Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health have found that limiting the amount of time overweight kids spend watching TV and playing video games can help them lose pounds.

The study involved 70 children ages 4-7 whose body mass index (BMI) was at the 75th percentile or higher. About half had their screen time limited by an electronic device hooked up to their TVs and computers. The kids who used the special blocker cut their screen time by 17.5 hours per week, compared to a decrease of only 5.2 hours per week in the control group. Less time in front of the TV also translated to a measurable decrease in BMI.

While the outcome may not surprise you, the reason for the weight loss might. Researchers found that there was no significant difference in the amount of physical activity between the groups. Instead, they saw that kids who had limits consumed, on average, 150 calories less per day. It's not that they were moving more -- it's that they were eating less.

Gadgets similar to those used in the study are already on the market and retail for under $100. Family Safe Media offers a number of TV time management tools for helping children manage their screen time. As the discussion sparked by Christina's recent posts demonstrated, parents' opinions vary widely about how much TV is ok, but this technology might be useful for parents who want to place limits.

(And here's hoping that my spouse doesn't think this is the perfect solution for my own stay-up-late-at-the-computer habit.)

Imagine having so much you want to say, but being unable to get it out for the first dozen or so years of your life due to severe autism. That's what thirteen-year-old Carly Fleischmann was up against. It must have been incredibly frustrating. Now, however, she's made an amazing breakthrough, thanks to, of all things, a computer.

"All of a sudden these words started to pour out of her, and it was an exciting moment because we didn't realize she had all these words," said speech pathologist Barbara Nash. "It was one of those moments in my career that I'll never forget." Carly has used her newfound ability to express herself to describe her autism from the inside.

"It is hard to be autistic because no one understands me," wrote Carly. "People look at me and assume I am dumb because I can't talk or I act differently than them. I think people get scared with things that look or seem different than them." Speaking to speech pathologists and other therapists, Carly summed up her condition: "If I could tell people one thing about autism it would be that I don't want to be this way. But I am, so don't be mad. Be understanding."

I suspect with Carly's help, more people will be able to understand.

Haven't you heard? Cyber baby showers are all the rage. Ok, well, not yet they aren't--but after I have one they will be! The woman who threw me my baby shower, the loveliest in all of Brooklyn, moved to the West Coast after she became pregnant.

From the time she moved to California--not long after she told people she was pregnant--to the various holidays, she is now too pregnant to fly back home to New York for a baby shower. Since it would be logistically difficult not to mention expensive to fly all her New York pals (she was born and raised here) to California and she's to preggy to fly, I was thinking of trying to throw her a cyber baby shower.

I have a webcam in my computer, and her husband, who is an electronics guru, would take care of the other end. We would ask invitees to send all their presents in advance to the house in CA then meet up at my place to web cam with my pal while she opened her presents live on the ether waves.

It could be fun and an interesting experiment or it could be a total disaster. Or it could be something in between. Webcams--at least the ones I've been in contact with--are spotty at best. You may get a link to a friend and everything will be going fine when suddenly you lose contact for who knows what reason.

You spend as much if not more time trying to fix the problem as interacting with the person on the other end of the line, and the whole episode can lead to frustration.

That said, it could be a wonderful thing for my friend, who moved to a new city with no friends (yet) and no family around. There isn't anyone to throw her a shower in California, and she can't come back to New York. So, it seems like this may be the best option.

And she deserves a shower--every pregnant gal does. So I am going to do my best to make this thing happen. I think with the technology I have in hand we should be able to pull this thing off. Wish me luck!

"Let me type, daddy! Let me type!"

Sound familiar? My daughter has recently discovered that the computer is more than just a mini TV that can produce Sesame Street clips on demand. Now she wants to use the computer. When I'm sitting there with her, it's fine -- she gets to type her name, click the mouse, look at pictures, or whatever -- but I worry every time I leave the room that she's going to press the wrong combination of buttons and the thing will explode.

A clever way to protect your computer from the impulsive hands of toddlers and babies is Baby Shield. It's a Mac application that not only protects your programs and files, but also displays images and music whenever your child decides to play with the keyboard.

Of course, you could always lock your computer every time you walk away from the keyboard -- just don't forget. There's no telling how much damage your inquisitive little one can do in that split second it takes to refill your cup of coffee.

[via Geek Sugar]

In my day, there was BASIC -- the Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, a purportedly easy-to-learn, general purpose programming language. When microcomputers started to become available, it was often included as a way to let new owners -- and their kids -- do something with the computer. Then there was LOGO with its "turtle graphics". Designed for kids, it was meant to teach the basics of programming and was heavily used in schools, thanks in large part to the version distributed by Apple Computer.

While both of those languages are still in use, there's a new kid on the block in the educational programming world. It's called Scratch and was designed at the MIT's Media Lab. One of it's developers, Professor Mitchel Resnick, was also responsible for the Lego Mindstorms robotics toolkit. Speaking of Legos, this new language works much like building with the little bricks. "Kids make programs by snapping blocks together," said Professor Resnick, whose position is in part supported by the toy company.

Each block contains a single command such as "move" or "change colour" which can then be stacked together to create the program. Blocks can only be stacked in ways that make sense, programmatically. Kids "don't have to worry about the obscure punctuation and syntax common in most programming languages," according to Resnick.

Scratch is available for free for Mac OS X and Windows and a Linux version is coming soon. Kids can also share their work on the Scratch website. This looks like a fun introduction to programming, especially in today's graphics-rich world.

When he wasn't splitting sides as an eccentric alien on "3rd Rock from the Sun," or threatening defenseless gingerbread men as Lord Farquaad in Shrek, John Lithgow was writing best-selling children's books like "The Remarkable Farkle McBride" or "Micawber." Now he's using both his acting and writing talents for a new interactive children's game, "Books by You."

In the game, Lithgow is the energetic narrator -- the "muse" -- encouraging kids to fill in the blank -- making decisions on where the story goes next. He also acts as a writing adviser, sharing personal stories, or suggestions, such as keeping a notebook for describing special people.

By choosing Lithgow, the company behind the game, Knowledge Adventure, was hoping to find not only a talented performer, but a face that parents could trust.

Personally, I think this sounds like a great collaboration. Educational computer or video games have always been fantastic in theory, but in practice most of them are so boring and stale that the fun factor gets lost, and kids quit playing. Hopefully this talented actors' engaging personality can inspire kids to get creative.

When I got started in the computer industry, computers were big and expensive. They were kept in air conditioned rooms behind huge glass windows. I learned to write programs in COBOL and BASIC on a DEC PDP-11/70. It was a wonderful thing, to be able to figure out how to make the computer do what I wanted it to. These days, however, the complexity of even the simplest PC makes learning the basics of how computers work a difficult task. It wasn't always like that though. Once upon a time, there was the Digi-Comp 1.

An original ad from the early 60's described the Digi-Comp as "A working digital computer that demonstrates simply the operations usually hidden in electronic circuits." In 1963, when it debuted, the Digi-Comp 1 sold for $5.95. Today, on Ebay, an original Digi-Comp 1 can sell for as much as $150. If you've got a teen who could get interested in digital logic, you don't have to go to such extremes. A modern replica, still in kit form, is available from Mind's-On Toys for $55. This would make a wonderful gift for any budding computer scientist to learn about the basic logic that makes computers work. As it says on the website, "perhaps the rarest thing about Digi-Comp is the combination of hands-on and minds-on fun it affords." When Jared and Sara get a little older, I think they may be getting one of these.

Are your kids used to hearing you start off a response with "Why, in my day..."? Are you into computers? Do you want to show your kids what real computers were like, back when all you had were ones and zeros and you were happy to have them? Well then get on over to the ninth annual Vintage Computer Festival, taking place next weekend in Mountain View, California, at the Computer History Museum.

There will be plenty of hands-on exhibits for the kids to enjoy, and plenty to learn about. There will be working models of Charles Babbage's difference engines, constructed entirely out of Meccano sets (Erector sets for us yanks). There is a film festival featuring documentaries of computers and the computer industry. There will also be a celebration of the 30th anniversary of Apple Computer, complete with Steve "Woz" Wozniak. While school-aged kids will get the most out of it, younger kids will enjoy it too; Jared has been going for several years.

You may remember the ambitious One Laptop Per Child project spearheaded by Nicholas Negroponte, founder and former director of MIT's famous Media Lab -- the idea was to be able to make a $100 laptop that could survive most children and would be made available to children in developing countries.

Well, it looks like Thailand is ready to go. According to an Associated Press news story, Thailand's Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, has announced that an ambitious project to provide the laptops to all of the nation's elementary school students will get started in October. "Each elementary school child will receive a computer that the government will buy for them, free of charge, instead of books, because books will be found and can be read on computers," he said. He also said that OLPC will deliver 30 computers in October and 500 more in November.

Unlike our politicians here in the US who think the internet is a "series of tubes", Thaksin actually knows what he is doing, having worked in the technology industry, including getting rich building the largest mobile phone operator in Thailand. Hopefully, this means Thaksin knows what he's doing and the project has a good chance of success. It will be nice to see technology make a dramatic difference on a large scale.