Technology, features and articles | Educational Science

Jan 20, 2012

Could the Internet Ever Be Destroyed?

The raging battle over SOPA and PIPA, the proposed anti-piracy laws, is looking more and more likely to end in favor of Internet freedom — but it won't be the last battle of its kind. Although, ethereal as it is, the Internet seems destined to survive in some form or...

Feb 11, 2012

Future of Long-Distance Love Is Cool But Creepy

It's 2025 and your boyfriend has been temporarily posted to Tokyo, while you're still stuck in the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis. How will you keep in touch? Well, maybe hug shirts and larger-than-life videoconferencing will help you out. As communication technology has improved over time, it's helped long-distance couples stay in...

Feb 29, 2012

Expert Poll: Internet Makes Us Smarter & Stupider

Will constant access to the Internet make today's young people brilliant multitaskers or shallow, screen-bound hermits? A new opinion poll finds that technology experts believe the answer is all of the above. According to a new survey of 1,021 technology experts and critics, hyperconnectivity is a mixed bag. Fifty-five percent...

Mar 16, 2012

Insurgents Destroyed US Helicopters Found in Online Photos

When new U.S. Army attack helicopters landed at an Iraqi base in 2007, soldiers uploaded smartphone photos of the helicopters to the Internet. The soldiers didn’t realize that those pictures contained GPS geotags, which according to an Army officer allowed insurgents to pinpoint and destroy four Apache helicopters in a...

May 16, 2012

Internet Usage Pattern Can Indicate Depression

Depressed internet users browse the web more randomly, switching between several applications, new research on university students suggests. The researchers analyzed Internet usage among college students and found that students who show signs of depression tend to browse differently than others. They identified nine fine-grained patterns of Internet usage that...

Jun 25, 2012

10 Sneaky Ways Teens Hide Online Activity

A recent survey commissioned by software security firm McAfee found that 71 percent of teenagers admit to hiding online activities from their parents. In many cases, parents were unaware of what their kids were up to online, or that kids could get into real-life trouble on the internet at all....

Jun 25, 2012

Parents In the Dark About Teens' Online Activities, Survey Finds

More than 70 percent of teens hide some of their online behavior from their parents, according to a new study that finds plenty of young people are using the Internet in ways that might surprise mom and dad. For example, while only 12 percent of parents said they thought their...

Jul 30, 2012

Clickable Internet Map Shows 350,000 Websites

In the map of a place, addresses that are physically close to each other in life get placed physically near each other in the map. But in a map of the internet, how would you define closeness? Russian programmer Ruslan Enikeev decided to use the same measure that Google uses...

Aug 1, 2012

Co-ops Bring Internet to Rural U.S. Towns

Which U.S. city offers all its residents an internet connection 100 times faster than cable and 500 times faster than DSL? The answer is Chattanooga, a city of about 170,000 in southeastern Tennessee. Because companies charge remote towns more for internet access than they do big cities, some American cities...

Aug 22, 2012

Wi-Fi Donkeys Carry Internet Access on Park Trails

It may be fun to check out life in the first century, but not if it means you can't Tweet about it. Not to worry: An Israeli park meant to recreate life in Biblical times is now offering Wi-Fi hotspots, carried by donkeys, for tourists who want to Tweet, Facebook,...

Aug 29, 2012

Internet Addiction Tied to Gene Mutation

Are you addicted to the Internet? You might be able to blame your genes. Scientists say they've found a link between a toxic relationship with the Web and a genetic quirk that also plays a role in nicotine addiction. Researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany interviewed 843 people...

Oct 17, 2012

New FBI Program Teaches Kids How to Stay Safe Online

The Federal Bureau of Investigation unveiled a new program yesterday (Oct. 15) aimed at teaching children the best practices for staying safe online. The FBI-SOS (Safe Online Surfing) Internet Challenge takes third- through eighth-graders to grade-specific virtual islands where games, videos and other media teach kids about specific aspects of...

Nov 2, 2012

What's Wrong With Online Voting?

Internet voting for American citizens is exceedingly dangerous. That's the opinion of David Jefferson, a computer scientist and chairman of Verified Voting, an election watchdog group based in Carlsbad, Calif. I consider voting security to be a national-security issue, said Jefferson. So it has to be treated with that level...

Nov 19, 2012

Kids Should Wait Until 13 to Use Internet Alone, Parents Say

Though a majority of kids over 5 use the Internet, most American adults think children should have to wait until age 13 to connect to the Web without supervision, a new survey found. In September, the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children's Health asked parents about their kids'...

Dec 11, 2012

Checking Facebook at Work Could Become Illegal

Logging into Facebook, perusing eBay and surfing to other decidedly non-work related sites may not just upset your boss; it could also be a federal offense. That's according to two Boston College professors who recently authored a paper on how a broad interpretation of the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse...