Group items tagged

Adults must impose the necessary checks and balances to keep children safe online, says the children's commissioner for Wales.

"All children and young people don't seem much of a distinction between their online and offline lives,"

Mr Towler told BBC Radio Wales. "It's all just one thing and they get really excited by the opportunities the internet affords and sometimes parents get a little scared about that and worried about what their children are accessing." 'Crossing the road' Continue reading the main story “Start Quote They're all running around with handheld computers these days, they're not just on phones ” End Quote Keith Towler Children's commissioner Mr Towler said he talks to children in lots of different settings and they "still enjoy playing outside as much as they ever did". He said we need to recognise that the internet provides fantastic opportunities for education and learning and its making sure that children access that safely. He said that was a real challenge for parents and carers. "It's a bit like crossing the road, you try to teach your children the best way of crossing the road well. We need to teach our children the best way of using this fantastic resource. "I think too many parents are very very scared of the internet and because they're so scared they will say 'Oh I don't understand it'". Handheld computers The commissioner also praised Hwb, the virtual learning environment, which he said provides protection for children using the web in schools. Mr Towler said: "We've got to get parents and carers to recognise that children do operate in the digital world. They're all running around with handheld computers these days, they're not just on phones. "They can access whatever they want whenever they want and parents need to engage on that. " "We need to remember that children and young people are much more savvy than sometimes we think they are, and they are much more responsible than sometimes adults think they are so its not all doom and gloom. "What we need to do is put the right checks and balances in place and what children always want from parents and carers is to understand what the boundaries are, and that's our job to do that." Sangeet Bhullar, executive director of Wise Kids, added that the digital landscape was "evolving rapidly" and up-to-date data was needed on how children and young people in Wales related to it. More on This Story .related-links-list li { position: relative; } .related-links-list .gvl3-icon { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; } Related Stories Web safety lessons urged for infants 05 FEBRUARY 2013, EDUCATION &amp; FAMILY Online chat 'should be monitored' 22 JANUARY 2013, TECHNOLOGY Body to promote digital teaching 22 JUNE 2012, WALES $render("page-see-also","ID"); $render("page-newstracker","ID"); Related Internet links Children's Commissioner for Wales The BBC is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites $render("page-related-items","ID"); Share this pageShare this pageShareFacebookTwitter Email Print In association with $render("advert","advert-sponsor-module","page-bookmark-links"); $render("advert-post-script-load"); $render("advert-post-script-load"); More Wales stories RSS Army base shuts in defence shake-up An Army base in Pembrokeshire is to close with 600 troops transferred to St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan. Soldiers' conman jailed three years Wales recall Warburton and Jones <!--

Google Buzz aims to crack the social web

Google Buzz

share messages, web links and photos with friends and colleagues directly within Gmail

bring new features to Windows

// 33inShare Microsoft is currently preparing an update for Windows Phone 8, codenamed Apollo Plus.

A Wi-Fi connection fix is also planned to let connections always remain on, alongside some audio improvements. Apollo Plus will also test Microsoft's ability to deliver Windows Phone 8 updates over-the-air, a change from the previous OS that required users to plug devices into PCs to get similar updates.

When it comes to developers working with Facebook, "share and share alike" is the new policy.

No one rides the Facebook express for free.

"If you use any Facebook APIs to build personalized or social experiences, you must also enable people to easily share their experiences back with people on Facebook," Facebook said in a blog post announcing the change.

A Year After the Closing of Megaupload, a File-Sharing Tycoon Opens a New Site

Kim Dotcom opened his new file-storage Web site to the public — one year to the minute after the police raided the mansion he rents in New Zealand.

Megaupload

Indeed, most users of Facebook (or Google+, or countless other social networking sites) seem unaware of just how much they are sharing.

it is ultimately the responsibility of the user to understand his or her settings and know what, precisely, is being shared.

users must educate themselves about the privacy policies and tools available to them on Facebook or any other given site. Using available tools, users can reasonably protect their content from the public view.

forced to filter the web

the government should legally compel ISPs to screen out images of child abuse and underage sex.

by blocking such material at source.

YouTube is the closest thing we have to a traditional TV model in online video.

YouTube is nothing like television, and everything like the internet.

too many videos on YouTube, and not enough ad dollars chasing them

They may not be paying for the services directly, but customers still have a lot of power -- and companies know that they need to listen.

"We can't just sit back and allow the industry to just continue to ignore a core component of the user experience online," said Alex Fowler, Mozilla's global privacy and public policy leader.

The more devices that connect to the Internet, from smart cars to home thermostats, the more data there are about a person to collect.

Protect yourself against data loss, security blunders, and--that real productivity killer--inefficiency.

For small businesses, cloud storage is affordable and frees you up from maintaining expensive physical servers that need upkeep. And it also makes accessing, updating, and sharing files—usually from any device—simple and fast.

And unlike Dropbox or SugarSync that back up only the files you tell them to, Code 42's CrashPlan software automatically backs up everything on your hard drive—as much as once a minute—and encrypts it all before it leaves your computer. It also lets you back up to other computers and attached external hard drives as well as access, update, and share your files from mobile devices.

European commission expected to fine Microsoft hundreds of millions of euros after software company broke antitrust promise

The EU competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, is expected to use the fine – which could run into hundreds of millions of euros – to set an example after the US software giant became the first company to break a promise made to end an antitrust probe

The fines relate to an antitrust battle in Europe more than a decade ago. In order to avoid a penalty then, Microsoft promised to offer European consumers a choice of rival browsers.

However unwittingly, you share personal information with complete strangers every single day - via the internet.

Mr Chester.

But Google is not the only internet service busy farming out data and this raises the question of the invasion of people's rights.

How social networks have changed our world

Kim Dotcom, founder of the banned Megaupload filesharing site, has announced a new version called Mega designed to sidestep the American laws under which he is being prosecuted for £175m worth of alleged online piracy, racketeering and money laundering.

The site would not use US-based hosting companies as partners in order to avoid being shut down by US authorities, Dotcom said.

Megaupload was shut down in January 2012 when New Zealand police helicopters swooped into Dotcom's mansion outside Auckland to seize computers and other evidence at the request of US authorities.

Nearly half of the internet users surveyed incorrectly said they thought it was legal to upload commercially produced media to a file-sharing website

Internet users unaware of illegal downloading

Internet users are unwittingly turning into online pirates over confusion about what constitutes illegal downloading.