Major Study Supports Kids' Online Gaming and Social Networking

A three-year UC Irvine study funded by the MacArthur Foundation suggests that online gaming and social networking are beneficial to children by teaching them basic social and technical skills necessary for their futures. Download the full report (PDF) here, or read a brief San Francisco Examiner article describing the study that interviewed hundreds of teenagers and observed thousands of hours of hours of their online activities. The report suggests that a generation gap has prevented school and government leaders from recognizing important benefits of these activities ... activities which many have successsfully banned from school.

The Last Word on 2008 Voting Security

Here's an O'Reilly interview by James Turner of Dr. Barbara Simons, newly-appointed member of the Board of Advisors to the Federal Election Assistance Commission. Dr. Simons in the ONLY computer scientist on the board! The interview presents the perspective of a computer, security, and statistics expert on the current state of technology-assisted voting in the United States. She discusses high-profile state reports that document serious problems with the voting systems sold by major companies (e.g., Diebold), the role of open-source software, and the ways of establishing an easily-auditable paper trail for voting. http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2008/11/a-2008-e-voting-wrapup-with-dr.html.