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You probably can’t watch your kids 24 hours per day. Just because they have free time doesn’t mean you do. Luckily, your computer can help out.
Windows Vista has robust parental controls. They’ll help you monitor and limit your children’s computer usage.
Now, nothing can substitute for parental vigilance. So, talk to your kids about computer safety. And have them read and sign my 10 Commandments for Kids Online. -
There was a time, as 1999 rolled into 2000, when it seemed as if everyone was rich. Or, at least, as if they could be rich. They had equity. Or a big idea. Or a lock on friends-and-family shares in an IPO. With tech stocks soaring and venture capital money flowing, cashing in on the cyber revolution seemed a worthy bet.
That was then, of course. It’s been a decade since the tech-fueled NASDAQ reached its all-time high, on March 10, 2000, having nearly doubled itself in just a year. It was a dizzying peak reached thanks in part to a spectacular rise in the valuations of companies that had hitched their wagons to the Internet.
Later, it would be called a bubble, and much of the paper wealth it had created would evaporate. But in the spring of 2000, anything seemed possible. And the Washington area, with Northern Virginia’s tech corridor leading the way, had established itself as one of a handful of national tech hubs.
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Apple's iPad is certain to grab headlines when it hits stores next month. But a number of touch-screen tablets powered by Google's Android operating system will also debut this year. Competing with Apple's latest consumer gadget won't be easy, but analysts say the software behind these devices could give them a few key advantages.
Like the iPhone OS, which will power the iPad, Android was originally developed for cell phones. This means it will be fast and low-power. "Android is very responsive; it's instantly available," says Jeff Orr, a senior analyst for mobile devices at ABI Research.
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At an event in downtown San Francisco on Tuesday, a representative of the Obama administration went before a gathering of Silicon Valley cleantech entrepreneurs to spread the good news about what's resulted from the stimulus package, and to get their feedback.
Peter Roehrig, a political appointee in the Department of Energy's office of energy efficiency and renewable energy, pointed to numbers released by the Congressional Budget Office that day suggesting that stimulus funding led to as many as 2.1 million jobs by the end of last year. The Department of Energy administrates $36.7 billion of the stimulus funds. Part of this, Roehrig noted, is going to a program to encourage energy-efficient retrofits for cities–a program being dubbed "cash for caulkers." -
In the Gmail Labs Class of 2010, six experimental features have graduated to become supported features and five have been expelled.
Google introduced Gmail Labs in June 2008 as a testing ground for experimental Gmail features, some of which Gmail product manager Keith Coleman acknowledged at the time might be bad ideas.
Gmail Labs began with 13 experiments: Quick Links, Superstars, Old Snakey, Pictures In Chat, Fixed Width Font, Custom Keyboard Shortcuts, Mouse Gestures, Signature Tweaks, Random Signature, Custom Date Formats, Muzzle, Hide Unread Counts, and Email Addict.
And it later reached 60, including features that range from useful, like Message Translation, to quirky amusements, like Mail Goggles, which requires users to prove their sobriety by solving a math problem before sending a message.
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Looking beyond the web, marketers are considering location-based services as a way to extend their reach and engage consumers in the “real world.”
Some, including Bravo, HBO and Warner Brothers, are partnering with consumer-facing location-based services (LBS) like Foursquare to do so. Others are seeing a benefit in creating their own communities and geo-apps, though this can be a development-heavy and costly process. Through a new DIY platform, Socialight hopes to make this a much simpler proposition. -
Anthony Stancl, who used the social networking site Facebook to deceive and coerce fellow New Berlin Eisenhower High School students into sexual acts with him in 2008, was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison and another 13 years of extended supervision.
Waukesha County Circuit Judge J. Mac Davis imposed the sentence because he said Stancl had proven he was manipulative, excessively self-centered and could still be dangerous.
“I am afraid of what he can and might do,” Davis said.
In a case that attracted national media attention, Stancl, 19, of New Berlin, posed as a female on Facebook and persuaded at least 31 boys to send him naked pictures of themselves. He then used the pictures – and the threat of releasing them to the rest of the high school – to blackmail at least seven boys, ages 15 to 17, into performing sex acts.
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School-issued laptops used to spy on kids – Philadelphia Inquirer
Lower Merion School District officials used school-issued laptop computers to illegally spy on students, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.
The suit, filed Tuesday, says unnamed school officials at Harriton High School in Rosemont remotely activated the webcam on a student's computer last year because the district believed he "was engaged in improper behavior in his home."
An assistant principal at Harriton confronted the student for "improper behavior" on Nov. 11 and cited a photograph taken by the webcam as evidence.
Michael E. and Holly S. Robbins, of Penn Valley, filed the suit on behalf of their son, Blake. They are seeking class action status for the suit.
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According to SuperCover Insurance, iPhone owners smash their old iPhone on purpose when a new model is announced in order to get a free upgrade. SuperCover also says that 40% of all claims are suspicious. Is the iPhone that addicting?
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At least several hundred exhibitors are here this week in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress. Each of them seems to be launching either a new app store or a new operating platform. What these inescapable announcements fetch in buzz and inventiveness, they misjudge in audience tolerance. The impact goes beyond mere ennui, of which there is plenty, and touches at the heart of what makes a corporate mobile strategy nearly impossible to birth: There are too many choices.
Make no mistake: The platform wars will rage for years, and the corporate IT manager could suffer the casualties. Not only must IT choose a platform its user base will be happy with, and that it can adequately support and manage (securely), but it must also choose based on the company’s overall mobile strategy. If it ignores the last part, it will miss a major opportunity to increase productivity by extending its applications to those mobile platforms — an easy task when a single platform becomes the corporate standard. -
On a planet with around 6.8 billion people, we’re likely to see 5 billion cell phone subscriptions this year.
Reaching 4.6 billion at the end of 2009, the number of cell phone subscriptions across the globe will hit 5 billion sometime in 2010, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The explosion in cell phone use has been driven not only by developed countries, but by developing nations hungry for services like mobile banking and health care.
“Even during an economic crisis, we have seen no drop in the demand for communications services,” said ITU Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Toure at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, “and I am confident that we will continue to see a rapid uptake in mobile cellular services in particular in 2010, with many more people using their phones to access the Internet.”
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Yesterday's resignation by former CEO Owen Van Natta is not totally surprising, given MySpace's continued losses in advertising, search revenues, and traffic. What is shocking, however, is that the senior leadership at NewsCorp and Fox Interactive remains in positions of power despite the significant mishandling of the scandal involving the discovery of more than 90,000 convicted sex offenders on NewsCorp's flagship social networking site.
MySpace could have taken the steps to notify any parents whose children were contacted by convicted sex offenders, including changing terms of service to allow greater disclosure of sex offenders' conduct. That's what a responsible company with responsible management would have done. To my knowledge, they didn't, presumably afraid of the negative publicity. -
Last year, 29,000 Registered Sex Offenders (RSOs) were discovered on MySpace, after initial reports that the number was only 7,000. The number is now 90,000, and reflects only those registering with truthful information. We seek to limit risk to minors that stems from users — particularly RSOs — registering with false information on social network sites (“SNS”). The Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking, comprising 50 state Attorneys General, asked the Task Force to find and develop online identity authentication tools primarily for social network sites in the United States. The Attorneys General also asked the Task Force to establish specific and objective criteria that will be utilized to evaluate existing and new technology safety solutions.
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Former AOL mogul Ted Leonsis is riding high.
His Washington Capitals are the hottest team in the National Hockey League, selling out every game and setting franchise records for television viewership.
Leonsis, 54, and another former AOL guy, Steve Case, each pocketed tens of millions of dollars when they sold their Revolution Money start-up to American Express last year.
Now comes Leonsis's book "The Business of Happiness," which details his rise from a lower-middle-class Brooklyn, N.Y., kid to super-rich entrepreneur, sports team owner and documentary film producer.
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PayPal said it temporarily suspended certain transactions to India so it could respond to inquiries from the Indian regulators, specifically questions on whether personal payments constitute remittances into India. Over the weekend, PayPal suspended personal payments to and from India as well as transfers to local banks in India. In addition, merchants were unable to withdraw funds in Rupees to local Indian banks.
On Tuesday, the company published a blog post stating it was working with the regulators and PayPal's bank processing partners in India to get the issue resolved as quickly as it could. "We realize that this is causing considerable inconvenience to our customers and I want to reassure you that this is a top priority for the leadership at PayPal."