Anne

The SafeKids/NetFamilyNewsletter is working on a feature that features you! You might call it "What's on your mind (concerning kids & tech)?" We'd love to receive questions, concerns, stories about kids' use of Net-related technologies - IM, file-sharing, games, blogs, Web sites, etc. - at your house. We can reach out to a wonderful range of expertise to answer your questions, but many of you have … [Read more...] about What’s on your mind?

If they don't know already, parents of gamers will want to know how easy Sony and Microsoft are making it for console gamers to go online, link up with other players, "form alliances and socialize in groups," the New York Times reports. We're not referring to computer gamers; we're talking about the PlayStation 2 and XBox gamers who typically start playing at much younger ages. Computer gamers … [Read more...] about Gamers: More and more going online

First it was pretty much just music (widely shared with file-sharing technology). Then porn, viruses, and spyware (see our "File-sharing realities for families"). Now casinos are using P2P technology in a big way. "Peer-to-peer betting, which has been increasingly popular in Europe, Asia and Australia, is one of the fastest-growing online gambling enterprises," the New York Times reports in … [Read more...] about Peer-to-peer gambling

Just as computer security experts have been suggesting that we try alternative browsers like Opera or Firefox, the people behind Firefox announced it too has a security flaw. This only affects PCs with the Windows XP operating system, ZDNet UK reports. So if you're an XP family and you heeded the experts' advice and switched browsers, you definitely need to click to this page on the Mozilla site, … [Read more...] about Firefox not the perfect solution either

"Even the most personal conversations now occur without human contact," reports college student and contributor Amy Sennett in the Washington Post. In her entertaining article about the electronic elements of dating, she tells us that, these days, instant messaging (IM) is the "communication lifeline" of young adults, and "the rules of virtual conversation and courtship are no more simple or well … [Read more...] about Teen romance, online-style