AllThingsD » parental controls

Feeling at Home With a Router

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 04:02:29 +0000

Like a hornets’ nest, the home router sits undisturbed by those who know better than to touch it. This antenna-enhanced box sends data to and from desktops, laptops, smart phones and TiVos (TIVO) throughout the house. Its indicator lights glow, signaling all is well with the network.

[ See post to watch video ]

But setting it up can be a major ordeal. People beg their techie friends for help. Some sit for hours on the phone with customer support. A few brave souls muddle through a sea of acronyms and secure codes in an attempt to install the router. Once it is set up, many are afraid to change its settings for fear of disrupting it and losing Internet connectivity.

Enter Valet (TheValet.com), a new wireless router designed for people who are tired of being intimidated by a blinking box. Valet is designed by the people who brought us the Flip video camcorders, the ultra simple handhelds with ultra simple software that just work. And it comes from Cisco (CSCO), which also owns Linksys—a router brand that people know and trust.

I’ve been using Valet for the past week, but it took me only 10 minutes, from start to finish, to get it going, thanks to a simple USB key that plugs into the computer and sets everything up in the background in less than five minutes. I tried it on a Windows 7 PC running and on an iMac, as well as on mobile devices, including a BlackBerry, Palm (PALM) Pre and the HTC HD2. The Valet is available Wednesday for $100 on Amazon.com (AMZN), TheValet.com and Staples (SPLS) stores. Over the next two weeks, it will be sold at Best Buy (BBY), Target (TGT) and Wal-Mart (WMT). There’s also the $150 Valet Plus, with a Wi-Fi range about 20% greater than the Valet.

I ran into a bug while trying to install the Valet software on a Mac: I plugged in the USB key but its built-in software didn’t install and I got a message telling me that Valet wasn’t able to set up on my computer. A Cisco representative said this was a rare Mac bug that will be fixed over this week and next week.

Along with its simple setup, Valet automatically creates a guest network to go with the main network so visitors can log onto a household’s Wi-Fi—either with or without a password, depending on settings—and not gain access to files shared within that network. The Valet software has parental controls that make it a cinch to set up restrictions like blocking certain Web sites or cutting off Internet access after a certain time on school nights or weekends.

The Valet isn’t the first router to enable parental controls and guest-network access. Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) $179 AirPort Extreme Base Station allows users to set up guest networks. Likewise, Netgear’s (NTGR) six most recently introduced routers, priced from $70 to $190, offer guest networks and parental controls. But just as the Flip camera’s built-in software simplified the process of editing, uploading and sharing home videos, the Valet’s software makes networking approachable for anyone—regardless of technical skill.

The Valet comes in a box with a USB Easy Setup Key, wireless router, Ethernet cable and power adapter (the last two are hidden under the box’s interior packaging). Instructions on the box told me to plug the USB key into a PC or Mac. Then on-screen directions popped up, instructing me to plug the Valet router into the wall with the power adapter and then into my home’s modem using the Ethernet cable. I selected the “connect” option on the computer screen, and four minutes later, the network was set up.

The device’s software, called Cisco Connect, is divided into four categories: Computers & Devices, Parental Controls, Guest Access and Settings. With these, I could quickly see how many devices were connected to my network and learn the name and password for the guest network if I forgot it. (Valet networks have pre-set, randomly selected names and passwords that people can easily change. My network’s default name was RubyPanda and its password was mango62—both simple word/number combinations that are easy to remember.) If the guest network is password-protected, guests have to enter that password on a Web browser page, like at a hotel. This could be confusing for people used to entering network passwords at the operating-system level, right as they select the Wi-Fi network. A Cisco representative said using a Web browser page is a more consistent way of entering passwords and it saves people from having to answer questions they may not be able to answer if they’re logging onto the main network, like the name of the “WPA key.”

If people get stuck during setup, which happened with me when I ran into the Mac bug, a screen immediately displays a customer-service number for Valet that’s available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I spoke to a woman who tried several troubleshooting methods, but she didn’t know about Valet’s rare Mac bug. Once a computer is set up with the Valet network, the USB key can be taken to other computers to update them with the same network passwords and settings.

Using the parental controls couldn’t have been easier. After a password is set up, Web content can be blocked at a teen or child level on some or all devices. Specific sites can be blocked, and when I blocked Facebook on a connected Mac, it wouldn’t open on that computer without the parent password. Time restrictions on Internet usage can be set up here, with different settings for school nights and weekends.

Though the $100 Cisco Valet is more than twice as expensive as some wireless routers, its built-in software puts great emphasis on simplicity and ease of use, and turns setting up and using a a home network into an unusually pleasant experience.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Opening a Window on the Mac

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:13:05 +0000

‘Tis almost the night before Christmas, and plenty of households are hoping Santa will slide down the chimney with a new computer in his pack. For longtime Windows users who receive new Apple (AAPL) computers, the unfamiliarity of the Mac operating system could leave them pining for their old PC.

I’ve put together a quick and dirty guide for new Apple users that explains some of the ways the Mac operating system differs from Windows. It’s true: The way you’ll quit programs is different, the keyboards are set up a little differently and even the mouse is different. But once you adjust to these changes, you’ll be fine. Here’s some help:

[ See post to watch video ]

Key to the Keyboard

Your keyboard is missing a Backspace button, so just use the Delete button, which is set up by default to work as the Backspace button does on a Windows keyboard.

If you want to delete forward on a Mac laptop or a new iMac, hold the Function key (FN) while pressing Delete. And for keyboard shortcuts like pressing Control+C to copy or Control+V to paste on a Windows keyboard, use the Command key, which has a flower-like symbol, in place of Control. Likewise, use the Option key rather than Alt to type special characters.

If you miss Control+Alt+Delete, you can end frustratingly slow applications on the Mac by pressing Command+Option+Escape to force programs to quit.

Mousing Around

The mouse on a desktop Mac looks like it has only one button, and the trackpad on most Mac laptops has no visible buttons at all—the whole pad is a single, large button. These designs send people who usually use two-button mice into a tizzy about how to right click.

Never fear, right click is still near! On Mac laptops, right click by placing two fingers down on the trackpad (it’s easiest with your pointer and middle fingers) and click the trackpad with another finger (like your thumb). New MacBooks also will right click when you place two fingers on the trackpad and press down. Using a one-button Apple mouse, just press Control and then click to see the same right-click functionality. On the Mighty Mouse, enable right-click functionality in System Preferences, then just touch where the right-click button should be and it will work.

If you’re sick of these new shortcuts, just plug in a mouse with a real right-click button and it will likely work on the Mac.

Scroll up or down on any screen by placing two fingers anywhere on the trackpad and motioning up or down. New MacBooks have a large, glass trackpad that responds to iPhone-like multi-touch gestures like pinching to zoom in or out on a screen. Four fingers on the trackpad initiate one of three gestures: Swiping up clears everything off the screen to show the desktop; swiping left or right opens the application switcher view so you can select which application you want; swiping down launches Exposé, which shows all opened windows.

Maximize, Close, Quit

In Windows, users can hit one button in the top right corner of each window to maximize the window; Macs have a small green circle in the top left corner that makes a window larger, but not maximized, so this can be irritating.

Windows lets users close an application by hitting the “X” in the top-right corner; the Mac version of this is a small red dot in the top left, but clicking it only closes a window rather than quitting the application. To do that, you’ll need to press Command+Q or choose to quit from the application menu at the top left of the screen.

Where’s My Stuff?

Rather than opening My Computer as you would on a Windows PC, double click on the desktop icon representing your hard drive to see all files, folders, applications and software programs. Spotlight, located in the top right corner of all screens, can be used to search for anything on your Mac. The Dock, located by default at the bottom of the screen, replaces the taskbar to hold applications, folders and files.Items can be dragged into the dock for quick access. Applications are located on the left side of the Dock; Stacks are on the right and these enable instant folder access from the Dock.Two built-in Stacks come pre-loaded for Documents and Downloads.

The Apple menu, represented with a small apple icon in the top left of any screen, works like parts of the Windows Start menu.

System Preferences in the Mac Dock works much like the Control Panel on a Windows PC. Here, you can change your screensaver, desktop picture, mouse and keyboard settings, energy-saving options, parental controls and network setup.

An optional Mac version of Microsoft Office runs Word, Excel, and PowerPoint programs that are compatible with Office files from Windows PCs. Instead of Outlook, Microsoft (MSFT) includes in Mac Office a program with similar functions called Entourage. Macs come out of the box with Apple-produced programs that include Mail, Address Book and iCal. Mail works with a range of email services.

Where’s Internet Explorer?

Instead of Internet Explorer, Apple comes loaded with its own Web browser called Safari, represented in the Dock by a blue and red compass. Browsers like Mozilla’s Firefox or Google (GOOG) Chrome will work on the Mac if you want to download and install them, but Internet Explorer still runs only on Windows.

Ejecting Hurts

On a Windows PC, anything inserted into the computer—from memory cards to USB flash drives—can be pulled out almost anytime with no repercussions. On a Mac, you must first eject these items before you yank them out. Ejecting can be done by dragging the icon representing that item from the desktop into the Trash, Apple’s version of the Windows Recycling Bin, or by selecting an Eject button beside its name. If you delete something on your Mac, it’s tossed into the Trash, and an option in Trash will empty it just as you can empty the Recycling Bin in Windows. Macs offer a Secure Empty Trash command in the Finder that securely deletes files so no part of them can be recovered.

Ask at the Store

If you buy a new Mac, Apple retail stores will recycle your old computer free, and if you buy Apple’s $99-a-year One to One membership, you can take your PC into an Apple retail store to have its data transferred to the Mac or to get personal tutorials. Stores also offer free workshops. More information is at apple.com/findouthow/mac.

–Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

The ABCs of Wii, Xbox and PlayStation 3

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 00:47:12 +0000

With holiday shopping comes anxiety about getting the right gifts. Does Dad already own a copy of “Frank Sinatra’s Greatest Hits”? Was Mom expecting a new pepper mill, or was that Aunt Carol? It’s even worse for people shopping for the video gamers in their lives: Understanding the technical specifications of each console can seem as difficult as getting to the highest level in a game of Halo.

This week, I’ve done the dirty work for you: I’ve amassed a collection of vital details about the three most popular systems—Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox 360, Sony’s (SNE) PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii—so that you can get a handle on what each offers and what it will cost you.

Nintendo Wii

Nintendo recently dropped the Wii’s price, for the first time, to $200 from $250. The Wii Console comes with a controller, an additional controller called a Nunchuk, and the Wii Sports game, which includes baseball, tennis, golf, bowling and boxing. It holds 512 megabytes of flash memory, but you can increase this by inserting SecureDigital memory cards. It also accepts high-capacity SD cards, or SDHCs, of up to 32 gigabytes.

The couch-potato world of videogamers was shaken up when the Wii, with its motion-sensitive remote control, was introduced about three years ago. Users can play Wii Golf, for instance, by swinging the remote like a golf club. In September, Nintendo added to its lineup a $20 remote-control accessory called Wii MotionPlus that was designed to add more precision to game motions. I tested this snap-on piece and found that it did make the Wii’s motions feel more realistic. But it works only with Wii MotionPlus games—and there are only six of them; 10 more are planned for 2010.

Wii encourages users to move around in more ways than just waving a remote: Its Wii Balance Board, which comes with the Wii Fit Plus game in a $100 bundle, works like a digital exercise step. It records the body’s weight shifts and movements for activities from yoga to wake-boarding.

The Wii accesses the Internet and lets users compete online against others. About 655 packaged games are available for between $30 and $50. Also, you can use pre-purchased Nintendo Points to buy and download about 150 WiiWare games and over 325 titles from the older Virtual Console library. Each game costs between 300 and 1,500 points, or between about $3 and $15.

WiiConnect24 can send messages from one Wii to another over the Internet, as long the two users exchange “Wii numbers.” Users can also surf the Web with Wii’s Opera browser. But beyond this, no other Web features—like downloadable movies, social-networking applications or streaming music—will work on this system.

Parental controls can be set on the Wii to restrict kids from using the Web browser, playing games that have a certain rating or communicating online.

Microsoft Xbox 360

Microsoft recently stepped up its game by adding features to its $200 Xbox 360 that make it well-rounded rather than strictly geared toward serious gamers. People who buy the Xbox LIVE Gold membership, for $50 a year, get applications for Facebook, Twitter, the Last.fm music-streaming service, online multiplayer game play, video chat, Netflix (Netflix subscription required), photo sharing via the Xbox, and movie or photo “parties” that allow users to watch a movie simultaneously with seven other friends.

Xbox LIVE Silver membership is free and includes basic features like voice and text chat, as well as access to the Zune video library’s 20,000 TV shows and movies to buy or rent. The Xbox also allows media-streaming over a home network. To wirelessly connect to the Internet on your Xbox, you’ll need to buy a $100 Wi-Fi adapter. By contrast, the Wii and PlayStation 3 have built-in Wi-Fi.

Anyone who owns a Microsoft Zune media player can buy a TV show or movie and download it to an Xbox or PC as well as the Zune. Zunes can be plugged into the Xbox to play music, as can Apple (AAPL) iPods.

The base Xbox comes with a wireless controller and 512 megabytes of memory. For $100 more, the Elite Holiday Bundle includes a 120-gigabyte hard drive, headset, wireless controller, and two games: “LEGO Batman: The Videogame” and “Pure.” More than 1,200 games are available for the Xbox, mostly costing between $29 and $60. About 350 of the games can be downloaded from the Xbox LIVE Arcade (costing 400 to 1,600 points, or $5 to $20) or the Games on Demand library.

Microsoft confirmed plans to introduce Project Natal, a system that lets people operate games with gestures and body movements rather than remote controls. Natal will work with all Xbox 360 consoles. Microsoft won’t confirm a date.

Family settings let parents control whether their kids play games online and with whom they play, as well as the ratings of the games. A Family Timer regulates how long kids play.

Sony PlayStation 3

Sony’s PlayStation, like the Xbox 360, is designed with serious gamers in mind. Its base version costs $300 and includes a 120-gigabyte hard drive and a DualShock 3 wireless controller; $50 more buys a version with a 250-gigabyte hard drive. Both systems can be upgraded with any standard 2.5-inch hard drive. The PlayStation is also a Blu-ray disc player.

Like the Xbox, the PlayStation 3, or PS3, now offers extra features, but these features are all included in the PlayStation Network, which is free (not $50 yearly like Xbox LIVE Gold). These PlayStation Network extras include Netflix (NFLX) instant streaming, a Web browser, photo slide shows, the ability to stream media over a home network to the PS3, a Facebook application that shares game information with friends and the PlayStation Network video-delivery service, where users can purchase 2,400 high- and standard-definition movies and 15,000 TV episodes.

The PS3 and the PlayStation Portable, Sony’s portable gaming device, are married in many ways. A new feature called Blu-ray Portable Copy lets users make a free standard-definition copy of some Blu-ray movies for transfer to a PlayStation Portable. Remote Play lets people stream media files from the PS3 to the PlayStation Portable in Wi-Fi hot spots or remotely turn the PS3 on or off using the PlayStation Portable. Movies and TV shows from the PlayStation Network can be transferred to either system, so you can start a movie on a big-screen TV and finish it on the PlayStation Portable; the same can be done for games.

About 400 games are available on Blu-ray for the PS3; these cost between $30 and $60. More than 150 titles, costing between $3 and $40, can be downloaded directly to the PS3. Sony confirmed that it will release a motion-sensing controller, but it hasn’t set a date.

Parental restrictions for the PS3 include the ability to restrict games, DVDs and Blu-ray discs with certain ratings. Parents can also limit monthly spending or Web browsing.

Games: A Cheat Sheet

Here are some of the key differences among three popular videogame systems.

	NINTENDO WII	XBOX 360	PLAYSTATION 3
Price	$200	200 or $300*	$300, $350
Includes	Wireless controller, Nunchuk, Wii Sports	Wireless controller/ Wireless controller, headset, 2 games	DualShock 3 wireless controller
Additional remotes	$40 wireless; Nunchuk is $20	$50 wireless, $40 wired, $20 headset	$55 DualShock 3 wireless controller, $50 Bluetooth headset, $40 PlayStation Eye, $25 Blu-ray disc remote control, $50 wireless keypad
Memory	512 MB, can be increased with SD cards	512 MB, $300 Xbox comes with 120 GB	120 GB or 250 GB
Built-in Wi-Fi?	Yes	No. $100 Wireless adapter sold separately	Yes
Games	1,100	1,200	550
Cost of Games	30-$50; $3-$15 for downloads	Most are $29-$60; $5-$20 for downloads	$30-$60; $3-$40 for downloads
Other features	Web browser, ability to message other Wii consoles	Netflix, Last.fm, movie parties, MSN Messenger, Facebook, Twitter, photo sharing, online multiplayer gaming	Netflix, Facebook integration, photo slide shows, PlayStation Network videos, online multiplayer gaming
Extras	$100 Wii Balance Board and Wii FitPlus, $20 Wii MotionPlus	Xbox LIVE Silver is free, Xbox LIVE Gold is $50/year	Blu-ray disc playing, multiple tie-ins with Playstation Portable
Family Settings	Restrict online browsing, communication, game ratings	Restrict online play, with whom users can play, game ratings, time spent playing	Restrict online play, games or movies with certain ratings, monthly expenses, Web browsing
Relationship w/portable device	Wireless, free demo downloads from Wii Channel onto DS or DSi	Play videos bought anywhere on Zune, PC or Xbox 360	Blu-ray Portable Copy gives free copy of some movies for transferring to PlayStation Portable
Media streamed to console over home network?	No	Yes	Yes
* for Elite Holiday Bundle

Email: mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications

Xbox LIVE Gold costs $50 a year. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated in the second reference to the price that it costs $50 monthly. Also, the Xbox 360 can be connected to the Internet via an ethernet cable for free, as well as via Wi-Fi. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that connecting your Xbox to the Internet would require the purchase of a Wi-Fi adapter.

Apple's App Store: 100,000 Apps, "Well Over" Two Billion Downloads

John Paczkowski — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:48:40 +0000

When it launched on July 10, 2008, Apple’s iTunes App Store held just 552 apps. Today, it boasts more than 100,000 in 21 categories (click on image below) that have been downloaded a total of “well over” two billion times.

Astonishing, really, when you think about it. The App Store isn’t even two years old yet. Nor is the iPhone software development kit. Before the SDK was released March 6, 2008, the only developers working with it were the handful of outfits Apple (AAPL) had partnered with while it was in beta.

So Apple is entitled to a bit of gloating. And gloat it did, in a press release celebrating the 100,000-app milestone this morning:

Apple Announces Over 100,000 Apps Now Available on the App Store

CUPERTINO, Calif., Nov. 4 — Apple® today announced that developers have created over 100,000 apps for the revolutionary App Store, the largest applications store in the world. iPhone® and iPod touch® customers in 77 countries can choose from an incredible range of apps in 20 categories, including games, business, news, sports, health, reference and travel. App Store users have downloaded well over two billion apps, continuing to make it the world’s most popular applications store.

“The App Store, now with over 100,000 applications available, is clearly a major differentiator for millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers around the world,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “The iPhone SDK created the first great platform for mobile applications and our customers are loving all of the amazing apps our developers are creating.”

“The App Store has forever changed the mobile gaming industry and continues to improve,” said Travis Boatman, vice president of Worldwide Studios, EA Mobile. “With a global reach of over 50 million iPhone and iPod touch users, the App Store has allowed us to develop high quality EA games that have been a huge success with customers.”

“With 10,000 downloads a day, worldwide customer response to our I Am T-Pain App has exceeded our wildest expectations,” said Jeff Smith, CEO of Smule. “The App Store has given us a unique opportunity to create and grow a very successful business, and we’re looking forward to an exciting future.”

Apple continues to improve search and discovery with new features including Genius for Apps, App Store Essentials selections, sub category listings and more valuable customer reviews. With the recently introduced iTunes® 9, it’s also now easier than ever to organize and sync your apps right in iTunes and they will automatically appear on your iPhone or iPod touch with the same layout.

The release of iPhone OS 3.0 this summer made over 100 new features available to iPhone and iPod touch users including Cut, Copy and Paste; MMS; landscape view for Mail, Text and Notes; stereo Bluetooth; shake to shuffle; parental controls; automatic login at Wi-Fi hot spots and Push Notifications. These new features have been incredibly popular with customers and there have already been more than two billion Push Notifications sent to apps available from the App Store. Additionally, the recently introduced In App Purchase feature for free apps means leading developers will now be able to offer customers the choice of buying content, subscriptions and digital services from directly inside their apps.

[Image Credit:148apps.biz]

Weekend Update, 8.29.09–The "Skank" Issue

Beth Callaghan — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:02:44 +0000

As of this week, pretty much anyone can tell you–“Skank” blogging just doesn’t pay. Unless your $15 million privacy lawsuit against Google ends up going your way, that is. Rosemary Port, the person who used Blogger to anonymously insult former model Liskula Cohen, was unmasked last week after months of speculation, and promptly sued Google (GOOG) for turning over her information. Hilarity ensued, complete with dueling morning TV appearances. More details on MediaMemo, though Peter doesn’t usually follow that kind of stuff. Looks like Amazon’s Kindle has a couple of new competitors. Sony’s (SNE) “Reader Daily Edition” and Barnes & Noble’s (BKS) and Irex’s as-yet-unnamed Kindle-like device will join the as-yet-unnamed Kindle-like device from Barnes & Noble and Plastic Logic on the playing field. Apple (AAPL) approved at least one app this week–the one for Spotify, which is rumored to be “the best streaming music service in the world.” But as MediaMemo points out, it’s worthless without any deals with big music companies.

The Open Book Alliance formally launched the manifesto this past week with which it’s challenging Google’s settlement with authors and publishers. The organization now has a Web site and quite an array of allies–which include, of course, Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo (YHOO) and Amazon (AMZN). And as if Google doesn’t have enough on its plate, turns out that all along, Microsoft has been holding regular “Screw Google” meetings, the bastards. Uh, I thought that’s what people pay good money to learn in Business School. On a happier note, Howard Stern fans everywhere were happy to learn that Sirius XM (SIRI) has debuted a device that can turn an iPhone or iPod touch into a full-fledged satellite radio.

Over in Personal Technology, Walt reviewed Snow Leopard and found it to be an improvement on its predecessor, but with a lot of the upgrades under the hood invisible to most users. Not the typical object of desire we’re trained to expect out of Apple. In Mossberg’s Mailbox, Walt answers reader email about choosing a vendor to buy a computer online and setting parental controls in Firefox. In The Mossberg Solution, Katie Boehret explores the trials and tribulations of BlackBerry and iPhone users switching one for the other.

More next week.

Weekend Update, 8.29.09–The "Skank" Issue

Beth Callaghan — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:02:44 +0000

More next week.

A MacBook Surprise

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:38:02 +0000

I am trying to surprise my wife with a laptop for our anniversary. I will probably go with the Apple MacBook Pro. Are there reliable sellers from which to buy the machine online?

There are lots of reliable online sellers of laptops, and online buying is fine, provided you have somehow handled the machine and are familiar enough with it to be sure it’s the one you (or, in this case, your lucky wife) will be happy owning. In the case of Apple, a company whose products are rarely deeply discounted by third-party sellers, it often makes sense for online buyers to use the company’s own online store, at store.apple.com. I have found Apple’s online store to be easy to use, secure and reliable. And you get some minor benefits at the physical Apple stores if you buy directly from Apple.

However, other major online sellers with equally good reputations also carry Macs, and some do shave the prices. One good example I have used happily is amazon.com, which carries the latest MacBook Pros at discounts ranging from $5 to over $100, depending on model.

How can I set parental controls in Firefox?

The Firefox Web browser doesn’t have built-in parental controls. Its maker, Mozilla, notes that version 3.0 or later of the browser does support some of the parental-control features included in Windows Vista. But if you don’t have Vista, or want different controls, there are some add-ons for Firefox that provide these.

Among the ones Mozilla suggests using are Glubble for Families, and ProCon Latte. More information is at: support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Parental+controls.

iPhone App Goes Topless

John Paczkowski — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:30:48 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Sexually Frustrated? There’s an App for That [UPDATED]

John Paczkowski — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:04:52 +0000

The parental controls included in iPhone 3.0 have opened up a rich and fertile frontier in Apple’s App Store: Porn. An app called “Hottest Girls,” which previously featured pictures of women in their skivvies, this week began featuring ones of ladies wearing quite a bit less. “We uploaded nude topless pics today,” says app developer Allen Leung. “This is the first app to have nudity.”

But far from the last, I’m sure.

A few weeks back, this sort of update never would have made it into the App Store, but now that the device supports age restrictions for applications, Apple (AAPL) has adopted a more permissive stance toward
“objectionable content.” Browse the Hottest Girls page on the App Store and you’ll find the following warning:

“You must be at least 17 years old to download this game.
Rated 17+ for the following:
Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity
Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes”

“Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity?” Interesting. It would seem then that Hottest Girls isn’t just the first app to boast nudity, it’s also the first to set up shop in what may become the iPhone’s red light district. It will be interesting to see to what uses the adult entertainment industry can find for the iPhone’s accelerometer….

UPDATE: Apple seems to have pulled the app. It still appears in the iTunes store, but it’s apparently no longer available for download.

UPDATE: The developers of Hottest Girls claim the app wasn’t pulled; it sold out. “The Hottest Girls app is temporarily sold out,” they explain. “The server usage is extremely high because of the popularity of this app. Thus, by not distributing the app, we can prevent our servers from crashing. Those who already have the app will still be able to use our app. To answer the question on everyone’s mind: Yes, the topless images will still be there when it is sold again.”

UPDATE: Apple now says it was indeed responsible for pulling the app.

Nintendo Freshens a Game Player

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:46:02 +0000

Nintendo Co.’s strategy of creating videogames with simple graphics that anyone can play has worked well on its Wii and portable DS. Earlier this month, the company released the $170 Nintendo DSi in an attempt to spruce up its three-year-old DS Lite and 5 1/2-year-old DS. At first glance, this plain, rectangular clamshell with dual screens appears to be the same as its predecessors.

[ See post to watch video ]

But a deeper dive into the DSi reveals its improvements. It now has two cameras: one facing the user and another facing out; its earlier iterations had none. It also now has a SecureDigital memory-card slot, so you can plug in an SD card and listen to AAC music files from iTunes on your DSi, which now works as a portable music player, or expand the DSi’s storage capacity.

The DSi is also Wi-Fi enabled in a more secure way than previous models and can be used to buy and download games and applications directly from Nintendo’s DSi Shop online marketplace. This solves the problem of carrying around multiple game cartridges or losing them, but might bother people who like swapping games with one another. The DSi’s Web browser is also faster than its predecessors.

These physical changes affect the way the DSi works in good and bad ways. For example, its two cameras can be used for photo-related games like WarioWare: Snapped!, a clever photo-booth-like game that tricks you into making funny faces while secretly taking your picture.

But while the DSi’s newly added SD card slot expands the device’s memory and brings music on to the DSi, this replaces another slot that was used for playing GameBoy Advance games on the older DS and DS Lite. The physical slot for DS games remains.

Overall, the Nintendo DSi is a fun little portable gaming device. I’ve been fooling around with it for a few weeks, testing games and applications since they became available on April 5. My DSi tapped into various Wi-Fi networks with no trouble and its browser was straightforward and zippy. The DSi speakers sounded great for a tiny device. On the downside, the DSi Shop is still in its infancy so only 10 games and apps are available there. The DSi retains an aging, boxy look — a design that could have been freshened up.

Until Oct. 5, Nintendo is running a promotion for its DSi Shop, which accepts points to buy games and applications; $1 is equal to about 100 points. People who buy the DSi will receive 1,000 free points for the DSi Shop. New content is added to the shop each Monday. This content ranges in price from free to 800 points or more. I bought and downloaded a variety of things, ranging from the free Web browser to a 200-point magic-trick game called Master of Illusion Express: Funny Face. I also downloaded WarioWare: Snapped! for 500 points.

Points for the DSi Shop can be purchased online or at retail stores and they’re sold in increments of 2,000 for $20. Before purchasing and downloading, a notification with each game and app tells you how many “blocks,” or memory, it will take up on your DSi. WarioWare: Snapped!, for example, took up 61 blocks. This information really doesn’t mean anything unless you go to your system settings to see how many blocks you’ve used and how many remain. By default, each DSi is shipped with 256 megabytes of flash memory or 1,024 blocks.

The DSi cameras are only .3 megapixel each and don’t use a zoom or flash, but photos taken with them looked colorful and clear on the DSi’s two 3.25-inch, 256×192-pixel-resolution screens. Instead of sending photos to friends directly from the DSi, you have to save them to the SD card and transfer them to a computer to share them.

The Nintendo DSi is a spruced-up successor to two of the company’s earlier game players.

Nintendo says the “i” in DSi is meant to represent the personal aspect of the device since it has built-in tools to let you create your own content. For example, a game called DSi Sound lets you sing or hum into a built-in microphone, then rearrange your recording to change its pitch, speed and sound — or even to add harmony. AAC music files pulled on to the device via SD card can be changed in various ways, though they can’t be saved. Photos taken with the cameras can be morphed in nine different ways including cutting different photos and piecing them together on the screen.

The DSi has parental controls, which the DS and DS Lite didn’t have. These controls let parents turn off Web browsing completely. A better compromise might have been to let parents limit kids to certain sites. The parental controls can also put restrictions on the DSi so it can’t play games with certain ratings. For instance, if a child goes to school and tries to play a friend’s M-rated game in his DSi, it won’t work.

The DSi works well as a music player, albeit a lot chunkier than an iPod. A high-capacity SD memory card could potentially add hundreds of songs to the device, and you can press buttons to play on-screen instruments in the background while listening to your tunes. If you’re using headphones (not included with the device) and you close the DSi, music will keep playing through the headphones so you can put the DSi in a bag and go. In past versions, the DSi went to sleep when closed. It plays only AAC files, not MP3s.

I used the DSi’s Web browser to read some news on WSJ.com and to check my Web-based email, plugging letters and symbols into the touch-screen keyboard. A stylus can be used for precise lettering, but I got by with my fingernails.

The DSi games are approachable for all types of people, and are obviously not geared toward the graphics-rich visuals that hard-core gamers adore. I liked the way they incorporated the device’s touch screen for drawings and its cameras for photo games.

The Nintendo DSi is $20 more than the price of the original DS, and $40 more than the DS Lite. But its two cameras, snappy Web browser and music-player capabilities make it a likable and well-rounded device that any family member could use.

Edited By Walter S. Mossberg

Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find this and other columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://solution.allthingsd.com

Corrections & Amplifications

Photos taken on the Nintendo DSi can be sent to other DSis. Due to inaccurate information provided by Nintendo, yesterday’s Mossberg Solution erroneously stated photos couldn’t be shared between DSis.

Idiot: World of Warcraft Is the "Crack Cocaine of the Computer Game World"

John Paczkowski — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:28:33 +0000

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no more than one to two hours of online gaming per day, so warnings that obsessive gaming might be detrimental to one’s health are not without some merit (it’s sunlight, not display light that’s been shown to increase melatonin and serotonin levels). But the suggestion that World of Warcraft is the cocaine of the gaming world and its players by extension, a legion of slathering crackheads, well, that’s going a bit far, isn’t it?

Not according to Sweden’s Youth Care Foundation, which has just finished a report that pegs WoW as the single most dangerous game on the market and the one with the highest risk of addiction. “There is not a single case of game addiction that we have worked with in which World of Warcraft has not played a part,” hyperbolized the report’s author, Sven Rollenhagen. “It is the crack cocaine of the computer game world. Some will play it till they drop.”

And indeed, some will. Last year, a 15-year-old Swedish boy did just that after a 20-hour marathon. But it seems a bit heavy handed to tar WoW for the incident. It’s not as if the boy suffered a temporary state of full-blown paranoid psychosis or ended up in a red-light district tricking for game time. He passed out. Had his ~~dealers~~parents stepped in, the incident might never have occurred. WoW does offer a pretty robust set of parental controls.

Idiot: World of Warcraft Is the "Crack Cocaine of the Computer Game World"

John Paczkowski — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:28:33 +0000

KidZui's Parent Plan Lets Children Explore in Safe Corner of Web

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:01:00 +0000

The Internet presents a real dilemma for parents with younger children. On the one hand, it’s filled with fun and wholesome sites for kids, and lots of educational material. On the other, it teems with inappropriate content and potentially dangerous means of communicating with strangers.

There are tools for dealing with the problem, most commonly, filtering software that attempts to bar sexual, violent and other objectionable material. But these can frustrate kids and parents, by either blocking too many things or not blocking enough.

Avatars help guide users

Some other approaches, such as the parental controls built right into the latest Windows (MSFT) and Macintosh (AAPL) operating systems, offer parents more control by allowing them to specify what Web sites a child can access. But that requires close and constant involvement by the parent as the child seeks access to more Web sites.

This week marks the launch of a parental-control service with a somewhat different approach. It’s called KidZui, and it aims to offer kids a safe subset of the Internet where they can roam freely without triggering parental worry. KidZui, for children ages 3 to 12, hopes to emphasize the positive, rather than the negative.

The service, from a San Diego company of the same name, claims to encompass 500,000 safe sites, photos and videos, ranging from pop culture to science, comics and games to history. You can watch the latest “American Idol” contestant, learn about dinosaurs, delve into history or visit popular kids’ sites, such as Webkinz and Club Penguin.

The sites, photos and videos included in KidZui are approved by a team of about 200 parents and teachers across the country, and are ranked by age, so that a site that might be right for an 11-year-old isn’t served up to a 4-year-old.

While a child can establish a list of friends in KidZui, and can share content with them, there is no instant-messaging or email function.

KidZui isn’t free, and it can’t be accessed via a regular Web browser. Instead, you must download a special KidZui browser, from kidzui.com, that runs on either Windows or Macintosh computers. I tested it on both platforms, and it downloaded quickly and installed smoothly.

The service nominally costs $99.95 a year, or $9.95 a month, but there is a 30-day free trial and an introductory rate of $49.95 a year, or $4.95 a month. It has no ads, other than those already present on Web sites kids visit.

A key selling point of the service is that busy parents can simply set up KidZui and trust that their kids will be safe online. To that end, the program can be optionally configured, so that a child can’t escape from it to use the computer’s standard browser, for example. A parent can set KidZui to launch when the computer starts up, in full-screen mode. In this mode, KidZui automatically disables or hides the common keystrokes, icons, commands and techniques that allow users to switch to, or to start up, other programs.

In addition, when KidZui is running in this locked-down mode, the child can be barred from quitting KidZui without a parent’s password. In my tests over the past week, I found some loopholes in this lockdown system, but the company plugged each leak I turned up. I can’t swear that a clever kid won’t be able to escape from KidZui, but the program blocks most obvious exits.

Inside the software, the company has tried to create a fun, lighthearted world. Each child is represented by a “Zui,” a cartoon-like character that can be customized with hair, clothing and other features. There are lots of sound effects, and kids can rate content with illustrated tags ranging from “best” and “cool” to “boring” or “gross.”

When a child types in a term like “ocean” KidZui offers a list of related terms as well, to guide further exploration. If a child types in a search term or a Web address that has been banned from the KidZui universe, a message appears saying “This page isn’t available on KidZui, but your parents can add it for you.” This applies not only to terms typed into KidZui’s own search bar, but also to terms a child enters at sites like Wikipedia or in the search boxes embedded in other sites. The main pages of Google and Yahoo can’t be summoned.

If a search or Web address is new to KidZui, a different message appears promising that it will be reviewed.

I did find some holes in this system. For instance, I was able to get to The Wall Street Journal’s Web site and do an internal search on “Spitzer,” which turned up a story on the former New York governor’s sex scandal.

Parents can get detailed reports about the KidZui activities of each of their children and can tweak the content they can see by adding specific types of material, such as “athletic violence,” and approving or blocking specific Web sites.

For parents who want to allow limited Web use by their young children without constantly micromanaging their online activities, KidZui may be worth a try, but don’t expect it to be perfect.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online, free, at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

You Have Weapons In Your Computer To Monitor Your Kids

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 00:01:00 +0000

One of the most vexing problems in home computing is finding a way for parents to govern their children’s use of computers and the Internet. The goal is to keep their kids safe from the creepier content and people on the Internet, and from spending too much time on the computer.

Of course, in many families, these problems are solved with good parenting skills, and establishing trust and limits. But even strong parents could use some technological help.

For years, add-on programs have attempted to give parents some control over what children can do on the computer. Some of these have been OK, but many have had weaknesses that were exploited by kids, who are typically technically savvier than adults.

Many parents, however, don’t realize that the latest versions of the two main computer-operating systems, Microsoft‘s Windows Vista and Apple‘s Mac OS X Tiger, have parental controls built right in.

On both platforms, you can control even which programs a child can run. This is key, because it prevents kids from running alternative Web browsers or other programs that may not be susceptible to parental controls. Both also allow you to specify which Web sites a child can visit, another crucial feature.

[ See post to watch video ]

These built-in controls are free of charge and fairly easy to use. Even better, because they are designed by the same companies that built the operating system and aren’t bolted on afterward, they can impose limits in ways that kids may find harder to evade.

I have been testing these built-in parental controls. While they aren’t perfect, I can recommend them as powerful tools to help parents get a handle on their children’s computing and online activities.

On both Windows and Mac, the trick is to make sure the computer used by a child has multiple accounts, or logins. One, for a parent, should be set up as an “administrator” account, the type that grants its user powers to change various settings, including the power to establish parental controls on other accounts. This administrator account should be protected by a password — and this password should never be shared with the child. If the child knows it, he or she can log in as the administrator and weaken or remove the controls.

In addition, you should set up a standard, or more limited, account for each child who uses the machine. People logged in via these accounts can’t change many settings on the computer and can’t override the controls.

Once logged in to your administrator account, you can apply different limits to each child’s account. In Windows Vista, you can find the parental-controls settings in the Control Panel, under the heading User Accounts and Family Safety. You must be using the Home Basic, Home Premium, or Ultimate versions of Vista to apply these boundaries. They aren’t available in the Business or Enterprise versions.

On the Mac, in Tiger, you can find parental controls in the System Preferences program, by clicking on the Accounts icon. You select the standard account you want to control and then click the tab labeled Parental Controls.

In addition to restricting which Web sites kids can visit and which programs they can run, Vista, but not the Mac, includes an extensive system of controls on games. On the other hand, the Mac allows you to block a child from using a printer or burning CDs.

The Mac system, but not Vista, allows you to specify exactly with whom a child can exchange emails or instant messages — as long as the child is using Apple’s own built-in Mail email program and iChat instant-messaging program. To ensure compliance, you would have to limit the child to using only these programs and not competitors or Web sites that perform these functions.

In Vista, you may be able to set up similar limitations within the individual email or instant-messaging program, but it’s easier on the Mac. If a nonapproved person attempts to send your child an email, the Mac system can even forward the email to you.

On the other hand, Vista, but not the Mac, allows you to set time limits for a child’s use of the computer. Another strong Vista feature absent on the Mac is a detailed report on the child’s activities that can be emailed to the parent — though the report doesn’t include email and instant-messaging activities. Vista also can filter out Web pages based on content categories, such as sex or drugs.

Apple is planning to add a time-limit feature, Web-content filtering and a new activity-logging feature in its forthcoming Leopard operating system, due in October.

Determined kids wanting to view pornography or contact strangers could probably find ways to evade both systems. It’s awfully hard to shut down access to everything of which you disapprove without also blocking access to valuable content and functions. But the logging and reporting features should at least make evasions detectable after the fact.

So, if you want to put some technological muscle behind your parenting, don’t overlook the parental-control features hiding in your own PC.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online free at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.