A new poll by Siena College has found that most New Yorkers think that technology has made life better, but admit that devices that provide constant information updates also add to their anxiety levels.

Oklahoma City police have arrested a 13-year-old boy in connection with the death of his nine-month-old baby sister after a questionable story of what happened to the child was told to the staff at a metro hospital. ER doctors became suspicious and called the local police. Officers were called to a metro hospital on August 16 after doctors noted that the baby's injuries were not consistent with an explanation given by the girl's parents.

Former Oasis front man and now solo artist Noel Gallagher says that video games and TV violence are to blame for the civil unrest in London.

"We live in this age of violence—and I don't care what other people say: Brutal TV and brutal videogames are a reason for this pointless violence as well," Gallagher is quoted as saying in Bang Showbiz. "The people are immune to violence, they are used to it. And if they get caught they aren't punished the right way. The prisons are already full? Then build new ones!"

A new book called "Video Gamers" by British Sociologist Garry Crawford hits book stores (both virtual and brick-and-mortar) this week. The book was published earlier this month by Routledge (London & New York) and is priced at £25.99.

According to a report from New Zealand’s TVNZ, a high school boy bought Ritalin to stay awake and play Xbox 360 games, but ended up in the hospital. The report claims that the boy was brought into the hospital "White as a sheet and hyperventilating" after he used a "makeshift device" to snort Ritalin he scored from a classmate. The 15-year-old told his father that he obtained the drug through a classmate and had been using it for quite some time.

A new study suggest that too much time on social networking sites such as Facebook or playing video games is bad for teens and often leads to a variety of medical issues such as stomach aches, sleeping issues, anxiety, and depression. The study was conducted by psychologist Larry Rosen at Cal State Dominguez Hill, who has been "studying the effects of technology on people for 25 years." The case study from Rosen was recently presented at the American Psychological Association’s annual convention in Washington, D.C.

Is using a Kinect martial-arts simulator like UFC Personal Trainer like practicing martial arts or like playing a videogame? The answer is neither, according to a guest editorial on Wired's Game|Life written by Paul Ballas, a Philadelphia-area child psychiatrist. Ballas's editorial, "UFC Trainer Is Helpfully Violent," comes to the conclusion that, while UFC Personal Trainer is based on a violent fighting franchise, it could also have positive effects on kids' health.

According to this VentureBeat report Taiwanese company Foxconn plans to eliminate some of its workforce with robotic workers. The company said that it will replace 1 million of its workers in China. In case you've forgotten Foxconn is the company that found itself under scrutiny when several of its employees committed suicide because of unacceptable working conditions.

A new study from Northwestern University, which analyzes previous studies on media use done by the Kaiser Family Foundation, has found that minority youths ages 8 - 18 years old consume an average of 13 hours of media content a day. This, researchers say, is about 4.5 hours more than white youth. Researchers found that minority youth spend one to two more hours a day than white youth watching TV and videos, an hour more listening to music, around 90 minutes more on computers, and as much as 30 - 40 minutes more playing video games.

TV consumption (including TiVo, DVDs and mobile and online viewing) totaled 5 hours and 54 minutes a day for African Americans, 5 hours and 21 minutes for Hispanics, 4 hours and 41 minutes for Asians and 3 hours 36 minutes for whites.

Australia is an interesting country. On the one hand it has struggled for years to get an adult level video games rating classification (R18+) and on the other it allows a game that has been censored in other countries to be released there with little or no controversy. The game in question is the 3DS tactical fighter Dead or Alive: Dimensions. Several countries have banned the game because it features sexualized depictions of children. The children are three teen characters named Ayane, Koroke and Kasumi who game makers describe as "under 18 years of age."

To be fair, the censoring has been done mostly by Nintendo, based on concerns about child pornography laws in Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark and Norway) that say it is illegal to show young girls as animated characters in a sexualized way. The concern is mostly with the game's photography mode, which allows players to look up characters' dresses when they are in certain poses.

Connected Tennessee’s Computers 4 Kids "Preparing Tennessee's Next Generation for Success" program awarded the Boys & Girls Clubs of Middle Tennessee with more than 150 brand new computers this week. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act-funded the project, which deploys computers, academic support programs, and workforce training to two at-risk, populations: those in the state's foster care system who are "aging out" as they turn 18, and youth who are active in the state’s 76 Boys & Girls Clubs. Over the next three years, the program hopes to impact the lives of nearly 60,000 youngsters across the state.

State Senator Bill Ketron, an enthusiastic supporter of the program since its launch a little over three years ago, said that the program's impact in Middle Tennessee is "significant."

A new University of Missouri study found that the brains of violent video game players became less responsive to violence, which in turn diminished brain response to violence.

"Many researchers have believed that becoming desensitized to violence leads to increased human aggression. Until our study, however, this causal association had never been demonstrated experimentally," said Bruce Bartholow, associate professor of psychology in the MU College of Arts and Science.

Seventy young adults were randomly assigned to play a non-violent or violent video game for 25 minutes. Immediately following the game time, researchers measured brain responses as participants viewed a series of neutral photos. Next, players competed against an opponent in a task that allowed them to give their opponent a controllable blast of loud noise. The level of that noise blast the participants set for their opponent was the measure of aggression, according to researchers.

According to a recent presentation at the 2011 Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism in London, playing video games and using phones have a negative impact on joints in children. This is according to research conducted by Yusuf Yazici, MD. The finding comes from a questionnaire given to 257 children 9 - 15 years old attending two unnamed schools in St. Louis, Missouri.

A new video game created by Yale School of Medicine researchers hopes to help "at-risk" youths learn about and avoid the risks associated with HIV. The game was developed as part of the Play2Prevent initiative at Yale, a collaboration and partnership between scientists, educators, video game designers and developers, and community-based organizations. The game development process is being spearheaded by Schell Games.

Dr. Lynn E. Fiellin, associate professor of medicine at Yale, says the goal is to develop educational materials and "targeted interventions" that produces risk reduction and prevention in youth and young adults.

"Games are powerful tools in helping people explore roles and risks before life makes them all-too-real and risky," says Fiellin. "The Play2Prevent initiative focused on helping its players meet the challenges at-risk youth must face head on."

Disney's wholly-owned social game development studio Playdom has agreed to pay the Federal Trade Commission a settlement totaling $3 million for its part in collecting the private information of underage customers. The settlement is related to games operated by Acclaim (which Playdom bought last year) that the FTC said violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The FTC claims that 403,000 children registered on Playdom's general audience sites between 2006 and 2010, with an additional 821,000 signing up for kid-friendly MMO Pony Stars.

During that time period Acclaim apparently illegally collected the email addresses of children and didn't provide the proper amount of parental controls.

The Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE), a non-profit that provides vocational training for digital media industries, announced today that it is bringing its new Summer Cyber Camp program to Seattle from July 5 - August 12, 2011. Children learn how to make video games and will be given a CD containing their game and the tools they used to build it at the end of the course.

The goal of the camp is to teach children the full range of skills needed to succeed in the games industry, including C# programming, game design, roles in game development, game creation pipeline and careers in the gaming business. At the end of each summer camp session, participants will take home a copy of their game, a full set of software programs to continue work on their project and insight into what it takes to pursue a professional career in gaming.

Nurses in the emergency department at New York-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital are using iPads to eliminate or minimize pain in patients. The Children's Comfort Program (CCP) has implemented procedures for expediting pain care, allowing nurses to administer pain relief immediately after pain has been assessed and to administer anesthetizing gel in anticipation of a suture repair.

A major focus for the CCP has been improving children's experiences during procedures. In anticipation of treatment, children often become anxious, which worsens their experience and often exacerbates their condition. One particularly successful strategy embraced by the CCP team is the use of iPads and entertainment software such as music, videos, interactive games, etc.

GamingAngels.com and National Computer Camp have teamed up to offer a scholarship for the NCC’s June/July 2011 enrollment (valued at $985) to one female student (ages 8-18) for one week. At NCC, campers design a 2D or 3D video game, learn to program, create a graphic video, take apart a computer, create a home page, play tennis, play games such as Civilization, and generally make new friends. Now in its 34th year, NCC is America's original computer camp with locations in Connecticut, Georgia, New York, and Ohio.

Forget about violent video games; according to a group of researchers in England, games with goals such as football are more likely to make participants aggressive than anything encountered in Grand Theft Auto or Call Of Duty. According to research conducted by Dr. Simon Goodson and Sarah Pearson of Huddersfield university, games with goals cause more of an aggressive reaction in participants than killing an animated character because sports is closer to real life. Of course, you have to take into account that Football in England is a culturally more important than video games in general.

Researchers measured the heart rates, respiration and brain activity of 40 male and female participants randomly selected to play violent Xbox 360 game or a football game. They found that when players killed someone in a game it caused little brain activity. But when participant's conceded a goal or foul in the sports game it caused a higher level of brain activity.

A new study from Simmons College researchers comes to the conclusion that children exposed to more violent games for longer periods of time are less able to sympathize with others. The new study published in the Journal of Children and Media surveyed 166 Boston, MA and southern New Hampshire schoolchildren. The study was overseen by Simmons College professors Edward T. Vieira and Marina Krcmar. They examined the relationship between violent games and kids' attitudes toward violence.

The duo surveyed children age 7-15 about their favorite games, how many hours a week they played, and questions to gauge their ability to sympathize with others, to see things from another person's perspective, and whether they saw violence as an appropriate response in situations where it would be deemed justified or unjustified. The favorite "violent games" included Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Counter Strike, Mortal Kombat: Deception, and World of Warcraft.

Welcome to "Public Service Gaming." What the hell is it? Apparently it is a game that is part of a campaign that teaches people about important issues. One such game teaches youngsters in London about sexually transmitted diseases and  encourages them to get a free test. The game is called Checkurself and is located at www.checkurself.org.uk/game. In it players shoot infected bunnies with antibiotics to treat whatever nasty disease they have. It makes sense as rabbits like to do it like.. well .. rabbits.

An 18-year-old former Leto High School student (Tampa, Florida) has pled guilty to charges stemming for an August 2010 plot to kill faculty and students at the high school. Austin James Cook was sentenced to two years of community control (intensive supervised house arrest) and eight years of probation. A solicitation to commit murder charge was dropped. The general consensus was that Cook committed conspiracy to commit murder, but he didn't tale a charge for that.

According to reports, between March and July 2010, Cook solicited "someone" to murder "any and all employees or student body of Leto High School." He also bragged to several unnamed witnesses that he planned to blow up Leto High School and told one witness that he wanted to 'break the record' of the Columbine and Virginia Tech killings.

As part of an annual BBC project where school kids get to produce their own news reports, William (last name not provided) from Tendring Technology College in Essex decided to research video game addiction.  What did his research entail?  Interviews with:

-His school guidance counselor: “It’s estimated that 3/5 of all under sixteens actually have some sort of addiction to a gaming machine.”

-A classmate: “[I play video games] usually six or seven [hours per day] because there’s so much to do.  That’s what average people do...  It’s not like thirty or forty years ago when people used to play outside.”

-And his mom: “[Game addiction] does effect family life, yes, because it is a struggle to get you out of your room.”

ModernGhana.com reports that the government of Sunyani, a municipality in the African nation of Ghana, may pass strict laws on video game centers. Last week the 15-member Brong-Ahafo Regional multi-sectoral Child Right Committee expressed its concerns about an uptick in "commercial video game centres in the Sunyani Municipality." The committee appealed the Municipal Assembly to work with other institutions within the government to enact some sort of by-laws governing these businesses.

Microsoft today announced the release of Microsoft Kodu Game Lab for the PC and the launch of the nationwide Microsoft Kodu Cup 2011 competition. The Kodu Cup encourages students ages 9 to 17 to design, build and submit their video games using the Kodu Game Lab software. Microsoft Kodu Game Lab is available for free at fuse.microsoft.com/kodu. The game design tool lets kids build their own video games using a simple drag and drop system to implement various game functions, add art and icons.

A Lancashire, UK-based therapist named Steve Pope has jumped the shark as far as ludicrous statements go related to video games. Speaking to BBC Radio 5Live in an interview last night, Pope said that "spending two hours on a game station is equivalent to taking a line of cocaine in the high it produces in the brain."

What?! Oh, there's more:

"We're now onto second generation game station players who have always grown up with it," he continued. "Computer game addiction can also spiral into violence as after playing violent games, they may turn their fantasy games into reality."

It's a shame that Pope has no scientific data to back up his ludicrous claims that games are like cocaine and that gamers act out the violence they experience in their games in real life.

TechBoston Academy garnered nation attentional this week when the President of the United States made a stop at the small Dorchester, Massachusetts school to give a 20 minute speech on technology and education. The school serves 800 students in grades 6 - 12 from a neighborhood known for crime, poverty and violence.

The point of the president's visit was to highlight TechBoston Academy's accomplishments and to say good schools can thrive in tough neighborhoods.

"Students here come from some tough neighborhoods, am I right? Yet the graduation rate is some 20 points higher than the rest of the city. Twenty points higher," President Obama said.

The President continued talking about investing in education that uses technology that can capture the imaginations of students:

Last year Brenda Bailey Gershkovitch and Kirsten Forbes of Vancouver launched Silicon Sisters, a game company dedicated to creating games made by women for women. Soon they will release their first game, School 26. School 26 is a casual role-playing game that puts players in the shoes of a high school student who helps her peer with personal problems.

"The core game world has not moved aggressively into the female space," says Gershkovitch. "The casual and social gaming world has."

"We're not concentrating on building games for those gals because they've figured out what they want," Gershkovitch added – addressing those gamers that play hardcore games like Call of Duty. "We're building games for the rest of the girls out there - the girls who haven't yet broken into traditional gaming."

While most looked at that We Dare trailer and thought "hey this is pretty silly," some regular haters in the United Kingdom are stepping up to complain about Ubisoft's adult-themed Wii game. Speaking to the Daily Mail (a regular hater of all things fun), Leicaster East MP Keith Vaz released a statement that was constrained and to the pint: he thinks the rating for the game may be too low. Even pro video game fans might tend to agree with him:

"The new 'We Dare' game has clearly been wrongly marked as a 12 plus. As a family friendly console, Wii must ensure that there are proper checks and a full consultation before games are graded for use by children. This game should not be released until these checks are made."

Fair enough. The game does contain mini-games that I wouldn't want my 12-year-old engaging in.. like spanking another 12-year-old.. But I suppose that's all up to their parents.

A hilarious video from College Humor called "Girls Can Be Jerks On Xbox Live Too, You Know" turns the tables on a male player as a gaggle of girl players treat him like a piece of meat. It's hilarious and most definitely not safe for work, but worth watching.