emailed the hands-on strategy she used with her oldest daughter. Heather certainly has an answer to parents' question about kids' privacy on the Net. I'd love to hear other parents' views (email me anytime, or post in this blog). Here's Heather (in this week's issue of my newsletter).

Teacher-bullying in blogs

Is it appropriate for teachers and administrators to discipline students because of their blog posts? Even students who disagree with some threatening posts about teachers by three peers at Taft High School told the Chicago Sun-Times that it was the students' right to make those remarks. The three are 7th- and 8th-grade students in the Advanced Placement program at Taft. One wrote this about a teacher in a Xanga blog Nov. 3: "She'll see oh yes, there will be blood'' and "no, I won't kill her ... yet," according to the Sun-Times. "Chicago Public Schools lawyers Wednesday approved disciplinary action against the students after a long review over whether outraged Taft administration officials were wading into First Amendment waters by seeking suspensions." The three were suspended, the Sun-Times added, "one for as long as 10 days." Another Chicago public school handling a student-blogging case last year did not suspend a student for discriminatory remarks, but a spokesman said this recent case was different because posts referred to specific individuals and physically threatening. The incident "has divided students and teachers" at Taft, according to the Sun-Times says, and debate over student First Amendment rights continues nationwide. The article comes with a sidebar reporting that, especially since the Columbine High School shootings in 1999, "the majority of courts [dealing with these cases] around the country … have held that school officials are well within their rights to discipline students for what they post off-campus on the Internet." For more legal info, see the Electronic Frontier Foundation's guide to student blogging.

Meanwhile, the Middletown (Ohio) Journal published an editorial today about two cases of Ohio students posting death threats in their Xanga blogs. See also "School nixes blogging" and "Student wins free-speech case." Email me *your* experiences with student blogs anytime (or post just below)!

Rockstars of videogames

One is 24 and made more than $800,000 this year in tournament winnings and computer-parts endorsements, the other is 69 and works for MTV as a "senior" correspondent and game reviewer. Well, grandmother and gamer Barbara St. Hilaire may not exactly be a rockstar-type figure, but gamers obviously think she's pretty cool. "Grandson Timothy chronicles her Xbox, Playstation 2 and GameCube adventures in his blog, OldGrandmaHardcore.com," the Washington Post reports (see the online discussion with Barbara, Timothy, and people around the US at the Post - it dispels a few myths). As for the 24-year-old almost-millionaire gamer, "Fatal1ty" Wendel has won 5 videogame championships playing various games and is profiled in the New York Times and will be featured on CBS's "60 Minutes" (this Sunday, 12/11). He and other videogame "rockstars" are helping marketers reach the ever more elusive 14-to-21-year-old market, which is "consuming traditional media at lower rates every single year." Here's the San Jose Mercury News and the Associated Press on the growing power of product-placement ads in videogames.

Talking IM worm

Talk about social engineering (you know, when people are tricked into downloading worms, etc.)! Tell your kids, now there's a worm that chats with IM-ers, and they do not want to "go there." CNET reports that a new worm in AIM called "IM.Myspace04.AIM" comes in an instant message that says "lol that’s cool" and contains a link to a malicious file called "clarissa17.pif." "When unsuspecting users have responded, perhaps asking if the attachment contained a virus, the worm has replied: "lol no its not a virus," IM security firm IMlogic told CNET. Clicking on the Clarissa file opens a "backdoor" to your PC, disables security software, messes with system files, and sends the worm to everybody on your child's buddy list. Be sure every IM-er knows that, before clicking or downloading on any message supposedly from a buddy, they need to open a new window if the buddy's online and ask him/her if s/he sent that file or link. If s/he's not online, just don't click! For more, see "Tips from a tech-savvy dad."

Cable TV, family-style

A family package of TV programming is in the works for Comcast and Time Warner customers, USATODAY reports, saying the cable operators are bowing to pressure in Washington. Comcast and Time Warner are the US's No. 1 and No. 2 cable companies, serving some 33 million subscribers. The "family tier," which would include the Disney and Discovery Channels would be "free of sex, violence and rough language." The pressure USATODAY refers to is "the Federal Communications Commission's increasing concerns about offensive cable content and surging rates." Last week FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said "cable companies should make channels available on an individual, or a la carte, basis, so people only have to pay for what they want to watch."

'Podcast': 'Word of the Year'

Looks like FamilyTechTalk got going just in time, since "podcast" has just been declared Word of the Year by the New Oxford American Dictionary. The BBC reports that the word will be added to the dictionary's online version early next year. Its editor-in-chief told the BBC that they thought about adding it last year, but not enough people were listening to podcasts yet. What else has been under consideration? One contender was "lifehack," interestingly referring to "a more efficient way of completing a everyday task. The other was 'rootkit,' defined as software installed on a computer by someone other than the owner, intended to conceal other programs or processes, files or system data. The term hit the headlines when Sony was found to have included a rootkit as part of the copy protection system on some of its music CDs. Other words that did not make it include bird flu, sudoku and trans fat."

The new Rhapsody.com

Rhapsody has moved onto the Web, the Seattle Times reports. Aiming for a bigger presence in blogging communities like MySpace (with 40 million users) and Xanga (with 21 million users), RealNetworks "s rolling out a Web-services platform that will allow third-party Web sites to link directly to albums and songs on Rhapsody. A blogger writing about a new song, for example, could post a link to a track that, when clicked on, will begin playing in a pop-up window." Before this, people had to download a software program (like iTunes) to use Rhapsody. Now anyone with a browser can download 25 songs a month for free, but the Times says the Rhapsody software will still have more features than the Web version.

File-sharing unabated

File-sharers may think I'm talking about Kazaa, whose parent Sharman Networks has complied with an Australian federal court order in an interesting way. Instead of adding a filtering system that blocks copyrighted music, as ordered, Sharman has only "cut off Australians' access to the Web site from which the file-swapping software Kazaa can be downloaded," CNET reports (for more detail and file-sharers' discussion, see P2P news site Slyck ). But what I'm really talking about is a USATODAY column that pretty much nails the current reality where piracy's concerned. An illustration: Columnist Andrew Kantor cites the big news last week that BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen has agreed with the film industry to "go legit" - no longer let people search for pirated content (via "torrents," or "pointers to files available for downloading) on his site. The only problem is the workarounds, the many BitTorrent-indexing sites, among them Torrentspy, where "141,651 torrents available. Each represents a song or a movie or an image or a piece of software. And Torrentspy isn't the largest" (Kazaa traffic was long ago surpassed by BitTorrent and eDonkey, and there's speculation in Slyck the company no longer even has the resources to do the software upgrade the court ordered). Anyway, the music industry now views CD-burning to be a bigger threat (see my 8/19 issue).

Ill. videogame laws struck down

Two state laws banning sales of violent or sexually explicit video games to minors have been blocked by a federal judge in Illinois, Reuters reports. US District Judge Matthew Kennelly said they would "have a 'chilling effect' on the creation and distribution of video games." The laws were due to go into effect January 1. Gov. Rod Blagojevich said he would appeal the decision. Please see the article for an update on similar legislation in other states.

'Net addiction': More 'patients'

Some mental-health professionals are calling it "Internet addiction disorder," others are calling it a fad. Whatever, it's increasingly in the news. Citing Dr. Hilarie Cash's practice in Redmond, Wash., the New York Times reports that she and other specialists treating this problem (e.g., Dr. Kimberly Young in Bradford, Pa., and Dr. Maressa Hecht Orzack in Belmont, Mass.) - which skeptics like Prof. Sara Kiesler at Carnegie Mellon U. contrast to actual physiological addictions - are estimating that 6-10% of the US's some 189 million Net users "have a dependency that can be as destructive as alcoholism and drug addiction." Even more key, it appears to me, is the view that "a majority of obsessive users are online to further addictions to gambling or pornography or have become much more dependent on those vices because of their prevalence on the Internet." The Net's downside in this area is summed up in these key phrases: affordability, accessibility, opportunity for anonymity, and an alternative reality. The Times cites an inpatient program at Procter Hospital in Peoria, Ill., that treats cocaine and Net addicts in the same therapy groups. [Parents might want to know that Dr. Cash and other therapists told the Times they're seeing a growing number of young people as patients.] For further discussion, see the Christian Science Monitor, citing research showing that "40 million Americans regularly view Internet pornography, which accounts for $2.5 billion of the $12 billion US porn industry"; the Boston Globe's "The secret life of boys"; and the Times of Oman reprinting a pay-to-view article in the UK's The Independent on "Internet addiction."

Digital paperdolls

I loved paperdolls, but that may not be a totally fair description of imstar* because, to the teenagers it targets, it must be infinitely more compelling than its 2-dimensional predecessor. This is paperdolls of the digital generation - very multimedia, more personalizable by an order of magnitude. Imstar lets instant-messaging users design their own avatars (the "animated" character that represents them in their IMs), as well as their virtual clothes, and change them and their apparel anytime they want. What I mean by "design" is everything from the shape of the avatar's face and body to eye, skin, and hair color to the way she moves to various kinds of music. This takes online role-playing to a new level. What I mean by "animated," which is so Minnie Mouse-sounding, is PS2 or Xbox 360-style animation (there will soon be guy avatars too). The fashion-conscious IM-er can use "Imbucks" to try on and "buy" clothes at the "Galleria" for her avatar to put in her "Closet" (right now, Baby Phat is a partner, with more fashion brands to be added). She can also just swap clothes with people on her buddy list. But one of the biggest selling points, VP marketing Pamela Quandt told me in a phone interview, is "less misunderstanding." I thought this was interesting. "In testing, we saw that girls were sometimes nervous about how they were perceived by the user at the other end," Pam said, referring to the anxiety a lot of digital communicators have because body language and visual feedback don't exist in cyberspace. Instead of mere emoticons (e.g., smiley faces), "imstar gives you facial expressions *and* body animations," Pam said, "so users can really showcase how they're feeling." I suspect imstar parent Bandalong has started a trend, and this armchair IM anthropologist will definitely be watching animated IM-ing developments! [Imstar is free and has some parental controls. So far, it only works for Windows XP and 2000 users, but Bandalong says it's working on a Mac version.]

'Lost' & critical thinking

What has quickly become a cult TV show, ABC's "Lost," is a great tool for teaching media literacy. Take a Lost-related site a Washington Post article leads with, Oceanic-Air.com, and compare it with, say, Quantas.com.au or Lufthansa.com. Then surf through the other Lost links the Post provides, and make a list of ways you can tell which sites are what they say they are and which are bogus, and how you (or your kids or students) can tell which have accurate information and which have content worth some skepticism. Net-mom has a really useful page of links for critical-thinking development: "Who Says? Developing Web Literacy Skills." And if something tells you you've been fed a line on the Web or in email, there are sites that expose online hoaxes, such as Hoaxbusters.org, VMyths.com, and the one by US government's Office of Cybersecurity. [See this item about some research on critical thinking done at Wellesley College in 2003.]

Truly inspiring blogging

One person's blog, ShaketheQuake and the handful of volunteers behind it, has probably helped thousands of Pakistan's earthquake victims by aiding the coordination of convoys of supplies to the stricken areas, Reuters reports. It started with a post-quake phone text message from a friend to blogger Zohare Haider in Islamabad, saying they should figure out how to help. They and other friends got together at the message-sender's house. "Within hours, the group had scraped together 12 truckloads of food, blankets, medicine and supplies, and almost 30 million Pakistani rupees, and were on their way to Balakot in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province." Many convoys and blog posts later, Haider, who then worked for communications multinational Nortel, has since quit to work for an aid organization because of the way his volunteer work changed his life. Haider's isn't the only Pakistan-based blog inspired by similarly substantive ones that developed out of the tsunami disaster. Reuters also links to "South Asia Quake Help."

The Fly: 'Hot' tech toy

The Fly is a fat ballpoint pen+computer that's infinitely more interesting to kids than it sounds, reports David Pogue at the New York Times, and it appears to be among the "hottest toys" of this holiday season. Here, too, is USATODAY's review of The Fly. From the educational toymakers of LeapPad fame, the Fly, which targets 8-to-14-year-olds is actually *fun* ed tech that does a mind-numbing number of things (see David's paragraph that starts with "STAGGERING possibilities"). On p. 2 he writes, "when it comes to children's technology, a sort of post-educational age has dawned. Last year, Americans bought only one-third as much educational software as they did in 2000. Once highflying children's software companies have dwindled or disappeared." So he's rooting for this exception to the current rule, though its wonderful-ness has a few exceptions too (search for "flies in the ointment" on p. 2). What I wonder is, will your kids be as starry-eyed about The Fly as David's panel of young testers were? The last LeapFrog product I gave my child was not a big hit with him and I didn't want to make him play/read with it - but we may be the exception to *that* rule (and The Fly has lots more bells 'n' whistles). Let me know what your kids think of The Fly, if they try it.

Fun teen gift idea

Now here's an affordable idea for the media-minded teenager on your holiday gift list, courtesy of the Washington Post: a $20 piece of software called Xingtone that "allows users to create custom cell phone ringtones using tracks from their personal digital music libraries." Pick your latest favorite song and use the software's simple sound-edit tool to shorten it and fade in and out, then send it to your phone. The site has a long list of supported phones and carriers (unfortunately, Verizon isn't among them). Brilliant concept, since teenagers love to personalize their media and communications tools (but I know a few adults who'd have a lot of fun with this too).

IM worms becoming real pests

They're multiplying like rabbits. The number of worms attacking instant-messaging were up 226% this month over October, hitting a new record, CNET reports. "Of the worms, 58 were variants of previous pests, and four were new," CNET said, citing IM security firm Akonix figures. These worms are more flexible (or "interoperable") than the services themselves, since more than a third of the attacks hit two IM services and 14% hit all four major ones - AIM, MSN and Yahoo Messengers, and ICQ. Also this month, 14 worm attacks hit file-sharing networks such as Kazaa and eDonkey, Akonix found. Tell your kids to be very careful about what they download or click on in IMs - even if they look like they're coming from a buddy (the buddy's PC could be infected and sending out automated IMs). The best precaution is to be sure that friend's online, then open a new conversation with him or her to check with them about what they seem to be sending.

Digital music: Just amazing

Whether you're a digital-music fan yourself or the parent of one or two, it might help to have a current snapshot of the online music scene. Chicago Tribune music critic Greg Kot thoughtfully presented the big picture over Thanksgiving weekend. It's an amazing scene, and not just for the music industry, scrambling to deal with the sea changes. Greg writes about how "convenience is paramount," with artists "creating music at increasingly lower costs in their own homes and distributing it over the Internet" and with consumers "listening to that music anywhere, anytime on wireless portable devices." Cellphones are becoming music-sharing and video-viewing devices the computers have been. "Record stores" and the mainstream music biz are floundering, but the digital-music numbers are astounding - e.g., "more than 251 million digital tracks have been sold, compared to 96 million last year, a 160% increase" and "digital album sales have jumped to 11 million from 3.4 million, a whopping 226% spike." Then there's Warner Music's new all-digital label, Cordless Recordings, and CDBaby.com for independent musicians, adding "35,000 new releases annually." Derek Sivers, the founder of CDBaby and a musician himself, estimates that at least 100,000 new digital albums are produced each year. Don't miss what Greg writes about the implications of all this. Meanwhile, European youth still have quite a taste for illegal music, CNET reports.

Amazon wish list: Risky for kids

I remember when my 8-year-old was really into Gundams (plastic robot-like toys), he had a lot of fun surfing through Amazon.com's toys and sending his favorites to his Wish List. I, in turn, found it very convenient later to peruse his list and do a little one-click shopping. But a new online-safety risk (especially for kids with unusual names in small towns) has come up concerning that feature and kids - because of the shipping address registered users provide Amazon and the way it can be associated with a child. "Site visitors can search wish lists by name," Internet News reports, so "it's relatively easy for a stranger to find a kid simply by searching for a common first name, then scrolling through the list to find those who have listed last names, cities and states." Other wish lists do a better job of protecting kids, Internet News reports. For example, Kaboodle, which is still being beta-tested, "lets users protect their wish lists with passwords if they choose," and Google's Froogle allows wish-list searching only by email address, so only people who already communicate with the person can find his or her wish list. Check out the article for details and advice.

Family tech shopping

Of course, retail news is everywhere right now, so I'll presume to link to the best for people with kids at heart. First the breaking news: The iPod and the Xbox 360 are Nos. 1 and 3 on this year's "top 10 list of desired gifts compiled by the Consumer Electronics Association," the New York Times reports. Last year, game consoles were in 9th place and portable music players didn't even make the list. The Cincinnati Enquirer attempts to explain the iPod phenom. As for the content on those consoles, check out FamilyFun.com's kid-tested "Video Game of the Year" winners for kids 6-9 and 10-12 and USATODAY's videogame gift guide in four categories: Kids, Preteens, Teens, and Adults. The Washington Post categorizes too, but creatively zooms in on recipients as much as products. For example, it took 4th-grader Aneya months to start playing with the Nintendo DS her dad got her last Christmas, the but now she's finally using it to play games like "Lizzie McGuire: On the Go" (have things like that happened with kid-tech at your house too)? Then there's Nicholas the teenage gamer; a "road warrior"; a cool grandmother (who's "on her 5th or 6th computer"); and a 30-something "multimedia junkie" whose daughter Gemma isn't that much bigger than his iPod. The Associated Press and Wall Street Journal both look at this widespread parental challenge of 8- and 9-year-olds preferring tech to toys. [If any of you have dealt with bad guesses on tech gifts for kids and figured out what to do when that happens, other parents would love to hear about it - email me anytime, or post just below.]

2006: Year of Mac attacks?

First things first: Mac users, if you haven't already downloaded it, be sure to check for the just-released security update from Apple (click on Software Update under System in System Preferences). It patches 13 flaws. Now for that arresting question about 2006. It may very well be time for Mac users to ditch their false sense of security, says Washington Post security writer Brian Krebs, and not just because of this security update. His reasoning, after going into his local Apple store and finding it jammed with people and 10-15 degrees warmer than any other store in the mall: "Fact: Macs are coming down in price. Fact: More people are fed up with the incessant viruses, spyware etc. on Windows that switching to a Mac is more appealing than ever. My hunch: 2006 may turn out to be the year we start seeing a significant growth in the Mac user base, and with it, if not Mac viruses or worms, then at least some automated tools for attacking various Mac vulnerabilities." BTW, if you're a Windows PC owner, do not hesitate to take advantage of Microsoft's free new service, Windows Live Safety Center, for "Protection," "Clean Up," and "Tune Up."

Our 8-to-12-year-old techies

Fortunately, marketers can no longer find them just by advertising during Saturday-morning cartoons. Unfortunately, they are an increasingly prime target of marketers (and marketers are finding them anyway, of course). Why? The Los Angeles Times reports that they are our family CTOs (chief technology officers), and marketers know that very well. They know that, "by some estimates, tweens influence $60 billion in spending annually." The simple reason why they're so darn tech-literate is that, unlike us, they grew up with technology (and the information overload that sells it and that's enabled by the technology itself!). The Times piece illustrates all this very readably, with family stories and marketers' perspectives.

Beware antivirus software (!)

In some ways, antivirus services do family PC owners a disservice: They give us a false sense of security. And the security is increasingly fragile, Washington Post security writer Brian Krebs reports. Citing a candid report from Russian antivirus company Kaspersky Lab, Brian writes, "By the time those [antivirus] products are updated to detect the latest threat, the virus writers have already released several newer versions that evade the latest antivirus signatures." Brian and a lot of experts are all saying that, though we can't give up on antivirus protection, we have to understand it's flawed (ever more so). One security blogger mentions an old joke about the most dangerous part of a car being "the nut behind the wheel" and says nothing replaces educating computer users: "Don’t open attachments, even if the message claims to be from someone you know, unless it was an attachment that you were expecting. I used to say, unless it was about something that you have discussed with that person, but realistically the varied subjects and techniques of virus writers make that too risky." That goes for attachments to emails or IM, and our kids also need to be very careful about what links the click on. Trojan software can now be downloaded just by going to malicious Web sites. For more, see "Tips from a tech-savvy dad: IM precautions." And for the latest help in PC protection and clean-up, do not hesitate to take advantage of Microsoft's free new service, Windows Live Safety Center.

The new Kazaa

To a file-sharer, Kazaa will not even be a shadow of its former self, this still-popular service that was once No. 1 but long ago overtaken by eDonkey and BitTorrent. A federal judge in Australia has ordered Kazaa's parent Sharman Networks to add to the software "filters aimed at preventing users of the software from swapping copyrighted material," the Associated Press reports. What that means, probably, the AP says, is a filtering system that "will include 3,000 so-called keywords, most likely the names of popular recording artists." Sharman is also required to urge users to download this new software. I suspect they'll also have to provide some sort of incentive for users to download software that blocks the free-though-illegal music a lot of them are looking for. Otherwise, the new Kazaa probably becomes a marketing or sampling tool for artists spreading the word about new releases and, for users, another way of seeking out indie music (competing with the likes of MySpace.com and CDBaby.com). Meanwhile, there's nothing stopping the millions of people with the old Kazaa software on their machines to keep file-sharing as usual.

Families blogging for each other

Teen blogs can actually be good for parent-child understanding, some parents will tell you. At least that's what some people of both generations told the Wall Street Journal. Writer Kevin Delaney cites one 19-year-old experienced blogger who doesn't mind that his parents read his blog - he told Kevin it may even be parents' duty. Another teenager's mom told Kevin that reading her 17-year-old's blog has helped her understand what he's dealing with and opened up communications for them. A dad in a third family has his own blog, knows his son reads it, and hopes the latter will see in it the respect his dad has for him. It's the familial twist on the blogging phenomenon. Kevin (who also talked to a mom who first contacted Net Family News about something scary she found in her 16-year-old's blogging), calls it "intra-family blog-tracking," and I'd call it another one of those helpful pointers for parenting in the Digital Age. Over the weekend, the Journal also ran an article on schools' student-blogging dilemmas. And the New York Times looked at teens' "enthusiastic self-revelation" in a shorter piece focusing on all the tools at their fingertips. Here's the WSJ piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in case you can't get it at the Journal.

Game-console parental controls

Sony's making it unanimous. It just promised that there will be parental controls on its forthcoming PlayStation 3, joining the just-released Xbox 360 and the Revolution that Nintendo announced will have controls when released next year, the Associated Press reports (Sony's handheld, the PlayStation Portable, has parental controls on it - see "Porn's new platforms"). The PS 2 limits access only to movies, not games. The Xbox 360 "lets users restrict access to video games and DVDs that carry certain ratings, such as 'T' for 'teen' or 'M' for 'mature.' It also offers parental controls on the company's Xbox Live online gaming service, limiting who their children can interact with," the AP adds. See my issue last week for lots more game news.

Nationwide filtering in Thailand

This may be the start of a trend in countries where free speech wields less power: In his weekly radio address, Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told his country that the government "plans to block more than 800,000 pornographic or violent Web sites that officials say are harming the kingdom's youth," Agence France-Presse reports. The government will order the country's Internet service providers to block the sites or they'll lose their licenses, he said. "The ban, which affects both foreign and domestic-based websites, is likely to come into force before Thailand's Children's Day on January 14." Speaking of filtering, a child's friend is another Internet user's enemy, it seems. I wonder if Thailand will soon be on Reporters without Borders's "Enemies of the Internet" list (here's the current list of 15 "countries to watch"). [Thanks to BNA Internet Law for pointing this news out.]

Internet Explorer risk

It was deemed "extremely critical" by one security firm, InformationWeek reports, and it "could let nasty Web sites [linked to in an email or IM, possibly] seize control over visitors' computers," Washington Post security writer Brian Krebs reports. SO Brian suggests that - until Microsoft releases the patch it has promised - the easiest thing for online families to do is switch browsers. Use Firefox, if you have it, and download it here if you don't - the Mac's Safari users have no worries. If your family absolutely has to use Explorer for everyday surfing, Brian provides simple, step-by-step directions for disabling scripting and explains the effects of that in this piece (scroll down to the paragraph beginning: "Back to the present security threat"). Thanks, Brian. Simple, straightforward help for the average PC users is a rare commodity these days!

Then there's the "FBI" and/or "Paris Hilton" virus, the BBC reports, "a Windows virus that warns users about illegal net use" an actually "claims to come from the FBI, CIA, or German BKA police agency, and warns users they have been detected visiting illegal sites." Sometimes the email promises images of Paris Hilton too. Tell your kids: do not open any questionnaire attached - it will infect your PC with a variant of the Sober virus. All attachments should be suspect - even if they're from someone they know, tell your children to email, IM, or call the friend supposedly sending the attachment to make sure s/he sent it.

Texting: (US) adults don't get it - yet

Well, we're getting there, but a fun San Francisco Chronicle column digs into why teenagers (and everybody else in other countries) seem to have adopted phone-texting faster. "For teens, it is a chance for a private conversation in a busybody world of teachers and parents. No wonder researchers have dubbed today's youth 'GenText'." For everybody else outside North America it's just commonplace (and a lot less rude and annoying in public places). The Chronicle reports that 2.9 billion text messages get sent every day, worldwide, and "only 14% are in North America. Europe, Asia and the Philippines are far ahead." It also cites a new book about mobile communication in Japan: "Personal, Portable, Pedestrian."

'Triton': AOL AIM-ing high ;-)

AOL expects its upgrade called "AIM Triton" to increase people's use of audio, video, and computer-to-phone messaging, reports New Zealand's Geekzone. AOL fully intends to keep its lead as an IM service while becoming a full-blown online-communications hub. Triton combines instant messaging, free email, text messaging (on phones), and voice and video chat "to drive more users to ads," Red Herring reports. A few other nifty features the Geekzone mentions: It "lets users talk live with AIM buddies around the world for free, "supports live, multi-party voice chat for up to 20 buddies, and enables users to add buddies to ongoing calls." According to Internet News, 41.6 million people use AIM.

A guide to (US) student blogging

"Millions of students across the country are speaking their minds in Internet blogs, and some kids are getting punished for it despite their right to free expression," writes the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet civil liberties organization. So the EFF thought students and their parents might want answers to the question: "Just what are students allowed to publish about their school, their teachers, and their classmates?" You'll find them in the organization's just-released guide to student blogging - including the rights of students at public vs. private schools. [A public-school student in New Jersey was recently awarded a $117,000 by a federal judge saying the school district had violated his free-speech rights (see NFN last week), and the (N.J.) Daily Record looks at a different case involving students & tech at a private school.]

Dissecting (& creating) videogames

Now this is interesting: There are basically 4 types of characters in multiplayer online games (MMORPGs) like World of Warcraft, the New York Times reports: the Socializer, the Achiever, the Explorer, and the Killer - and guess who's at the top of the food chain? Reporter Seth Schiesel visited 30-year-old instructor Nick Fortugno's Thursday seminar for "14 undergraduate and master's-level students" at Parsons the New School for Design in Greenwich Village. These students will definitely find jobs, because "the burgeoning game industry is famished for new talent," Seth reports, and its market is probably increasingly hungry for greater sophistication in character development - but of course, part of what makes online games so interesting is players' role as co-creators and -writers, in a sense. The president of Parsons, former Nebraska senator Bob Kerrey, had something really interesting to say about that in the article, which mentions a number of programs like Parsons's. Seth writes: "According to the International Game Developers Association, fewer than a dozen North American universities offered game-related programs five years ago. Now, that figure is more than 100, with dozens more overseas."

Xbox 360's big debut & more on gaming

Standing in line last night for the arrival of the 3 police-escorted trucks containing 3,000-or-so Xbox 360s, then watching them being handed out by multiple Best Buy employees was like being at "the world's most expensive soup kitchen," reported editors at gaming news site 1UP.com, who joined "hardcore Xbox 360 fans from all over the globe for a chance to buy the very first retail kits anywhere." The handing out happened in "a gigantic aircraft hangar" in California's Mojave Desert, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Here's GameSpot's exhaustive review of the 360 and the GMSV blog's at-a-glance review. What it and a lot of the reviews say is that - though this next-gen system is multimedia (it'll connect to iPod Video and Sony PlayStation Portable to play music and videos on a TV), it's still very much about games, only now with a strong *online* focus, which should tweak parental antennas. The 360 offers two levels of Xbox Live (the basic one free), which means voice and text communications and evenutally video messages, with players anywhere in the world. Xbox 360 reportedly also has some parental controls (e.g., restricting access to online chat and to games rated "M" for Mature), according to the Ferrago.com gamers' blog.

In other gaming news, "the US has been declared the top gaming nation at the World Cyber Games" held in Singapore last week, the BBC reports. "America's 16 players won two gold medals and one silver to top the national rankings"; South Korea and Brazil came in second and third, respectively. Here's the Washington Post's list of videogames that "have gamers abuzz" this holiday season. And Common Sense Media looks at the question, "Is your kid ready for a gaming system?"

Mac OS & other vulnerabilities

Heads up, Mac users! This CNET report about how malicious hackers are branching out says the Mac OS X is increasingly vulnerable. "Online criminals shifted their attacks in 2005 from operating systems such as Windows to media players and software programs," CNET reports, citing the latest "Top 20" computer vulnerabilities from the nonprofit SANS research group. Here's the Top 20 list, which - besides the UNIX-based OS X, MP3 players, and Microsoft's Explorer Web browser - includes software very popular with kids: file-sharing, instant-messaging. Apple did plug 10 critical security holes in OS X, CNET reported in September, but it may be time for Mac users to start thinking about what a Mac technician told me in September: that "sooner or later" he'll have to fix a virus-infected Mac "because a lot of hackers use Linux and Unix [code in writing viruses], and the Mac OS is based on Unix. That makes it more stable and better but also open to the possibility of infection. We recommend that our customers buy anti-virus protection now for when it could happen. You just never know when it's going to start."

'Paradise Lost' in a nutshell

...or on cellphones, anyway. We're talking about text-messaging as a learning tool for students of English literature. Here's John Milton's "Paradise Lost," as pointed out by the San Jose Mercury News:
"devl kikd outa hevn coz jelus of jesus&strts war. pd'off wiv god so corupts man(md by god) wiv apel. devl stays serpnt 4hole life&man ruind. Woe un2mnkind." Just one of a number of "condensed masterpieces" that a service called dot mobile will be offering students starting in January. It's an "aide memoir," says Prof. John Sutherland, Lord Northcliffe Professor Emeritus of English Literature at University College London, who co-developed the service with dot mobile and his students. Of course there's also "2B? NT2B? =???" and the rest of Hamlet. Dot mobile's press release says they'll launch with "precis versions" of Romeo & Juliet, Paradise Lost, Pride and Prejudice, Bleak House, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and Lord Of The Flies. By April: all of Shakespeare and the Caterbury Tales. Consider Cliff Notes replaced. Well, sorta. Parents, you have heard of CliffsNotes.com and SparkNotes.com, right? What's really notable, here, is that everything's moving onto mobiles in interesting ways.

Web search: No. 2

Though IM is No. 1 with teens, email is still the top Internet activity among Internet users as a whole, with Web searching now No. 2. "Of the 94 million American adults who went online on a given autumn day this year, 63% used a search engine," the Associated Press reports. The email figure is 77%, according to the latest data from the Pew Internet & American Life project. Search engines used to be neck and neck with news,"but search had a dramatic jump over the past year to widen the gap over news." See the AP piece for an interesting note on changing email use, though. Here's the latest on teen use of IM vs. email.

Insights into e-dating

More and more people are meeting their future spouses online - in social-networking sites, matchmaking sites, and even online games such as SecondLife.com (with nearly 80,000 players worldwide). Some of us baby-boomers and Gen X-ers are among them, so of course more of our children will be. The Indianapolis Star cites Pew Internet & American Life figures showing that one-sixth of Internet users 18-29 using online dating sites (only 1 in 20 older Net users do). In kind of an online chat format (a little more wordy), the Star article lets Tammy Paolino (formerly njbarefootpoet) and Jeffrey Taylor (formerly jtay999) tell the story of how they met and got to know each other at Match.com in late 2001 - offering insights into why it worked so much better for them than, say, nightclubs and parties - and how males and females navigate the online-dating scene differently (using Jeff's Frank Zappa T-shirt as an example). "They married in October 2002 and recently celebrated the first birthday of their son, Jonah." The Star piece has a sidebar linking to a number of online dating sites, though teenagers are more likely to socialize at sites like eCrush.com, Bolt.com, Hookup.com, or blogging spots like MySpace or Xanga. For more on the Second Life and Teen Second Life games, including the romantic parts, see "Lively alternative lives." There's also recent news of online-dating site users, in separate cases, suing Match.com and Yahoo Personals for fraud - see CNET.

Death to DRM?

"DRM" is digital-rights management, or anti-piracy tech, on CDs, DVDs, etc., and Sony's use of it so far may not spell death to DRM but has seriously damaged whatever good name the technology had. In fact, from now on digital-media companies will probably go to great lengths not to set off a similar p.r. disaster. Washington Post security writer Brian Krebs reports that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is suing Sony BMG for its anti-piracy practices, the first the first lawsuit filed under Texas's new spyware law" (lawyers in California and New York have filed class-action suits against Sony, he adds). On Friday Brian pointed to yet another harmful type of DRM Sony used on *another* set of CDs. Brian links to the site of the security researcher who found the problem and to a partial fix (see also Gartner Group's scotch-tape fix, reported by VNUNET.com). Here's Sony's list of 52 CDs that have the offending DRM technology on them. The good news is, Sony is offering replacement CDs (without DRM on them) for all 52, CNET reports . Writer Charlie Demerjian at UK tech news site TheInquirer.com finally got through to a Sony spokesperson. His takeaway: "Based on this brief chat, I get the feeling that Sony is trying to clean things up, but doesn't really understand the problem. Things seem to be pretty chaotic, and internal communications are not all that hot. At this point, I almost feel sorry for Sony. Almost."

A *little* help for parents

I was thinking “out loud” in this newsletter/blog when I wrote, "Video iPod: Mom's-eye-view” after the debut of this little video player and music videos on iTunes. Two things got me to thinking: the label “explicit” I saw next to some of the videos listed in iTunes that day and how mainstream online music videos had become (having just read that users look at 350 million music-video clips a month at Yahoo Music alone! - see this). So I wondered what parental controls there were for this vast video area of cyberspace, whether child-protection tech had caught up. Then Niel Macdonald, tech coordinator for St. Christopher School in San Jose, Calif., and former Apple engineer, emailed me a thoughtful reminder (I had, after all, reported on this last April).... [Please see this week's issue of my newsletter for Niel's comment and more on tech aids for parents.]