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August 23, 2002

Dear Subscribers:

It's great to be back! Catching you up on the month's online-kids news, here's our lineup for mid-August:

• Family Tech: Desktops or laptops for college?
  
• Best back-to-school tech coverage
  
• Web News Briefs: Digital generation; IM-ers' tools; UK schools & cell-phone bullying; LAN parties everywhere; Email etiquette; Net a 'moral-free zone'?; IWF to publish pedo list; 'Sex ed' on the Net?; Child-porn ring busted; Microsoft settlement....

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Family Tech

1. Desktops or laptops for college?

   As the Magid family packed up the minivan for the trip to their daughter's college for the first time, "the big issue facing us ... [was] what type of computer she should bring along" - laptop or desktop, Larry Magid reported in his column for the San Jose Mercury News. Laptops are more portable but also more expensive and more easily lost, damaged, or stolen. The article includes some great information on costs and resources for securing laptops, the pros and cons of desktops, and what peripherals (e.g., printers and CD or DVD setups).

   And we can all relate to this: "Of course, Katherine will use her CD-RW drive strictly to back up her data and make legal archival copies of her audio and computer CDs as well as music that she legally downloads from sites that are sanctioned by recording companies," Larry adds. "She also will refrain from alcohol and other substances, go to bed at a reasonable time, and make us proud in 100% of her endeavors. A parent can dream, can't he?"

2. A whole library on her computer

   Now that you and your child have made a computer decision, here are some great pointers from Larry to whole reference libraries that can be installed on it or accessed with it - in his column for the New York Times.

3. Top computer picks for students

   If a desktop is your choice, ZDNet has published its editors' picks for good school-bound computers, "ranging in size, speed, price, and performance." Each product on the list links to a review and the latest available prices (though we're not sure why the link to "All stores and prices" from a review of the chosen Dell only linked to Dell.com, while the same link from the recommended Apple linked to several sources).

   As for laptops, the Washington Post had some good news for students this week about a new breed of them: the cheaper "hybrid laptops." The Post says computer makers have discovered that home PC users don't care as much about weight and battery life as the "road warriors" that Dell, Compaq, etc., have been targeting. So they can make laptops for home and school that use the cheaper, desktop-style microprocessors and less long-lasting batteries (because parents and students just want portability to move their laptops around from one wall outlet to another). So the question to ask a retailer is whether s/he has any hybrid Dell, Hewlet-Packard, Compaq, or Sony laptops with desktop-style processors (like a Pentium 4, as opposed to a Pentium 4-M, for "mobile"). The Post also mentions rebates being offered these days, as well as the deal-finding Web site, Dealnews.com.

Send your own stories about and solutions for students taking tech tools to school! We always appreciate hearing from you - via feedback@netfamilynews.org.

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Best back-to-school tech coverage

This time of year there's never a lack of news and resources for students and families preparing for the start of the academic year. Here's the cream of it all, from a tech perspective:

• US teens are not impressed with their schools' use of the Internet, according to the latest Pew Internet & American Life study. The research found that 78% of US middle and high school students use the Internet, but "the most Internet-savvy among them complain that their teachers ... often don't know how, don't want, or aren't able to use online tools to help them learn or enrich their studies." (A recent New York Times report on why teachers aren't using the Web backs up their argument quite effectively.) Referring to what we call the other (generational) digital divide, students surveyed said that the billions of federal dollars that have gone into wiring schools are at risk of being squandered if there isn't "a similar commitment to improve connectivity in classrooms, help all students master computer skills, teach more sophisticated Internet literacy, make sure that high-quality information is available to them, and - most important of all - create assignments that take advantage of the wonderful Web resources they have found on their own." The Pew report, with its insights into how US students think about and use the Net (see the summary of findings), received a lot of coverage, including articles at Internet.com, the Christian Science Monitor, the Washington Post, and the San Jose Mercury News.

• Think: "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" for the digital generation, the New York Times suggests in the lead story of its meaty back-to-school package, all about how schools are trying to cope with all the new gadgets students are carrying around (and using in class). Cell phones are the biggest challenge, but then there are the two-way pagers, Game Boys, hand-held organizers, MP3 players, digital cameras, and portable DVD players. Other articles look at how teens can get into some of these gadgets on a student-size budget and how college-bound students can use email to prepare for the roommate challenge.

• Thumb-powered network security is being used at an Iowa school, reports Wired News. Computer mice equipped with thumbprint scanners are helping one campus (the newest) of Des Moines Area Community College circumvent the problem of students forgetting their passwords. It's a very innovative school; has also decided to go paperless. "Instead of a library, the school has a resource center equipped with computer workstations that can access the Web, e-books and online journals," Wired News reports in another piece on the school.

• Ironically, given that last item, students reportedly prefer to get their school news on paper, the New York Times reports - "even though college campuses are some of the most wired places on Earth." But students appear to make a clear distinction between campus news and all other news. They're simply not reading newspapers as much as their elders, and their newspaper-reading continues to trend downward, according to a commentary in the Columbia Journalism Review.

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Web News Briefs

1. The digital generation

   "While others marvel at the digital future, we take it for granted." The "we" are members of the human race who have been growing up right alongside the Internet. In a special report in the September issue, "Born Digital," Wired magazine published 15 quick takes, teen by teen, on how life looks from their perspective. It (briefly) covers everything from the pharmaceuticals used to dental art (tooth tatooing) as the latest form of self-expression to how nerds are perceived now vs. back in '82 (they're very cool!). There's even a bit about the necessary backlash - a PC-free zone (school) in the Portland, Ore., area.

2. IM-ers' tools

   They're sort of instant-messaging after-market products, and they offer insights into what teenagers care most about online. For the some 20 million US 2-to-17-year-olds who connected to the Web last month (according to the latest Nielsen/NetRatings figures), 9 of their 15 favorite sites feature instant-messaging tools and services such as downloadable IM icons and ways to customize their profiles. Here are the nine top sites, in order of popularity: ColorYourProfyle.com (background and font colors for AOL profiles); ActiveBuddy.com (providing "interactive agent" software that delivers specialized content and services to users' IM windows); IMTools.com (adding news, games, personality tests, etc., to AIM profiles); FireHotQuotes.com (quotes to put in IMs, some a bit maudlin, many using chat-speak or SMS lingo); IMAddict.com (a community for IM-ers, also providing a way to "quench your thirst for completely disregarding everything your parents say about talking to strangers"); BuddyProfile.com (profile customizer with guestbook, polls, quizzes, and a way to see who has viewed one's profile); SubProfile.com (similar to previous one); IMchaos.com (ditto); and BadAssBuddy.com (providing little animated graphics for instant messages). [Watch out: Some of these high-traffic sites appeared to serve up viruses when we went to them - our anti-virus software caught 'em.]

3. UK schools to stop bullying via cell phones

   This fall UK teachers reportedly will crack down on the newest form of bullying: sending threatening text messages over mobile phones. "Students caught doing that face being expelled in an effort to stop the growing problem," reports the Associated Press via the San Jose Mercury News. The latest teacher guidelines from the British government recognize the growing phenomenon. UK children's charity NCH found earlier this year that a quarter of UK youth had been threatened via their computer or mobile phone, and 16% had been bullied by text message.

4. LAN party popularity grows

   We've definitely noticed this trend among teenage gamers, if only anecdotally. The tech teacher at a high school near us recently hosted a LAN (local-area network) party at school - though we're not quite sure why he would be that self-sacrificing. Basically, he was the chaperone as the school's most avid multiplayer gamers returned to school one Friday night - bringing their PCs, pizza, many cans of caffeinated beverages, and miles of Category 5 cable - and created a LAN so they could play games together all night long.

   This was a fairly typical LAN party. A 15-year-old we interviewed last year attends "five or six a year," explaining that creating a LAN "increases bandwidth, so everything goes a lot faster than it would online. I had one last week for my birthday," Jake told us, "and I believe we went 24 hours. In between the minor troubleshooting we had to do, we played games from 7 pm till around 7 am. Then we all went to bed, then started playing again from around noon till about 2 pm." He added, "Apparently, I'm going to another one tomorrow."

   But as CNET reports, some LAN parties are attracting "large corporate sponsors, who've learned that success in the $6.35 billion gaming business often revolves around word-of-mouth recommendations from intense hobbyists and select Web sites." One of the biggest in the world - QuakeCon - happened this month in Mesquite, Texas, home of Id Software, creators of the popular "Quake" series of shooter games.

5. Email etiquette

   The authors of a book about email recently published some great email-etiquette tips in the New York Times Magazine. They're not exactly for everyday teen-to-teen communication, but the nine bulleted pointers at the column of the piece got us to thinking about how email fits into both communication and writing as a whole. The tips would be useful to any classroom or family discussion about electronic communications between generations and in more formal settings (e.g. with employers or professors). The writers are Patricia T. O'Conner and Stewart Kellerman, authors of "You Send Me: Getting It Right When You Write Online."

6. Net: 'Moral-free zone' (and other file-sharing news)

   Meanwhile, one media chief has declared the Internet a "moral-free zone," CNET reports. He had an agenda, of course. Speaking at an Net-related conference in Aspen this week, News Corp. president Peter Chernin "decried the 'enormous amount' of worthless content online." His speech focused on what he called "digital shoplifting," specifically on digital-movie piracy. His company owns Twentieth Century Fox. Here's the latest from CNET on recording industry efforts to combat music file-sharing. And Wired News reports that the US Congress is readying a "digital crackdown." It says "Washington lawmakers have been crafting bills that would give the entertainment industry the go-ahead to identify individual users, disrupt file-trading services and prosecute anyone suspected of digital piracy."

7. IWF to publish pedophile list

   Britain's Internet Watch Foundation is getting ready to crack down on child-porn newsgroups. According to VNUNET, the watchdog organization will publish a list of newsgroups "with names that appear to advocate or advertise pedophile content." VNUNET adds that the list is "expected to include around 50 names, about half of which are believed to regularly contain illegal material." The IWF is also recommending that all UK Internet service providers monitor newsgroups and remove perpetrators, or they risk prosecution.

8. 'Sex education' on the Net?

   In a very short piece that flags an important issue for parents' consideration worldwide, China's official press reports that more than 70% of teens in that country get their sex education from Net porn. According to UK-based VNUNET, China Daily reported that since there is a lack of sex education in the classroom or at home, Chinese teenagers are picking up their knowledge from adult Web sites. The paper cites a survey showing that "just 1.7% acquire most of their sex education in school" and "1.7% of young people surveyed "said that their parents had provided them with any useful knowledge about sexual matters."

9. Net service might offer porn

   In another potential avenue for "sex ed" on the Net, RealNetworks is considering going the way of cable TV operators - possibly to provide adult content in its Internet media subscription service, ZDNet reports. The service in question is RealOne SuperPass, "an online streaming media service that provides access to video and audio programming over the Internet" and the company's "fast-growing content subscription service."

10. Child-porn ring busted

    US Customs officials announced this month that an international ring of child abusers was broken, when 16 people in the US and Europe were indicted this month. According to MSNBC, 80% of the 45 victims, including 37 in the US, were abused by their own parents and have been removed from their custody. However, "the arrests don't end the ordeal for the children, who ranged in age from 2 to 14," Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner told MSNBC, because the pictures of them distributed by their abusers will continue to circulate on the Internet for years. " According to the Washington Post's coverage of the arrests, Save the Children was responsible for starting the investigation in late 2001, when it discovered pornographic photos and brought them to the attention of police in Denmark, who then sought US Customs help.

11. Microsoft Passport settlement

    Microsoft settled with the US Federal Trade Commission this month, agreeing to make changes to its Passport online authentication system. According to CNET, the settlement was in response to FTC allegations that allegations that Passport "collects too much information, uses unfair or deceptive practices, and fails to adequately protect the privacy or security of personal information, particularly of children," and the FTC was responding to complaints Passport users had sent in. As for the kids part of the problem, the FTC said Microsoft was misrepresenting how much control parents have over the information collected by Web sites participating in the Kids Passport program. Microsoft is bound by the agreement for 20 years, CNET adds. Here's the eight-page agreement at FTC.gov (in pdf format). Our thanks to BNA Internet Law for pointing this development out.

    In other Microsoft news this month, "serious" security flaws were found in the company's Web browser, Internet Explorer, ZDNet reported. The problem, which has existed for "at least five years," according to an independent computer security researcher quoted in the article, "could allow an attacker to intercept personal data when a user is making a purchase or providing information for e-commerce purposes." Microsoft downplayed but did not dismiss the report.

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That does it for this week. Have a great weekend!

Sincerely,

Anne Collier, Editor

Net Family News

 

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