Tag: KIDS

Update: According to the Twitter feed of XBLA's Director of Policy and Enforcement Stephen Toulouse, the account was "illegitimately modified" and Julius' mother has since been contacted. The Rainman of 'Halo,' 11-year-old Julius Jackson is apparently a video game whiz. The boy, whose mother says he usually masters games in three to four days, is autistic, and reaches to his Xbox both to ...

Just because your young daughter types "CU L8R" when she texts her friends doesn't mean she won't be able to spell real words when she grows up. In fact, one new study claims that, contrary to popular belief, texting will actually improve her spelling skills. The study, conducted by researchers at Coventry University, examined 114 9- and 10-year-old children who did not already use cell phones. ...

Share There's a good chance that young children growing up in today's world will learn how to use an iPad before learning how to tie their shoes. That's the takeaway from a new study by online security firm AVG, which found that 58-percent of kids between the ages of 2 and 5 know how to play a "basic computer game," while a full 63-percent know how to turn a computer off and on. Most young ...

Police in Uniontown, Pennsylvania were shocked to find a home stinking of feces and six children sleeping on bare mattresses. The childrens' mother, who had left the pantry bare and food rotting in the refrigerator, was neither absent nor an alcoholic; she was a gaming addict. After the children, three of whom are toddlers, were removed from the residence Monday, their stepfather told WPXI that ...

Video games may detract from your child's physical activity and social life, but can they also drive your kid mental? According to a controversial new study, they can. Recently published in Pediatrics Journal, said study examined 3,000 children in Singapore over the course of two years. Researchers found that about one out of every ten children ultimately became addicted to video games, and ...

You can always count on 'Sesame Street' to teach our kids valuable lessons via TV, but now Cookie Monster has taken to YouTube to extend its educational reach. The show's first interactive YouTube vid teaches kids the basics of the scientific method, and asks them to guess whether objects will sink or float. It's not rocket science, but, remember, it's only 'Sesame Street.' ...

Google appears to be tired of waiting for potential genius engineers to do things like graduate college. The company has instead decided to launch the Google Science Fair, a competition that asks 13- to 18-year olds with bright scientific minds to pit their projects against one another for prizes. While ostensibly encouraging students to get involved in science and engineering, it is also likely ...

We had the chance to do a hands-on with one of the most innovative gadgets we've seen this year: Sifteo's modular, digital gaming blocks. These tiny cubes sport touchscreen LCD displays, along with three-axis accelerometers, neighbor-sensing technology and wireless networking, to create a hybrid physical and digital gaming experience that was difficult to put down. While we've seen some concepts ...

Already available on Barnes & Noble's NOOKcolor e-reader, the 'NOOK Kids' app is now available on the iPad. According to TUAW, the app features hundreds of colorful, interactive books, which it will read aloud to your kids, and also easily syncs with your NOOKcolor device. The free app, which also works on the iPhone, comes with two initial downloads -- Richard Scarry's 'Colors,' and Rudyard ...

Parents face a particularly worrisome and contentious dilemma when deciding whether or not to afford their children with social networking privileges. Kids not only become susceptible to obvious outside dangers -- such as predators and bullies -- but they also become susceptible to their own youthful indiscretions, like posting damaging party pics or joining inappropriate groups. Families must ...

Chris Hansen thrust chat rooms, and their inherent dangers, into the national consciousness with his legendary 'To Catch a Predator' sting operations on 'Dateline.' Despite Hansen's admirable and alarmingly successful crackdowns, chatting online definitely remains a perilous endeavor, particularly for kids. To combat the dangers, both parents and children need to familiarize themselves with ...

When we got our hands on the new Barbie Video Girl a few months ago, we sort of knew that the camera-equipped doll could give rise to a whole new era of kiddie voyeurism. Little did we know, though, that it could spawn a whole new era of homemade kiddie porn, as well. Yet that's exactly what the FBI is worried about, according to a new memo (PDF) that describes the toy as a "possible child ...

China might not openly celebrate certain forms of technological freedom, but the nation certainly knows how to throw a free-wheeling, frivolous tech fiesta. This week, China's Zhejiang Province hosted a monumental robot contest, which pitted 115 different teams and their diverse crews of 'bots against one another. The teams represented 50 different schools, and the budding engineers reportedly ...

Make up your mind, Pope Benedict XVI. First, you roll out your own YouTube channel and Pope2you online initiative, and call upon your priestly underlings to colonize the blogosphere. Then, you turn around and declare that the Internet's poisoning our feeble, sin-prone minds. And now, you've taken the wind out of our Web-surfing sails, once again. On Saturday, during a Vatican conference on ...

Share We've seen Facebook facilitate several parent-child reunions, but few of these feel-good stories have been quite as incredible as Jutta Fairley's. When Fairley was 19-years old, she became pregnant while still living with her family in Germany. At the time, her parents forced her to make a difficult choice: either moving out of the house, or giving the baby up for adoption. Fairley chose ...