Activision's VP of Art and Technology Joby Otero will discuss using toys with technology and gaming in a presentation about the company's popular Skylanders franchise at the 6th annual Digital Kids Conference. The Digital Kids Conference takes place at the Pasadena Convention Center on April 25. Otero, who also serves as creative director for product and brand at Skylanders, will discusses the magic of transmedia and inter-connected play with ShadyLogic Founder and CEO Marty Poulin.

Registered sex offenders of all designations residing in the state of New York will no longer be able to interact with children in some online console and PC games. New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office has convinced several platform holders and game companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Blizzard Entertainment, Electronic Arts, Warner Bros. and Disney Interactive Media Group to shut down the communication privileges of registered sex offenders.

A 46-year old man from Ipswich, England has been convicted and sentenced to three and a half years in prison for molesting a ten-year old girl, who was smart enough to capture the act using the camera on her Nintendo DS. The man, John Fisher, admitted in court that he touched the girl inappropriately in January 2010 and November 2011. He really had no choice but to admit to the crime because photographic evidence was presented to the court proving Fisher's evil act.

The fifth annual Life. Love. Game Design Challenge is officially underway and entries are now being accepted. The game design contest was created by Jennifer Ann’s Group with the goal of promoting games that deliver awareness on the dangers of teen dating violence. This topic is particularly important to the group's founder, Drew Crecente, who lost his daughter.

There's no denying that sending your child online to play a game alone is like sending a puppy into a lion's cage at the zoo. If you want someone to experience the crassness of society, you can get a quick lesson playing Call of Duty, Battlefield, or even UNO as teenagers call you every name in the book (and some you didn't even know existed). Anyone that plays games online knows this, but it's always interesting to see how local news channels handle such topics. Usually they handle it badly, but one station does a good job of delivering a balanced report..

The head of Britain's Association of Teachers and Lecturers thinks parents are doing a crappy job by ignoring game ratings and letting their children play violent video games. They are pulling the proverbial fire alarm, in this BBC report like a teenager might do a one-off prank to send the principal into a tizzy fit (thanks beemoh).

MTV has teamed up with Rovio for a campaign to stop cyber bullying, sexting, and other digital abuses through its "A Thin Line campaign." Using Angry Birds Space, the joint campaign aims to reward everyone who takes action against digital drama.

Representatives from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and California's Attorney General's office will address mobile app safety for children at the Digital Kids Conference on Wednesday, April 25 from 3:45 p.m. - 4:45 p.m. (Room 1, Pasadena Convention Center, 300 E. Green Street, Pasadena, CA). Federal Trade Commission Staff Attorney Kenneth H. Abbe and Travis LeBlanc, Special Assistant Attorney General for Technology for the State of California will deliver their remarks on the topic as part of conference's Digital Kids Safety Track.

In a Quarter to Three article called "BioWare plays the gay card," Tom Chick explains why having same sex relationships in games like Mass Effect 3 is the right thing to do in this day and age. He also takes a few shots at the clumsy relationship mechanics and writing in the game. First he offers some examples of how male Commander Shepherd doesn't flinch when a crew member on the Normandy talks about his husband.

Wizard101 creators Todd Coleman and Josef Hall of KingsIsle Entertainment will be the keynote speakers at the sixth annual Digital Kids Conference, a two-day event that purports to provide companies with "the critical information they need to reach digital kids and connected youth through online and mobile technologies." Speakers from the NFL, Spin Master, Cartoon Network, Ubisoft, SOE, Cookie Jar, and many others will also deliver talks April 25-26, 2012 in Los Angeles.

If you are a parent who has no idea about technology, games or the dark places of the Internet, then you might be interested in learning more about "The Modern Parent’s Guide" series of free books. Written by games journalist Scott Steinberg, the first title in the series, "The Modern Parent’s Guide to Kids and Video Games," is available now as a free download at www.videogamesandkids.com. 

A story by the UK's Daily Mail newspaper and the BBC that tapped an expert claiming that games were turning children who played them in to the wee hours of the night in to zombies has been debunked. The expert cited in the story says that the quotes attributed to him were completely fabricated.

The Daily Mail and BBC reports quoted Robert Hart-Fletcher of charity Kids and Media. According to the reports he said:

On February 2 a virtual army will descend on the United Nations headquarters to protest against bullying. The protest will be virtual - in other words, no one is actually going to the real headquarters of the UN in New York. The protest is being put together by the U.K. not-for-profit group Beatbullying.org and will take place online February 2 using cute and adorable avatars.

A new report from the Swedish Media Council comes to the conclusion that, while violent games may make the children that play them more aggressive, there's no conclusive evidence that "the games themselves cause kids' aggressive behavior." The Media Council is a Swedish government agency whose mission statement is to "reduce the risk of harmful media influences among minors and to empower minors as conscious media users."

New data from Pew Research Center finds that young adults are using the Internet as a distraction - a distinction television use to have among that particular age group. A majority of young American adults are using the Internet for "fun" and to "kill time," according to a new report by Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. But television isn't the only victim according to the data - video game console time is also being affected by Internet use, according to the data.

According to a press release issued this morning by the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), new research shows that violent video games alter the brain functions in young men. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to analyze the long-term effects of violent video game play on the brain, researchers found that changes in brain regions associated with cognitive function and emotional control in young adult men occur after one week of game play. The results of this study were presented at the annual meeting of the RSNA.

If there's one thing you can say about anti-game campaigner and UK Labour MP Keith Vaz, it's that he is tenacious in his fight against games. This week MP Vaz raised his fourth early day motion aimed at violent games, this time specifically targeting Activision's recently released Modern Warfare 3.

While those who don't know anything at all about video games are quick to use them as an excuse for many of society’s ills (crime, violence, obesity, attention deficit and a myriad of psychological disorders), now everyone thinks they are bad. In fact a growing number of academics see the value in video games as teaching aids. For example, a Yale professor is trying to use them to teach sex education.

Researchers at the Charité University Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy in Berlin, Germany, found that gamers who play "frequently" have greater left striatal gray matter volume compared with those that are considered to be moderate gamers. Researchers say that these findings show the importance of "striatal volume and activity in shaping preference of skills for video gaming."

The Huffington Post serves up a video of Dr. Lawrence Kutner discussing what he calls the myths about violent video games and his research on the links between video game violence and youth violence.

Kutner is nationally recognized clinical psychologist who trained at the Mayo Clinic and teaches at Harvard Medical school, where he's co-founder and co-director of the Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and Media. He's also the president of Health Communication Consultants, Inc.

The 2012 Harris Poll Youth EquiTrend study by Harris interactive is making Nintendo very happy today. While game systems in general receive higher scores than other technologies surveyed in Harris Interactive's annual survey, Nintendo Wii earns the overall highest score among all technology brands included in the study.

New research from the University of Queensland suggests that playing violent video games leads to players seeing themselves and their opponents as "lacking core human qualities" such as warmth, open-mindedness, and intelligence. The research, conducted by Dr. Brock Bastian from UQ's School of Psychology, was recently published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

A new study conducted by academics from two German universities says that "aggressive children" ages 8 - 12 years-old have a preference for violent video games.

The bad economic climate in America has produced the lowest level of teen employment ever, and while some would be keen to blame distraction like video games as the cause, the truth is those jobs teens used to get are being taken by adults trying to make ends meet. A recent analysis from Federal Reserve found that, while kids are spending more time on college prep and summer classes, increasing competition from adults taking the low-paying jobs that teenagers used to do is becoming a common occurrence.

A new study published in the medical journal Pediatrics suggests that profanity in the media such as television and video games can cause aggressive behavior in middle school students. Researchers at Brigham Young University gathered information from 223 middle school students in the Midwest to come to the conclusion that profanity can lead to aggressive behavior.

Children in the United States between the ages of 2 and 17 are playing video games, according to a new study released by research firm NPD Group. According to the NPD's new study around 91 percent of kids between the ages of 2 and 17 (that's roughly 64 million people) are playing video games. That number represents a nine percent increase compared to data collected for 2009. NPD says that growth has been across the entire market, but the biggest gains come from children between the ages  2 and 5, up 17 percentage points since 2009.

The White House announced this afternoon that First Lady Michele Obama will speak at a press event on Monday, September 26 at 4:00 PM about the importance of supporting women and young ladies as they pursue vocations in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

Mike Langlois psychotherapist, educator, and proprietor of the excellent blog "Gamer Therapist," criticizes the prevailing attitude of mental health professionals that video game usage is a root cause of bad behavior in his new book, "Reset: Video Games & Psychotherapy." Langlois, a Teaching Associate in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, discusses the disdain for gamers and the video games they love that many therapists and mental health professionals have.

Dr. Maureen Becker, director of clinical education for the Willowbrook college’s Physical Therapy Doctoral Program, is using three New York City-area students (Rachel Pollack of Willowbrook, Emily Cochran of Grasmere and Shirley Coffey of Brooklyn) — to study the most effective ways in which young people can get a real-world workout with Nintendo's Wii Fit. The study began in June, and focuses mainly on tween girls, because, Dr. Becker says, girls tend to have a higher obesity rate than boys in the same age range.

Eidos life president Ian Livingstone has praised Google chairman Eric Schmidt for a recent speech about the state of education in the UK, calling it a "ringing endorsement" of the Livingstone-Hope video games skills review. In fact, says Livingstone, "It's as though he lifted his comments straight from Next Gen." - referring to the report he helped create.

UK culture minister Ed Vaizey was also apparently "delighted" that Schmidt's MacTaggart lecture echoed the key conclusions of the government-backed Next Gen report.