24/11/2012 Click

flood warnings in place. That is it from me, now on BBC News it is time

for Click. It's entertaining, it's convenient, and is always there.

But his television the baby sitter that could rewire your child's

Screen and not heard, this week we need the scientists who think that

young children should be kept away from all TV. Family-friendly fun,

and injure? Nintendo's brain new games machine the Wii U has finally

been released. -- brand new. At last the latest Tech News and the

ultimate Tech face-off in Webscape. Welcome to Click, I'm Spencer Kelly.

Every so often on this programme we like to cover the latest tech

offering for kids, for example the new robust tablets aimed

specifically at children. But recently there have been growing

concerns voiced by some fairly eminent experts over the damage

that a kick like that could do. The question we should all be asking

ourselves, they say, he should young children be exposed to

screens at all? -- is assured. Whether it's TV made for children

or tablets made for adults, it's almost impossible for today's kids

to grow up without being captivated by brightly dancing two dimensional

characters on one screen or another. Children's instinctive sensitivity

to sudden changes in sound and vision is apparent from birth.

Infants on their backs on the floor will crane their necks to watch TV.

But there is growing concern around the world that very young children

shouldn't watch any more screens at all. In the US paediatric and

government guidelines recommend that no child under two be exposed

to any screens, and Michelle Obama in her official capacity has been

campaigning to curtail screen watching for under twos. Limiting

screen time for kids, but making sure that we eliminate it for kids

under two. I know a lot of parents are shocked by that. France has

already and digital terrestrial TV aimed at children under three,

while Australia and Canada have similar recommendations. Aside from

the existing concerns over promoting childhood obesity, new

research suggests there are more problems when leaving small

children transfixed in front of screens. Aric Sigman's research

looks at studies done about the amount of time spent at looking

screens and the changes that occur. He highlights concerns different

from the old medical worries about children getting fatter. Early

screen viewing is likely to lead to long periods of the ring for the

rest of your life, the way you view screens when you're young our

habits you pick up for ever. What is implicated in this is a chemical

called dopamine, this may be the case. Dopamine is produced when we

see something that's interesting or new, but it also has a second

function. It is also the chemical involved in most addictions, it is

the reward chemical that gives us the good feeling when we do

something. There are concerns among neuroscientists about this dopamine

being produced every single day for many years may change the reward

secretary in a child's brain. It may make them more dependent a upon

Screen Media. When squinty these became household items, there was

nothing entertaining on them. -- screen TVs. Now they have the power

to mesmerise. Infants screen viewing is increasingly common and

some estimate more than 90 % of young children in the US at least

start regularly watching TV well before the age of two in spite of

recommendations to the contrary. At Oxford University Baroness green

field has been conducting cutting edge experiments on rat brains to

find out how the neurotransmitter dopamine affects large group of

brain cells. We know a lot about dopamine, it has many jobs in the

brain, and somehow it is related to addiction, reward, arousal, in very

subtle ways. It's also believed that perhaps video gaming tax into

the system, most recently there was a study out where it shows the area

of the brain related to dopamine was actually enhanced in kids that

were compulsive video gamers, similar to compulsive gamblers.

This is little don year, she was eight months old when her parents

realise she wouldn't eat without help from her eye pad. -- Don year.

They were forced to take the tablet wherever they went. She was

eventually weaned from the screen after advice from paediatricians,

but that that's not to say that all screens and types of content are

equally bad. There is a world of difference about how the

technologies are used. If you read a story to your kid on Kindle for

example, that's not the same as the child themselves interacting

independently with an iPad. Programme-makers know this,

although they don't know the name dopamine, they know the more edits

you put into a programme the more likely it is to keep the child's

interest up to a certain point. Providing the child with novelty is

likely to produce higher levels of dopamine, making the child seek

more and more screen time to satisfy their need for more

dopamine. This is speculation at the moment but there are good

reasons to think this is correct. Indeed, some experts recommend that

what a very young child watches should have as few edits in as

possible. Like these old programmes on the 1950s. It seems the old

Watch With Mother era might have had the right idea all along.

you hear anything? I wonder what's in the box. Do you know, children?

Near to Hollywood at the heart of the Silver Screen Industries,

children's digital media centre at Los Angeles aims to study

children's interaction with the new forms of digital media to see how

this affects their off-line lights and long-term development. If a

parent is sitting next to a child while they are looking at the

screens, and they are saying let's say the screen says a word and the

parent says, look, happy, the baby is happy, and points to it.

Actually a child can learn from that, even young children, because

it is social interaction. At a certain age screens can teach, once

a child understands that the screen is a way to comprehend the world.

But even then the child needs to be at a certain stage in their

development. Children need to understand that this 2D flat screen

represents their real world, that does not happen normally until

closer to two years. So they are not really learning. But without

social interaction, screens at young ages don't teach anything.

Experts disagree on which particular areas of development can

be affected by watching screens. Although children with attention

deficit hyperactivity disorder to spend more time playing video games

and watching TV, this is thought to be a symptom of the condition, not

a cause. Different countries are reacting differently to studies

done on children and screens. Despite France, Canada and

Australia's stance against infant viewing, as recently as 2008 the UK

recommended children be exposed to technology, computers and screens

from a very young age. Since then the advice has been removed but the

UK currently has no medical or governmental guidelines. The BBC's

CBeebies channel is one of the most prominent stations aimed at small

children in the UK, want some of its content implies young viewers

are welcome. CBeebies told us its programming was aimed at children

of two years and older, and these particular sections were aired to

allow older siblings and family members to share in the birthday

celebrations. BabyTV, owned by News Corporation, says it targets

children up to four years old. Despite France's concerns it can't

be banned within the EU because it has been granted a licence to

broadcast in one country, the UK. If you watch it in France however

you also see regular warnings about the dangers of young viewing. Now

look, too 0.5 years ago when I became a parent for the first time,

I absolutely admit that TV can be very useful -- 2.5 years. If I need

to occupy him for a few minutes when I climb a ladder I can put a

programme on. If we need him to calm down in the evening we can sit

down and watch a cartoon together. Am I really damaging my son's

brain? Some parents don't have the luxury of having someone else take

care of their child, they need to work for example. So the screen

becomes a baby sitter, a helpful tool. If you leave your child in

front of the screen for too long as a baby sitter there's a danger they

won't learn in the same way that a child who would be socially

interacting with you would, a child who follows a parent around who is

doing just the laundry or the cooking and follows the parent

around, verses a child sitting in front of the TV, will learn more

words. What we need to do is a. A variety of measures. First the

print and broadcast measure will need to promote the discussion and

get people thinking about it. -- a doctor. We need more surveys.

Surveys and trains are not experiments, but no more was

smoking and lung cancer in the Fifties and experiment, but people

started to see a link, then eventually epidemiologists, a long

and they established one thing could have caused the other. While

the jury is out on whether screen entertainment poses a serious risk

to very small children, the advice from some government health

departments, paediatric medical organisations, and experts, is to

air on the side of caution for the time being, and let the little ones

snuggle up with a good book instead. If you have any thoughts on the

safety of screens for children, or if you have any personal experience

of their effect, then please do drop us a line. We're on Facebook,

and we're on Twitter. Next up, it is this week's Tech News. The

conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has been mirrored on

line, both the Israeli army and Hamas have been giving military and

political commentaries over Tweeted. Activists from the hacking

collective Anonymous have been instrumental in many of the

estimated 60 million largely failed hacking attempts on Israeli

websites. They say their campaign is in response to what it says is a

threat by the Israeli government to shut down internet connections in

Gaza. The Israeli Defence Force has been up loading bay need videos to

YouTube, and is hosting a game on its website where frequent visitors

can win badges and achievements. A panel representing more than 50

governments has published a list of 242 objections to new internet

address endings. The list of no-nos encompasses names that have sparked

a wide variety of political, religious and commercial concerns.

Amongst Amazon's 28 rejected proposals, out of 76 submissions,.

Amazon was supposed unsurprisingly by Brazil. Applicants now have to

address the panels concerns or withdraw their submissions ahead of

the roll-out in May next year. Face than users will soon be able to

make calls to friends on the site for using its mobile app. --

Facebook. Party Call will compete with Skype and WhatsApp. They can

pose details to their profiles using the service. It was developed

by Orange in France and will be launched their in the summer with

other countries to follow. The world's oldest computer was

switched on for the first time this week. Which Witch was considered a

supercomputer in its time, it is today a giant calculator weighing

2.5 tonnes. Volunteers at the National Museum of computing at

Bletchley Park spent three years reconstructing its 10,000 moving

parts. Some achievement. It's not that often that a new video games

console is launched, but this month Nintendo will unleash the first of

the next generation of home consoles. The thing is the

technology inside the new Wii U seems decidedly current generation.

If you know what I mean? So what's going on? Can Nintendo replicate

the success of its last regime, the Wii, or has it misjudged the mood

of the gaming public? Marc Cieslak is one man who knows his Mario from

his Metroid, so we asked him to get to grips with Nintendo's new

Nintendo had a history of innovation, his most recent home

console, the Wii, introduced the world to motion controllers. A

concept so simple but well executed that its rivals, Microsoft and Sony,

concocted motion controlled devices. While the Kinect and the Move for

PlayStation 3 had enjoyed success, the Wii went on to become the

world's best-selling home console. Nintendo's engineers are keen to

enervate with his latest at that, the Wii U. It makes use of an

entirely different sort of Controller. It makes use of several

different controllers. This is the familiar Wiimote, and then we had

this, this is a tablet style, motion sensitive, Controller. There

is also a stylus which can be used with the touch screen for

additional control. It is almost as if Nintendo's designers are

scratching their heads, wondering what to do with the controller,

should it be a joypad, should it be motion sensitive, should it be a

touch screen? They have dumped everything into the mix. They are

trying to maintain the innovation brand around this kind of Wii U. It

is not as easy to communicate this kind of innovation to the audience

as the original Wii. That is the major challenge, communicating the

differences. On top of the game pad, this console will also support a

so-called pro Controller, which kind of looks like the controller

from a Xbox or PlayStation 3. The Wii U itself is a black box, which

at launch will come in two flavours, one with a meet at eight gigabytes

of storage, and a premium model with 32 gigs. It has an AMD based

graphics chip and a IBM processor. Unlike its predecessor, this

machine can produce high-definition visuals. But in terms of technology,

it is not what you would call cutting edge. The Wii U is not just

a games machine, like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, it will have

multimedia capabilities, such as access to on demand for television

services. But much of the functionality has been delayed. It

will be made available on download. The Wii U's major point of

difference is the game had Controller, which features a camera,

microphone and speakers, and a touch screen. It is a bit 2008

compared to all the model touch devices. There is the smorgasbord

of different ways the player can interact with the pad itself. It is

this bunch of different control mechanisms that I found slightly

confusing, for instance, this game is Nintendo Land, a series of

family-friendly many games. Each one of those uses a different

control mechanism. You get the general idea. But that is just the

start of the Wii's circus of confusion. Some of the games

require the player to look at the television screen, but then they

demanded to look at the controller's screen. It is a method

of playing games and watching game played that is unusual, to say the

least. The Wii will launch with a fairly healthy raft of games,

including much hard core fare, such as a ZombieU, courtesy of that

party developer Ubisoft. It is third party support that will be

crucial to the Wii U's success. has opened the platform up.

Potentially, that is a good channel of content coming through to the

platform. Initially, pre-orders and sales are looking quite healthy,

but ultimately, such a confusing device is going to have a tough

time replicating the success of the machine that it replaces.

Proving that being first to market is not always contagious.

We are always being asked whether one piece of technology is better

than another. Often we will have an opinion, but we do not have time to

compare everything. Kate Russell, on the other hand, things that she

has. She will tell you why in Webscape.

There are plenty of online comparison websites, but how do you

know that you are getting an objective comparison, unfettered by

personal opinion? Bursars -- Versusio wants to let you can pet

products drawing on official specifications from the

manufacturer. At the moment, it compares technology products and

services, but they plan on adding other things, such as people

compared by their social media accounts and connections, or even

their CV or work experience. I'm not sure how I feel about being

compared to other people in such a sweeping fashion, but for now, it

mainly covers smart phones and tablets, and you will get an idea

for size and form factor would be like size graphics option. -- with

If you are fascinated by astronomy but do not have your own telescope,

Universetoday is a great YouTube channel, posting many in Latin in

programmes and documentaries, but they also her hot -- -- many

enlightening. Contributors who do have a telescope trained at on the

skies and then everybody joins in a live discussion about what is being

seen. This is the Cocoon Nebula up. I just ran across it today. YouTube

channels are a great way to find free content that is really unusual,

the lower production and distribution cost makes it possible

to make really experimental videos, and some of them are quite an eye-

opener. This is The Aspie Show. My passion is Asperger's. This is a

link to a YouTube programme called The Aspie Show. It talks openly

about the condition. It celebrates the Strentz for those on the

spectrum, rather than seeing it as a disability. -- the strengths.

Millions of tweets are sent out into the ether every hour, but what

do you tweets reveal about you? This is the app Mindofman.com hopes

to answer. It creates a visualisation of your personality,

called a MindPrint, and then extracting key traits do give you

an idea of how you may be perceived by others. Once you have begun your

mind of man Jenny, you can unlock other reports, such as revealing a

celebrity twin. -- mind of man journey. It may also uncover your

arch online nemesis. It says that I am a nerdist. I doubt anyone would

be that surprised about it. You will have to own tokens to unlock

the reports, which she India by sharing the results or answering

questions. There is also a premium version. -- which you can do.

So should have you cite Minube has just added English-language

versions of its site. -- social travel website. It has been popular

in Latin America, offering a buzzing social platform for

travellers. Ready for a mind- blowing trip? Google pass my

experiment to let you fly around in sophisticated the view of the

If you prefer your maps a little more down-to-earth, Nokia maps are

here. With term by term navigation and social features, let's hope it

fills the gap left by many iPhone uses when Google Maps it fell off

the laps list. The apps list. Or why you are on our website, you