An anonymous reader asks: "My wife and I are in the process of adopting kids- We're hoping to adopt older boys (8 and up) from within the US. We've gone through the state mandated courses, but those courses don't really cover how to limit the kids with respect to technology (the Internet, TV content filtering, cell phones, MP3 players, etc). The latest strong potential son is a 14 year old child that is computer aware. I do not want to completely shelter the child, but I do want to establish boundaries- for example, I'm not going to install filtering software on his computer, but the computer will be in a public place in the house." How would you control a child's exposure to new technologies, especially when a few of those technologies are bundled with inherent dangers in addition to their great advantages (like the Internet)?

1sockchuck writes to mention a Netcraft article wondering who should bear the brunt of phishing costs. A group of customers with the Bank of Ireland recently had $202,000 drained from their accounts by phishers. The bank initially resisted the request to refund their money, but allowed it after a suit was threatened. From the article: "The Bank of Ireland incident is one of the first public cases of a bank seeking to force phishing victims to accept financial responsibility for their losses, but it likely won't be the last. Phishing scams continue to proliferate, as Netcraft has blocked more than 100,000 URLs already in 2006, up from 41,000 in all of 2005. Financial institutions continue to cover most customer losses from unauthorized withdrawals. But after several years of intensive customer education efforts, the details of phishing cases are coming under closer scrutiny, and the effectiveness of anti-phishing efforts taken by both the customer and the bank are likely to become an issue in a larger number of cases." So, should a bank be forced to pay back a customer who has lost money to phishers? Or is it ultimately the customer's responsibility to make educated use of technology?

NYGiant writes "Microsoft IPTV isn't cutting it for Verizon, Ars Technica reports, so they've taken over parts of the project. Verizon is in a rush to perfect its IPTV service, which is based on Microsoft's IPTV software. The problem is that to run well, Microsoft's software needs more memory than Verizon's set top boxes ship with. From the article: 'Under the terms of that deal, Verizon would use Microsoft's Foundation Edition middleware stack. Microsoft would also supply a set of customer-facing applications. While Foundation Edition remains in use by Verizon, the development of the other applications was taken over by Verizon engineers.'"

narramissic writes "In a recent article, security guru Brent Huston writes about research he did to get inside the minds of spammers and expose some of the processes they use to identify potential targets. Huston says that among the four common ways that spam is spread, the most common method that spammers use is via open relays. Huston's research also revealed that 'they were doing much more server analysis' than he had expected and that they take a multi-step approach: 'They scan the server for proper RFC compliance, and then they send a test message to a disposable address. Only after these are complete did they adopt the tool to dump their spam.'"

jagger writes "According to an article on MSNBC a report, written by two economists in the FCC's Media Bureau, showed local ownership of television stations adds almost five and one-half minutes of total news to broadcasts and more than three minutes of 'on-location' news. The conclusion is at odds with FCC arguments made when it voted in 2003 to increase the number of television stations a company could own in a single market. Senior managers at the agency ordered that 'every last piece' of the report be destroyed."

bill_kress writes "According to Reuters, television studios are finally trying to target DVR viewers with advertising. The effort, however, seems rather backwards — They are extending the same exact image across the entire 30 second commercial so that TIVO Viewers will be forced to view at least one frame. Wouldn't it be better to add value to the viewing experience instead?" From the article: "The advert for its new drama 'Brotherhood' will show a single image on the screen for the entire 30-second slot, and therefore retain its "sales message" when viewed even at the 12-times speeds enabled by Sky+ and other digital recorders, also known as personal video recorders, or PVRs. Advertisers have been racing to find ways to get messages through as higher numbers of consumers watch TV programs when they want using such recorders, often skipping the commercials."

Via Kotaku, an interview on Ain't It Cool News with Peter Jackson talking about the in-conception Halo Movie. From the article: "QUINT: Now, there's no reason on Earth shouldn't easily and faithfully be adapted into a PG-13 movie. However, do you anticipate there being a harder cut considering how gruesome the Flood aspect of the story is? PETER JACKSON: That's interesting... It's something, I must admit, that's not a conversation I've had with anybody yet. It's a conversation that I'm sure will happen. Look, the reality of the budget is that I would imagine the studio are going to be pretty insistent on a PG-13, which, as you say, is certainly not an impossible thing pull off."

An anonymous reader writes "David Brin is an award-winning science fiction writer who has often written on social issues such as privacy and creativity. Now, he's written an essay for Salon.com titled 'Why Johnny Can't Code'. He discusses his son's years-long effort to find a way to use his math book's BASIC programming examples. All they were ever able to find, however, were either children's versions (on the Mac) or 'advanced' versions which attempted to support modern programming requirements (and which required constant review of the user's manual). Ultimately, they ended-up buying an old Commodore 64 on Ebay — Yes, for those of you under the age of 30, 'personal' computers like the Apple II and C64 used to all include BASIC in their ROMs."

Deathlizard writes "Confirming rumours from last month, Trekkies will finally join their Star Wars brethren and get a taste of the 'George Lucas Treatment' this year. CBS will be rebroadcasting The Original Star Trek Series for it's 40th anniversary. The catch? New Digital Graphics." From the article: "Digitally created images will replace the miniature-scale models used for exterior shots of the various spacecraft on the show, including Kirk's Starship Enterprise and the enemy war vessels of the alien Klingons and Romulans. Shots of distant galaxies and planets also will be touched up with computer graphics to give them greater depth. The flat matte paintings used as backdrops on the surface of the strange new worlds visited by the Enterprise crew will be digitally enhanced to add texture, atmosphere and lighting."

fiorenza writes "Ars Technica is reporting that Paltalk has sued Microsoft in the Eastern District of Texas over its Xbox Live service. The suit alleges that Microsoft's Xbox Live infringes on two of its patents, and that the company has suffered damages 'in at least the tens of millions of dollars,' which raises obvious questions about why they waited four years to file the suit (Xbox Live was launched in late 2002)." From the article: "Microsoft, as a company that runs multiplayer game servers, is alleged to be violating these patents. It's not clear how they're doing so--the initial complaint provides literally no evidence of Microsoft's guilt. The filing instead describes the Paltalk patents and the dates that Xbox Live went, err, live. After five pages of this, Paltalk simply claims that "gameplay on the Xbox or Xbox 360 through the Xbox Live online gaming service infringes the Paltalk patents," then goes on to ask for a jury trial. Presumably, actual information will be released once the trial begins."

conq writes "BusinessWeek takes an in-depth look at the man behind the Apple magic. The article features a slideshow with all his designs (including one before he was with Apple)." From the article: "During an internship with design consultancy Roberts Weaver Group, he created a pen that had a ball and clip mechanism on top, for no purpose other than to give the owner something to fiddle with. 'It immediately became the owner's prize possession, something you always wanted to play with,' recalls Grinyer, a Roberts Weaver staffer at the time. 'We began to call it having Jony-ness, an extra something that would tap into the product's underlying emotion.'"

Beth A. Dillon writes "In this Game Career Guide feature, Katamari Damacy — A Critique: Part One, Ryan Stancl argues for game criticism in part one of a three part series on Katamari Damacy, this week featuring Biographical and New Critical forms of analysis." From the article: "Video games now, more than ever, need to be not just reviewed, but critiqued, because of their negative image in the press, in politics, in the general public, and quite simply because they are so ripe for critiquing. Games aren't just for kids anymore, and it's not because of the sex and violence. Over the next few weeks I will be introducing you to eight schools of criticism - Biographical, New Critical, Marxist, Structural, Jungian, Psychoanalytical, Feminist, and Post-Colonial - giving a little history behind each, and showing how they can be used to critique the video game Katamari Damacy for the PlayStation 2."

lopy writes "Medialoper has noted that Zune's highly touted wireless file sharing will infect otherwise unprotected audio files with proprietary DRM. In cases where users are sharing songs covered by any of the Creative Commons licenses, this would be a clear violation of those license. From the CC FAQ: 'If a person uses DRM tools to restrict any of the rights granted in the license, that person violates the license.' It'll be interesting to see how and if the CC community responds." An anonymous reader wrote in mentioning a post to the Crave blog, relatedly exploring how the Zune stacks up to the iPod.

SeenOnSlash.com writes "This week NASA is testing a Linux-based lunar rover called K-10 in the Arizona desert. To cut costs and promote maintainability the K-10 runs Linux and uses commercial off-the-shelf parts where possible. The robot rover's control and communications system is based on an IBM Thinkpad X31 and attaches to subsystems with standard PC interfaces. Real-time tasks such as fine-grained motor control are offloaded to a distributed network of microcontroller-powered control boards. Maneuvers can be watched through a live webcam."

lisah writes "According to reports at NewsForge this morning, Developer Eric Farraro has discovered a potential hole in Google's Public Search Service that may leave the door wide open for phishing scams. The Public Search Service, designed to allow universities and other non-profit institutions to add Google search capabilities to their websites, provides code that allows website developers to customize the header and footer of the search results page. Handy (and malicious) coders can manipulate the headers and footers to create what looks like a Google sign-in page and then collect the login names and passwords of unsuspecting users." NewsForge and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.