Parent Pages new website

Take an exclusive behind the scenes look at the making of the Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two video game. Meet some of the key people behind the creation of the game, and get a deeper understanding into the core gameplay features, mechanics and storyline. Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two [...]

Read the full story

Schools in England will be banned from taking pupils’ fingerprints and using face-recognition technology unless they get permission from parents. New government guidance says written parental permission must be obtained to use students’ biometric data. Pupils themselves will also be allowed to refuse to participate. Schools can use fingerprinting or face scanning for recording attendance, [...]

Read the full story

Disney are normally associated with talking animals, princes and princesses, and objects which have come to life with a tough of magic. Well, the magical wizards at Disneyland have made that last thing a reality, after unveiling a high-tech solution which can turn anything – from doorknobs to buckets of water – into interactive buttons. [...]

Read the full story

Pupils are being distracted from exam studying due to their college sending them ‘top revision tips’ by text, Twitter, and Facebook, it was claimed today. Students at Havering Sixth Form College in Hornchurch, Essex, say the ‘obvious’ messages are ‘annoying’ and are actually interrupting their A-level preparation. Daily tips aimed at revising pupils include ‘buckle [...]

Read the full story

Social media: It’s not just for college kids anymore. Families use Facebook to stay in touch across generations. Friends well into middle age share photos on Instagram. There’s even an 80-year-old grandmother on a quest for 80,000 Twitter followers. But how does social media’s widening reach affect the family unit? The brand-engagement firm GMR Marketing [...]

Read the full story

Name: Keepon Big Idea: Keepon is a little robot, developed in Japan, that is used to research childhood communication and interaction. The consumer version, MyKeepon, funds the construction and distribution of Keepons to labs around the globe. Why It’s Working: Keepon’s simple design and mannerisms make it an effective communication tool that doesn’t intimidate kids [...]

Read the full story

Police are warning primary school pupils about chatting online amid fears that paedophiles are targeting children on websites such as Moshi Monsters and Club Penguin. Bedfordshire Police is sending officers into more than 300 schools to raise awareness about online imposters after parents highlighted possible ‘grooming’ incidents. One mother told police that her son was [...]

Read the full story

Ocado has said there is not enough IT talent in the UK – and is turning to Poland to fill the gap. The online supermarket plans to hire workers from the central European country to staff a new technical office it is opening there. Its chief executive insisted the Waitrose offshoot had been forced to [...]

Read the full story

A teenage boy is accused of heading a group of hackers who targeted Tony Blair, MI5 and the BNP. TeamPoison claimed responsibility for hacking Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist hotline and posted recordings on YouTube. The 17-year-old was arrested on Friday and police seized all of his computer equipment. He was released on bail over the weekend. [...]

Read the full story

A school has become entangled in a legal row after confiscating pupils’ phones and refusing to hand them back for weeks. City of London Academy Islington has brought in a new hardline policy of hanging on to mobiles, refusing even to return them to parents, until the end of term. But a lawyer says the [...]

Read the full story

Proposals for a default block on internet pornography have been criticised as impractical and potentially counterproductive by technology experts and civil liberties campaigners, setting them at loggerheads with groups such as the NSPCC ahead of a potentially stormy government consultation. David Cameron announced last week that the government would consult on methods to improve online [...]

Read the full story

Hogwarts, the wizarding school at the centre of the Harry Potter books, can now count 3 million virtual pupils among its numbers after fans rushed to sign up to creator JK Rowling’s latest venture Pottermore. After its initial launch date of last October slipped and slipped, Pottermore eventually went live to all on the morning [...]

Read the full story

A popular Mormon ‘Mommy blogger’ who survived an horrific plane crash with 80 per cent burns to her body has spoken about the ordeal – and how she overcame it to give birth to her fifth child. Speaking on the Today show, Stephanie Nielson, who writes about motherhood on her blog the Nie Nie Dialogues, [...]

Read the full story

A young mother was told her baby son had a condition that could potentially leave him brain damaged from a stranger on the internet. Charlotte Dent discovered six-month-old George had the rare condition trigonocephaly because a woman whose son has the same thing spotted the tell-tale signs on a Facebook profile picture. The woman spotted [...]

Read the full story

The world’s largest social network, despite deploying several techniques to censor this type of content is playing host to many inappropriate images and groups. A report by US news website WND has collated a series of graphic images of children in sexual poses and positions, which have all been posted onto Facebook for all to [...]

Read the full story

Swedish developer Toca Boca has passed the 10m downloads milestone for its children’s apps, less than four months after crossing the 5m mark. Now chief executive Björn Jeffery has moved to San Francisco in order to build the company’s momentum in the US, launching a marketing and analytics division for the company, which is a [...]

Read the full story

Elementary school children are developing addictions to online pornography in a worrying trend that some scientists believe is on the cusp of becoming a national epidemic. Several studies have discovered links between viewing online pornography and problems including social isolation, performing badly in school and behavioral issues. Seven out of ten teenagers have viewed pornography [...]

Read the full story

He had repeatedly failed to turn up to court and even claimed he was too afraid to leave his house. But yesterday the internet troll who threatened to kill one of Tory MP Louise Mensch’s children finally faced justice. Frank Zimmerman, 60, had been found guilty in his absence last month of sending an electronic [...]

Read the full story

The mother of murdered schoolgirl Sarah Payne last night backed the Daily Mail’s campaign for an automatic block on online pornography. Sara Payne said she feared easy access to hardcore images on the web could encourage perverts to turn their fantasies into reality. The campaigner, whose eight-year-old daughter was abducted and killed by paedophile Roy [...]

Read the full story

The sight of David Cameron weighing into the “internet porn filters” debate – in a move nicely timed to distract the Conservative press from the uncomfortable news of Tory councillors losing seats by the score – isn’t exactly one to fill the more web-savvy with confidence. Let’s point out first that we’ve been here before, [...]

Read the full story

It is the world’s largest photo-sharing website, boasting 901million monthly users as of March, 2012. But Facebook, despite its effort to censor illegal images, has become a den for pedophiles trading graphic images, according to a new report. An exposé published by WND.com has revealed a disturbing amount of child pornography being shared by predators [...]

Read the full story

Social networking sites and celebrities are creating a generation of ‘mean girls’, a leading public school headmistress has warned. In a fierce attack, Dr Helen Wright  said sites such as Facebook encouraged teenagers to believe ‘bitching is good’. She added: ‘They’re far more used to defriending friends online rather than befriending them in reality. If [...]

Read the full story

Last month a woman named Anne Cox received the following message on Twitter: “I hope you die because you are a bitch.” This particular troll also tweeted that Cox has “big boobs and a big bottom she looks like a bitch”. The absence of a comma is the least troubling aspect of that message, but [...]

Read the full story

A primary school head has threatened to shop parents to social services if they allow his pupils to use Facebook and other networking sites. Paul Woodward is concerned that youngsters who use the sites risk being exposed to porn and online grooming. He has warned parents that persistently letting children flout Facebook’s 13-plus age rule [...]

Read the full story

Parents must take responsibility for what their children watch online, amid concerns that youngsters are accessing inappropriate material such as pornography, headteachers warned today. They said misuse of technology is a “growing problem”, with schools forced to deal with the fall-out. The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) also raised concerns that children as young [...]

Read the full story

School leaders said that pupils are increasingly being given smartphones on which they can view pornography, violent games and 18-rated films. The National Association of Head Teachers conference also heard that misuse of technology is also leading to bullying in the playground and even fighting as young people try to recreate what they see on screen. [...]

Read the full story

The Prime Minister is to discuss plans under which consumers signing up for home broadband services must decide whether they want, or do not want, access to adult content sites. One option being explored is that the “default” option will mean adult sites are automatically blocked unless people choose to switch off the censoring filter. The [...]

Read the full story

The introduction of web filters to make adults who want to view pornography ‘opt in’ is to be considered by the Government. David Cameron has intervened to insist a default block on porn, deactivated only when users make an active choice to have it switched off, is put back on the table. Today he will [...]

Read the full story

More teens are using video chats to interact and communicate with friends, thanks in part to the adoption growth of apps such as Skype, Googletalk and iChat, according to a new study. A report by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project finds that about 37% of Internet users ages 12 to 17 [...]

Read the full story

The best-selling author said parents should consider restricting the use of mobile phones and websites, encouraging their children to go back to “old-fashioned” interaction. Sir Terry, 64, said the new technology was restricting young people’s thoughts and said having a wide vocabulary “stops you getting frustrated”. In an interview with the Evening Standard, he said [...]

Read the full story

A new chat system to Club Penguin, which allows children aged five and over to play and chat together online using penguin avatars, will automatically translate pre-selected phrases between the languages used on the site. The chat system currently contains 300,000 phrases but an update, due later this year, will extend that number to more than [...]

Read the full story

No-one does love and encouragement better than a granny. Now that love is being spread across continents, as UK-based grandmothers extend their embrace to school children thousands of miles away in India. Jackie Barrow isn’t a granny yet but as a retired teacher she felt she might qualify for an advert in The Guardian newspaper [...]

Read the full story

A never-before-seen interview with Steve Jobs will premier in Cannes next month which is being called the most comprehensive and revealing yet. Jobs was being interviewed by technology journalist Bob Cringely in 1995 for a Channel 4 series, Triumph Of The Nerds, but only a few minutes of footage was used. The famously private Apple [...]

Read the full story

This week’s blazing argument over how to protect children from the worst excesses of the internet is particularly close to my heart. For when my teenage son recently complained that he needed more memory on his telephone, I thought I’d better find out why he wanted it, and what for. I “borrowed” the phone one [...]

Read the full story

A teenage cancer victim whose bravery inspired Prince William has become the latest target of internet trolls. Sick comments have been posted on the memorial website of Amanda Slann, who died of leukaemia at the age of 17 in February. The culprit has been reported to police but it is thought he may be using [...]

Read the full story

Facebook has apologised after the social networking giant ordered a mother to take down pictures of her son, who has Down Syndrome. North Carolina woman Diana Cornwell posted the photos of her 7-year-old son competing at a local Special Olympics event on the weekend. When she next logged on, she received messages from Facebook’s monitoring team, [...]

Read the full story

When the poet Dylan Thomas wrote of growing old, “do not go gently into that good night,” it’s a safe bet he didn’t have Twitter in mind. But Josephine Lamberti does. The 80-year-old Staten Island grandma is, as her @J_DIMPS Twitter bio puts it, on a quest for “80K followers (or maybe a million) before I [...]

Read the full story

The system would block adults from accessing sexual content online unless they asked their internet provider to allow it. A cross-party group of MPs last week said internet service providers should adopt the “opt-in” feature, amid fears that easy access to pornography would damage children’s attitudes to relationships.   Last night Jenny Chapman, the shadow minister [...]

Read the full story

Parents are helping their children to set up under-age profiles on social networking site Facebook, Children’s Minister Tim Loughton has said. This meant that children were getting involved in social media at too young an age, he suggested. He added that parents had a responsibility to monitor youngsters’ online activity. The comments came in a debate on [...]

Read the full story

Default filtering is a form of censorship, is not simple and will not work technically. It’s also a strange argument for the Conservatives to argue – that the state knows better. If ISPs and the state decide what children can see, by default – automatically generated lists based on key words – an eight-year-old would probably [...]

Read the full story

A minister says parents are putting young children at risk by helping them to set up profiles on Facebook. Tim Loughton accused parents of ‘aiding and abetting’ youngsters to use the site – despite the fact the age limit is meant to be 13. Experts fear that under-age  children who sign up for such sites are [...]

Read the full story

Tim Loughton, the Children’s Minister, accused mothers and fathers of “aiding and abetting” pre-teens to open accounts on the social networking site. The revelation came as a Labour MP Ann Coffey urged the Government and mobile phone companies to do more to combat “sexting”, where teenagers send sexual pictures of themselves to each other using [...]

Read the full story

A teenage girl sends a naked image of herself to her boyfriend’s mobile phone. It’s not something she makes a habit of doing, but she wants to express the young couple’s intimacy. They split up, and she soon discovers that he has circulated that private message to all his friends – even to her parents [...]

Read the full story

What’s orange, furry, adorable and can teach your kids Spanish? Meet the new plush toy Ubooly. It combines teddy bear cuteness with a voice recognition app to become an interactive educational tool for kids. Just slip your iPhone or iPad into the zippered pouch on the fuzzy Ubooly’s head, so the speaker is at the top, [...]

Read the full story

It’s not unusual for the modern living room to contain several computers. While dad is checking email on a smartphone and mum prepares a presentation on her laptop, one child might be researching homework on a tablet computer while another watches YouTube music videos on an iPod touch. The days when there was just one family [...]

Read the full story

A scientific conference starting in London today will urge governments across the world to support independent research into the possibility that using mobile phones encourages the growth of head cancers. The Children with Cancer conference will highlight figures just published by the Office of National Statistics, which show a 50 per cent increase in frontal [...]

Read the full story

A schoolgirl has leapt into the fashion world after her stiletto design caught the eye of industry experts. Molly James, 15, from Cheshire, was one of thousands to enter a footwear competition, judged by a number of renowned footwear figures, including Jimmy Choo’s niece Lucy Choi. And thanks to her eye-catching, lace-up creation, she has been [...]

Read the full story

Naomi Gummer, a public policy analyst at the internet giant, said it was a “myth” that laws can prevent children from viewing explicit material, because the pace of technological development would render legislation a “blunt instrument”. MPs are calling on the Government to introduce an ‘opt-in’ system which would mean users would be automatically excluded [...]

Read the full story

A Google executive says it is a ‘myth’ that laws can protect children from internet pornography. Naomi Gummer insisted it was up to parents to keep their children safe from disturbing material. She told a conference that legislation would be a blunt instrument because of the pace of technological advance. And she accused  many parents of being [...]

Read the full story

They often prefer maps and scenic routes and are highly suspicious of the satnav’s claim to deliver drivers safely from A to B. But for Britain’s growing number of elderly drivers, there could soon be a simple solution to their problems. Scientists are developing a new satellite navigation system – dubbed the Granny-Nav – to [...]

Read the full story