Doodle 4 Google logo contest is back to help kids, schools

Google has officially started the third annual Doodle 4 Google contest, the search giant announced in a blog post Wednesday.

The Doodle 4 Google contest allows kids in kindergarten through grade 12 to draw a unique Google logo based on the theme, "If I could do anything, I would..."

In 2009, Christin Engelberth, a sixth-grader from San Antonio, won the second Doodle 4 Google contest. She called her drawing "A New Beginning" to convey her "wish that in the current crisis, discoveries will be made."

Google said that it has compiled "a panel of well-known expert jurors" to judge this year's drawings. The panel includes creative directors, cartoonists and animators from Sesame Workshop and Pixar Animation Studios.

After evaluating the submissions, the jurors will narrow the field by grade groups. Google said that each of the four groups -- kindergarten through third grade, fourth grade through sixth grade, seventh grade through ninth grade, and 10th grade through 12th grade -- will have 100 drawings selected for a grand total of 400 "state finalists." The top 40 drawings will move on to the next round until a single finalist is chosen for each grade group.

The winning drawing out of the remaining four finalists will be displayed for 24 hours on Google's home page on May 27. The winning artist will receive a $15,000 college scholarship and a laptop. The student's school will receive a $25,000 technology grant.

In order for students to participate in Google's competition, their schools must be registered on the Doodle 4 Google website by March 17. All doodles must be submitted by March 31.

Google will invite the top 40 artists to its New York City office on May 26. It will announce the winner of the contest on the same day.

-- Don Reisinger

Sesame Workshop to publish electronic books for kids

A page in "The Monster at the End of This Book." Credit: Sesame Workshop.

D is for digital.

Sesame Workshop, the home of Elmo, Big Bird and Grover, will publish digital children's books starting next year.

To give young readers and their parents a taste, the nonprofit group is giving access to a set of five free digital books on its website, including the classic "The Monster at the End of the Book." Words on the screen are highlighted as they are narrated by "Sesame Street" characters, helping kids follow along the text. In the future, the organization said it will also integrate activities, such as mini-games, to help kids learn how to read.

Next spring, Sesame Workshop plans to start selling individual books on the website, along with subscriptions for monthly access to a library of more than 100 digital titles. A spokeswoman said pricing has not yet been determined, but that there will always be a rotating set of five free books on the site.

Sesame Workshop hired Impelsys, a digital publishing company based in Bangalore, India, and New York, to operate the underlying technology.

The Walt Disney Co. in September launched its own digital book store. Rather than sell individual titles, however, Disney gives families access to a library of 500 books for an annual subscription fee of $79.95.

-- Alex Pham

Follow my random thoughts on games, gear and technology on Twitter @AlexPham.

FTC: Video game industry did better than movies and music at shielding kids from violent content

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission today issued its report on how well the entertainment media enforces its voluntary ratings for violent or explicit content.

The results: Seven out of 10 underage "mystery shoppers" were able to buy music with parental advisory warnings at stores, while half were able to get their hands on R-rated movies. In addition, three out of 10 were sold tickets to R-rated films at theaters.

Games were a different story. Only two out of 10 underage shoppers were successful when they tried to buy Mature games.

After being the government's poster child for media violence for years, the game industry in recent years began to crack down on underage access to violent games. It worked with retailers, putting up signs in stores about game ratings and developing automatic systems at the cash register prompting clerks to request photo IDs before selling M-rated titles.

Those efforts were rewarded with uncharacteristic praise in the FTC report, which said: "Of the three entertainment sectors, the electronic game industry continues to have the strongest self-regulatory code."

When it comes to marketing violent content to kids, however, all three sectors got dinged.

"Companies in the entertainment industry routinely undercut their own rating restrictions by target marketing violent films, records, and video games to young audiences," chided FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky.

The FTC also flashed a warning signal specifically aimed at the game industry: Online games and game gift cards are potential loopholes that need monitoring. That's because online games aren't systematically rated, so parents don't have an easy way to see whether the content is appropriate. Gift cards allow kids to buy and play games online, where there aren't any store clerks verifying age.

-- Alex Pham

Follow my random thoughts on games, gear and technology on Twitter @AlexPham.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin wants more computers in schools

Sergey Brin. Credit: Google.

High school dropout Sergey Brin has a few ideas on how the educational system should be improved. Not surprisingly  from a guy who co-founded Google, where he still serves as president of technology and one of the company's three key decision-makers, a lot of those ideas center on computers.

"It's important for students to be put in touch with real-world problems," Brin said. "The curriculum should include computer science. Mathematics should include statistics. The curriculums should really adjust."

He advocated putting all textbooks on computers, to make for easier access, and for putting high school students to work -- writing Wikipedia articles, and teaching technology to senior citizens and middle school students. In teaching, they will learn.

Brin spoke today at a conference on Google's campus, Breakthrough Learning in the Digital Age, which the tech company is co-hosting with Common Sense Media and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. By and large, speakers passionately spoke of the advantages of equipping schools with the latest in digital technology, and of engaging students on their home turf -- computers.

Google has been relatively quiet in the field of education, but the company is starting to make a splash. For the last three years, it has given schools the premium version of its Google Apps, enabling schools to run their business and provide teachers with e-mail and other tools that it typically charges corporations for. In part, the giveaway helps advance Google's plan of...

What parents think teens are doing on social networks, and what the teens are actually doing

Teens may not be into Twitter, but 51% say they log into a social network such as Facebook at least once a day. Credit: Gauldo via Flickr.

Do you know where your teens are on the Web tonight?

Most parents aren't surprised by the most likely answer: social networks. But they may be unsettled by what their kids are doing on those sites, according to a survey to be released Monday by Common Sense Media, a San Francisco advocacy group.

The survey polled 1,013 teens and 1,002 parents. The bottom line: Parents consistently underestimate how much time their kids spend on social networks and how often they engage in risky behavior, such as posting revealing photos of themselves, bullying other kids or hacking into their friends' accounts. The study mirrors an earlier report from Common Sense Media on kids using technology to cheat in school.

Here's a sample of the new report's findings: 

• 37% of teens said they used social networks to make fun of other students, but only 18% of parents believe their own angels do so.
  
• 13% of teens said they posted naked or semi-naked photos or videos of themselves. Only 2% of parents said their kids have done that.
  
• 24% of teens said they signed on to someone else's account without permission, while only 4% of parents said their kids have done that.
  
• 28% of teens posted personal information that they normally would not have revealed in public, but 16% of parents said their kids did that.

What to do? Common Sense suggests ...

Digital Sandbox: Kids spending more time online

Is the Internet the new boob tube?

Kids ages 2 to 11 years spent more than 11 hours online in May, up from seven hours in May 2004, according to a report released today by the Nielsen Co. What are they doing? Many are watching videos -- boys flocked to Pokemon, and girls followed Barbie. Another gender difference: Boys spent 7% more time online in May, but girls zipped through 9% more Web pages.

Children in this age group made up nearly 1 in 10 Internet surfers in May, up 18% since 2004. That's 16 million kids under 12, according to the report.

One explanation for the jump in activity -- there's just a lot more for kids to see and do on the Web since 2004, including virtual-world games such as Free Realms and Club Penguin and websites featuring offline kids' brands such as Nickelodeon and Sesame Street. With many of these sites focusing on Internet safety, parents are also becoming more comfortable letting their children explore the Web, particularly when sites such as KidZui offer a higher level of parental control.

You can download a copy of the press release here.

-- Alex Pham

YouTube's Fred is first online video star to break 1M subscribers

YouTube's Fred Figglehorn, the screechy, chipmunk-voiced Internet star, has become the first person in the history of online video to amass 1 million subscribers. In less than a year, the child phenom -- portrayed by 15-year-old Nebraskan Lucas Cruikshank -- has passed every other filmmaker, artist, company and silly cat on YouTube to become the most subscribed-to act. 

Fred's online fame earned him a guest spot on kiddie TV powerhouse iCarly in February. His monotonically increasing popularity remains as befuddling to some as it does obvious to others.  Opine about Fred's annoying voice or lack of interesting character traits, and you will be deluged with caustic "you don't get its" from his legion of supportive fans, as well as defended by almost as many scoffing detractors.

But numbers don't lie, and when it's numbers time, Fred comes correct. With close to 250 millions views on only 36 videos, a gaggle of subscribers, and, according to YouTube, tens of thousands of dollars in monthly income, he is a pint-sized force to be reckoned with. Not bad for a plucky farm kid with a camcorder.

Both Fred and Cruikshank thank their audience in this video (be sure to turn down the volume).

-- David Sarno

Law to protect kids from Internet porn dies after 13 years

A 13-year legal drive to shield children from pornography on the Internet ended in defeat today when the Supreme Court let the Child Online Protection Act die quietly.

The measure, which never went into effect, made it a crime to put sexually explicit material on a website for commercial gain unless the sponsor used some means, such as requiring a credit card, to keep out minors.

It was repeatedly blocked from taking effect on free-speech grounds by judges, including the Supreme Court in 2004. The justices had also voided an earlier, even broader law passed in 1996 that prohibited "indecency" on the Web.

The outcome preserves the Web as a wide-open forum for free expression. It also leaves to parents the duty to install software filters if they wish to block pornography on their home computers.

Read the full story here.

-- David G. Savage

Photo: In this 1997 photo, protesters demonstrate after the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of a law against indecency online. The Supreme Court today let die an amended version of the law. Credit: Patsy Lynch / Associated Press

France thinks about quashing advertising of cellphones to kids

France is floating the idea of banning advertising of mobile phones to kids 12 and under, according to Bloomberg News. It's not to make them pay attention to their homework or even to ensure that they stop texting while riding their bicycles along scenic French roadways. The proposed law was motivated by legislators' concerns about the effects of cellphone usage on kids' developing bodies.

Depending on where you look on the Internet, it's possible to find studies that say that mobile phone use raises the risk of brain cancer in children and that short-term mobile phone use does not cause cancer. France seems to be siding with the former, or at least is playing it safe.

Kids under 13 may be "more sensitive because their bodies are still developing," according to a statement released by France's environment ministry. The ministry did not make reference to any difference between children speaking on cellphones and merely using them to text, which is probably less dangerous than having a phone pressed to their face for hours a day.

-- Alana Semuels

Photo credit: Derek Olson via Flickr

Big Mother is watching you

We've written a lot this year about the ways technology is making it easier for parents to spy on their kids. Reading their text messages remotely without them knowing. Finding out and controlling what they're buying for lunch. What's next, a homing device imprinted on their hippocampus that tracks where kids are going and what they're thinking?

Well, almost. Today, Dallas company Websafety will unveil a platform for mobile phones that allows parents to set predefined areas where their child can go, to track their child going to these areas and to be alerted if the child strays from said area. It also disables text messaging when a phone is moving at more than 10 mph (i.e., in a car -- or on that bad kid's motorcycle).

Oh yeah, and it also notifies parents if their child contacts someone they don't approve of or types a word or abbreviation that is too sexual or bully-ish. (And you thought those leashes parents put on little kids were restrictive.)

"We believe that parents are looking for better mechanisms to monitor what is going on with their child," said Chris Wylie, president of Websafety.

The software, available on GPS-enabled phones that run on Android, Windows Mobile 5.0 and higher and Symbian operating systems, uses GPS technology to track where the child is at all times. The software costs $9.99 a month, which is a small price to pay for the ability to know where your child is 24/7. How else are you going to find out what he's getting you for Christmas?

Parents need only to log onto the Web to check where their child is. They don't even have to do anything to prevent their kid from texting while driving. The phone will automatically shut down if someone tries to text on it while they're driving. Unless they're stuck in traffic. Then they can text away (at least until January, when it becomes illegal in California).

When asked if it wasn't just a little creepy for a parent to monitor a child to such a degree, Wylie responded that the teen will know when the parent checks his location online, so his privacy will be somewhat protected.

"We didn't want to have it be too Big Brother," he said.

-- Alana Semuels

Photo by half empty via Flickr