Blog entry January 2010

You have seen the hype around Apple's new iSlate, iTablet... nope... iPad! It was finally unveiled today amid much fanfare. While everything about the device is along expected lines, you will still marvel at how well it is done. Good job Apple!

Watch the video here.

Britain is to make online safety lessons for children over 5 compulsory under a new scheme which aims to echo road safety campaigns of the past. The lessons are part of a "Click Clever Click Safe" strategy which will produce guidelines for government, industry and charities on how to protect children using the web.

"The internet provides our children with a world of entertainment, opportunity and knowledge -- a world literally at their fingertips," said Prime Minister Gordon Brown. "But we must ensure that the virtual world is as safe for them as this one. We hope that "zip it, block it, flag it' will become as familiar to this generation as "stop, look, listen' did to the last."

The government says that 99 per cent of British children aged 8 to 17 now have access to the internet. However research has shown that 18 per cent of young people had come across "harmful or inappropriate" content online, and 33 per cent of children said their parents were unaware of their web activities. The new plans, drawn up by the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) which is made up of over 140 organizations, including Google, Microsoft, and Bebo, would make online safety lessons compulsory for those over 5 from September 2011.

Brown said the aim was to make advice as well-known as the "green cross code" which was designed in the 1970s to give children information about road safety.

Webwisekids.org launched an online tutorial called "Wired with Wisdom" to educate Colarado parents about potential online dangers, and gives them tools for discussing topics with their kids. This is a free program and the information can be found at their website.

Mike Saccone, Spokesperson of CO Attorney General John Suthers, says it's important for parents to discuss the topics with their children before they become an issue. The program was developed in conjunction with the trade group Entertainment Software Association and Web Wise kids, which have launched similar tutorials in California, New Mexico, Utah and Virginia.

"Parents will be able to go to the site and download a program that will step them through how to confront these various issues ranging from online predators to texting, and how to broach these topics with their kids," he says.

The Federal Trade Commisison (FTC) has published a report that analyzes how easily minors can access explicit content in virtual worlds, and the measures virtual world operators take to prevent minors from viewing it. According to the findings, although little explicit content appeared in child-oriented virtual worlds, a moderate to heavy amount appeared in virtual worlds that are designed for teens and adults.

Virtual worlds are popular with children and adults because they blend 3-D environments with online social networking, allowing users to interact in and shape their own online content. Some virtual worlds designed for teens and adults allow – or even encourage – younger children to get around the worlds’ minimum age requirements.The FTC surveyed 27 online virtual worlds – including those specifically intended for young children, worlds that appealed to teens, and worlds intended only for adults. The FTC found at least one instance of either sexually or violently explicit content in 19 of the 27 worlds. The FTC observed a heavy amount of explicit content in five of the virtual worlds studied, a moderate amount in four worlds, and only a low amount in the remaining 10 worlds in which explicit content was found. The Commission makes five recommendations to virtual world operators to reduce the risk of youth exposure to explicit content:

• Use more effective age-screening mechanisms to prevent children from registering in adult virtual worlds;
• Use or enhance age-segregation techniques to make sure that people interact only with others in their age group;
• Re-examine language filters to ensure that they detect and eliminate messages that violate rules of behavior in virtual worlds;
• Provide more guidance to community enforcers in virtual worlds so they are better able to review and rate virtual world content, report potential underage users, and report any users who appear to be violating rules of behavior; and
• Employ a staff of specially trained moderators who are equipped to take swift action against rule violations

Meanwhile, parents can protect their kids and teens by using filtering tools like Mobicip Premium which allows them to block or unblock a virtual world based on their wise judgement on the age-appropriateness of the content in a virtual world.