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More than a quarter of eight to 11-year-olds in the UK have a profile on a social network, research shows.

Most sites, such as Bebo, MySpace and Facebook, set a minimum age of between 13 and 14 to create a profile but none actively enforce the age requirement.

Almost half of all eight to 17-year-olds online have a profile, regulator Ofcom found in a survey of 5,000 adults and over 3,000 children.

Ofcom says parents need to learn more about their children’s online lives.

The Ofcom report looks into the impact of social networks on people’s lives in the UK as part of a wider media literacy campaign and surveyed 5,000 adults and more than 3,000 children.

“Social networks are clearly a very important part of people’s lives and are having an impact on how people live their lives,” said James Thickett, director of market research at Ofcom.

He added: “Children’s lives are very different from what they were 20 years ago. Social networks are a way of creating a social bond.”

The Home Office has been working with social networking firms and is expected to publish a set of guidelines for the sites around best practice, security and privacy on Friday.

The report is expected to recommend that profiles created by children are set to private by default, or are only viewable by friends nominated by the user.

The three leading social networks, MySpace, Bebo and Facebook, all say they remove profiles of users that are found to be too young on their sites.

But at present no technology is used to actively verify the age of users.

The Home Office guidelines are set to encourage social networking sites to investigate age veification technologies and to give better signposting to users about privacy settings, and warnings about the implications of posting personal details.

A spokesman for MySpace said the firm “proactively ensures that profiles of 14 and 15-year-olds are automatically made private so that users are protected from adults they don’t already know in the offline world”.

The company said in the future all of its users under 18 would have profiles set automatically to private.

Risk perception

More than a fifth of people in the UK aged 16 and over have an online profile, the Ofcom survey showed.

But the report revealed a “significant difference” between the perception of the risks and use of social networks between parents and children.

“While people are aware of the status of their profile there is a general lack of awareness of the issues attached to them around privacy and safety,” said Mr Thickett.

He added: “People put aside concerns about privacy and safety believing they have been taken care of by someone else.”

Forty-one per cent of children had set their profile so that it was visible to anyone, according to the report.

But 16% of parents admitted they did not know if their child’s profile could be seen or not by strangers.

“There is an issue about parenting,” said Robin Blake, head of media literacy at Ofcom.

New friends

He added: “Parents who are allowing their children to go online without supervision and support… need to recognise that their children are potentially at risk.”

According to the Ofcom report, almost 60% of children use social networking sites to make new friends, compared to 17% of adults who use the sites for the same purpose.

While two-thirds of parents said they set rules for their children when using social networking sites, only 53% of children said that their parents had set such rules.

“Children are using these sites with a far lower awareness of some of the issues and rules that these sites entail,” said Mr Thickett.

Ofcom called on social networks to improve the visibility of privacy settings.

Monitor guidelines

“The settings are not obvious to some people when using these sites,” said Mr Blake.

He said Ofcom would be “monitoring and reviewing” the guidelines that social networks had drawn up in conjuction with the Home Office.

However, Ofcom admitted it had no legal authority over social networks and was not “regulating them”.

Mr Blake said: “Ofcom’s approach is very much to encourage industry to do the right thing.”

Dr Rachel O’Connell, chief safety officer at Bebo, told BBC News: “We’re working with the regulatory bodies. It’s critical to our business that we adhere to these guidelines.”

Five major PC makers will include Qualcomm's Gobi 3G (third-generation) mobile data technology in laptops, and Qualcomm expects six to nine carriers to support the system by year's end.

Gobi is a dual-mode modem that supports EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) Revision A and HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access), the two main 3G networks in use around the world. It also includes GPS (Global Positioning System) hardware. It is designed to help enterprise employees and other users stay connected wherever they are.

The five biggest PC OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) will offer laptops with Gobi, Qualcomm officials said at a news conference on Tuesday at the CTIA Wireless trade show in Las Vegas. Qualcomm had already identified Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Panasonic as planning to use it, and declined to name the others. Dell announced on Tuesday that it will offer Gobi laptops. T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless have certified the technology and Vodafone is expected to approve it soon, according to Qualcomm. The first products should hit the market in the second quarter, the company said.

The pioneer of CDMA (Code-Divison Multiple Access) has strong faith in 3G for the future, even as 4G technologies such as WiMax and LTE (Long-Term Evolution) grab much of the network spotlight at CTIA. Qualcomm also said its EV-DO technology is gaining on the more widely used GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) technologies, especially in developing countries such as India. There are about 385 million CDMA users worldwide, said Paul Jacobs, Qualcomm's CEO.

Qualcomm is expanding the capacity of CDMA with a chipset for base stations announced Tuesday, the Cell Site Modem 8950. With it, carriers will be able to deliver more than twice the current capacity of 35 simultaneous calls in a narrow 1.25GHz band of spectrum, allowing carriers to continue leveraging 3G networks far into the future, Qualcomm said. The company expects commercial products to come out in 2010. It is designed for CDMA2000 1x initially and EV-DO with a future software upgrade.

The company has already announced it will supply LTE chipsets, and Jacobs boosted that technology over WiMax.

“We see the momentum right now continues to be with the LTE path,” he said.

Credit Card Management on Cell Phones

Also Tuesday, Qualcomm's Firethorn division joined Citigroups Citi Cards unit for credit-card account management tools on mobile phones. The companies expect to deliver the service by the third quarter. Holders of Citi Cards will be able to view their card balances, recent transactions, rewards information and other data on the phone. The announcement is part of a broader push by Qualcomm into “mobile wallet” capabilities on phones, according to Len Lauer, an executive vice president and group president at Qualcomm. The company acquired Firethorn last November.

“We believe we can be a very strong player” in mobile wallet technology, which spans banking, coupons, loyalty cards and in-store payment via near-field communications, Lauer said.

SEATTLE - The format Microsoft Corp.’s Office 2007 programs use to save documents was approved as an international standard Tuesday, a step the company touted as proof it is willing to make once-proprietary technology work openly with competing programs.

But the International Standards Organization vote didn’t quiet some opponents, who argued that the Office Open XML standard still locks out competitors and gives Microsoft customers no choice but to keep buying its programs forever.

The decision was made public on the Web site of a European standards organization, Ecma International, on Tuesday. ISO is expected to formally announce the vote Wednesday.

Years before Microsoft started selling Office 2007, its plan to switch to a new way of saving Word, Excel and PowerPoint files sparked concerns that future changes made by the software maker could render government or corporate archives unreadable, especially by non-Microsoft programs.

In 2005, Massachusetts went so far as to direct state government offices to save documents as OpenDocument Format files, already an ISO standard whose inner workings were freely available to Microsoft and competing software makers alike.

The responsibility for maintaining standards falls to groups like ISO, not the companies that developed them.

Massachusetts reversed its stance after Microsoft promised to turn over responsibility for the OOXML format to Ecma International, a European standards body. In January 2007, Ecma submitted OOXML to ISO, a broader international organization, for a sped-up approval process.

Both Microsoft’s OOXML and ODF — backed by Sun Microsystems, IBM and others — make it easier for computer programs to read and understand the contents of a file. That helps ensure older files will still be readable even if the program used to create them has changed significantly.

Before Microsoft turned OOXML over to Ecma, the software maker had sole control over the technology and no obligation to make it compatible with rivals’ products. Critics argued that Microsoft essentially gave customers no choice but to stick with Office if they wanted documents to be readable in the future. They also worried that Microsoft would drop support for OOXML someday, leaving customers with no way to see old files.

Making OOXML a standard is meant to address both problems, and ensure that competing programs can read and save OOXML files today and read them far into the future, even if Microsoft moves on.

“The input from technical experts, customers and governments around the world has greatly improved the Open XML specification and will make it even more useful to developers and customers,” said Tom Robertson, general manager of interoperability and standards at Microsoft, in a statement. “We are committed to supporting this specification in our products, and we will continue to work with standards bodies, governments and the industry to promote greater interoperability and innovation.”

In an interview last week, Robertson said Microsoft and Ecma addressed almost all the issues raised during the ISO process, but some critics remain unsatisfied.

Even though Norway’s standards body voted for OOXML, Steve Pepper, a member of the organization, said Microsoft used strong-arm tactics to win approval.

“This vote is a tragedy for standardization,” Pepper told The Associated Press in Switzerland.

And Marino Marcich, head of the OpenDocument Format Alliance, said that despite promised changes to the specification, “OOXML doesn’t play well with the products of other software companies” like IBM and Sun. He claimed that Microsoft failed to fully document all the features in the format and that some of the code was proprietary, leaving other companies vulnerable to copyright lawsuits.

What’s more, Marcich said, Microsoft can still use a version of OOXML in Office 2007 that doesn’t exactly match the one approved by ISO.

In a statement, Robertson said Microsoft is “committed to supporting this specification in our products.”

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AP Writer Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

Read Ecma’s statement:

http://tinyurl.com/2qzg3u

Nokia is showing off a new iteration of a WiMax version of its Internet tablet at the CTIA conference in Las Vegas.

The newest and fifth version of the N810 tablet will become commercially available along with Xohm's official launch, scheduled for the second quarter. Xohm is the WiMax network that Sprint Nextel is building, with test networks already running in Chicago and the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., area. The new N810 will be available initially only in the U.S.

Previous iterations could connect to the Internet over Wi-Fi, with cellular connectivity notably absent from a device built by the number one cell-phone maker in the world. The tablet, which is slightly larger than a typical smartphone yet much smaller than a laptop, does let users connect to the Internet over cellular networks, but via a Bluetooth link to their cell phones. The new WiMax version will also have Wi-Fi, Nokia said.

The WiMax N810 will be available on Nokia's Web site and will also be sold by Xohm. Buyers can sign up for Xohm service over the air from the device if they buy it before subscribing for service.

The device is expected to be priced similarly to the other versions of the tablet. The most recent costs US$439 on Nokia's Web site.

WiMax offers faster speeds than the existing cellular networks. Nokia expects users will receive download rates of 2M bps to 4M bps, with bursts as fast as 10M bps. By contrast, Sprint's EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) network, for example, offers average download speeds of as high as 1.4M bps.

While other cellular technologies like HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) and EV-DO are not on Nokia's road map for the N810, the company will consider them for the future. “We're not excluding other technologies,” said Mark Louison, president of Nokia in North America. The N810 is designed to be an open device that any developer can build applications for, and so it is well-suited to Xohm, which has said it intends to allow any device and any service to run on the network, Louison said.

While Nokia is eager for the N810 WiMax version to be used by other operators, Clearwire customers won't be able to use it, at least for now. That's because Clearwire isn't yet using the standard form of WiMax, 802.16e, supported by Nokia and Xohm.

The earliest version of the tablet, the N800, had only an on-screen keyboard, but subsequent versions feature a slide-out Qwerty keyboard. The tablets run on the maemo Linux-based OS2008 operating system and include a range of applications such as a Mozilla browser, Skype and Google Talk. It also includes GPS (Global Positioning Service).

San Francisco - Curl has joined the Eclipse Foundation and detailed plans to base its rich Internet application development tools on the Eclipse framework.??

The company will develop a set of plug-ins for Eclipse that over time will replace current Curl development tools.

“Eclipse is no longer limited to the Java programming language. It is a universal IDE for any language platform, as the implementation of the Curl IDE in Eclipse demonstrates,” said Bert Halstead, chief architect of Curl, in a statement released by the company. “Curl is the most powerful RIA platform for the enterprise and Eclipse is the best general-purpose IDE available today — the combination is unbeatable.”

The Curl IDE will be replaced with one based on the Eclipse framework. Included will be a set of plug-ins called the CDE (Curl Development Tools for Eclipse). The current IDE will be renamed Curl Classic IDE and coexist with CDE through at least the first release of the new tool, Curl said.

The first release of CDE will include Curl Classic IDE functionality such as a Curl language-sensitive editor, debugger, search and deployment capabilities. The Curl Visual Layout Editor also will be featured. Future releases of CDE will integrate Visual Layout Editor into the Eclipse Framework as a “Design Perspective,” the company said.

Other capabilities will be improved, such as error highlighting in the source-code editor, language-sensitive navigation, and refactoring.

CDE currently is an alpha form with the public beta expected in mid-2008. Curl has become an Add-In Member of Eclipse

San Francisco - Five major PC makers will include Qualcomm's Gobi 3G mobile data technology in laptops, and Qualcomm expects six to nine carriers to support the system by year's end.

Gobi is a dual-mode modem that supports EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) Revision A and HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access), the two main 3G networks in use around the world. It also includes GPS hardware. It is designed to help enterprise employees and other users stay connected wherever they are.

The five biggest PC OEMs

Over the next few weeks, Google will be rolling out a new feature that allows Google Docs users to access their documents even without an Internet connection. For now the change only applies to the word processor, but similar capabilities are expected to become available for spreadsheet and presentation documents once the initial trials are complete.

This move wasn't unexpected. The updated Google Docs take advantage of the company's Google Gears library, a programming tool that allows Web application developers to synchronize online data with files on the user's local hard drive. It also intensifies the burgeoning competition between Google and Microsoft, which offers Web-based collaboration features similar to Google Docs in the form of Microsoft Office Live Workspace. Some pundits feel that online services like Google's are the Number One threat to Microsoft's dominance of the productivity software market. Myself, I remain skeptical.

Current fans of Google Docs will surely appreciate this new feature, but I still have a hard time seeing how a Web-based application could ever replace traditional word processing software for serious business computing. I have a hard enough time getting all the capabilities I want out of alternative office suites, such as OpenOffice.org.

And then there are the security and liability concerns. Having access to your documents from any computer anywhere is a powerful productivity enhancement, but quite frankly I work with a lot of documents that should never leave the walls of my office– and I'm just small potatoes. Google, Microsoft, and other online application providers will have to demonstrate a serious commitment to document security before they can attract enterprise customers to these services, especially given the current regulatory climate.

How comfortable are you with shifting your business computing off the desktop and into the network? Do you see browser-based applications becoming viable alternatives to the apps of old? Or are they just another flash in the pan we call “Web 2.0″? Sound off in the PC World Community Comments.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The founder of virtual world Second Life sought to reassure U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday that the online community is able to police itself.

Second Life founder Philip Rosedale and a handful of other virtual reality experts, testified at a House of Representatives hearing that was also attended by on-line personas, or avatars, portrayed on a video screen in the hearing room.

“It is likely that virtual world activities are somewhat more policeable and the law somewhat more maintainable within virtual worlds,” said Rosedale, chief executive of Linden Lab, the company that runs Second Life.

Some lawmakers raised questions about what operators of virtual worlds are doing to stop them being used to stage real-world crimes such as terrorism, money-laundering and the exploitation of children.

“I am not advocating censorship. But I am asking what we can to make certain that these glorious tools are not … changed into tools that facilitate the use of terror attacks on innocent civilians around the world,” said Democratic Rep. Jane Harman, of California.

Harman cited a British newspaper report last year saying that Islamic extremists were suspected of using Second Life to recruit and mimic real-life terrorism.

“We have never seen any evidence that there is any such activity going on,” Rosedale told the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on telecommunications.

Second Life is an online community with several hundred thousand users who create their own avatar identities and can fly around the virtual world at will.

In addition to entertainment, Second Life has created its own currency — the Linden dollar which can be converted to U.S. dollars — in an active marketplace which supports millions of dollars in monthly transactions.

Lawmakers on the panel said the hearing was held for informational purposes and no legislation is planned. Rosedale, appearing in both physical and avatar form, outlined steps the company takes to “discourage and prevent illegal activity.”

He said gambling is banned and financial transactions are closely monitored. Teenagers are restricted to a separate teenage-only version of Second Life, he told them.

“The virtual world has a degree of accountability … and traceability which actually in many ways is better than the real world,” Rosedale said.

On the video screen in the hearing room were about two dozen avatars from Second Life. They sat quietly, while their comments were displayed at the bottom of the screen.

At least two of the avatars had wings. A third turned into a giant bumble bee as the hearing ended.

Also on the screen was an avatar representing Rep. Edward Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the subcommittee.

Rosedale and other experts said virtual reality was the next step in the evolution of the Internet.

“Virtual worlds and spaces are quickly becoming powerful tools with the potential to transform enterprise and government processes by increasing top line and bottom line growth, improving efficiency and productivity, and augmenting our ability to innovate and spur entrepreneurial growth,” IBM vice president Colin Parris told the panel.

(Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

Sony Pictures is gearing up for full-length movies on AT&T mobile phones. The movie giant on Monday launched PIX, a domestic network for mobile phones that will let viewers watch selections from the studio's library.

Offering films from Columbia Pictures, Tri-Star, ScreenGems and Sony Pictures Classics, the new service will include a catalog of movies across all genres. The films will be accompanied by added-value material. Titles will be available for up to one month, with films added weekly. Some of the first titles to be offered include Bugsy, Ghostbusters, The Karate Kid, and Stand By Me. Subscribers of AT&T Mobile TV, launching in May, will be the first with access to PIX.

“PIX will give viewers their own personal movie theater wherever they take their mobile phones,” said Eric Berger, vice president of mobile entertainment for Sony Pictures Television. “With an incredible library of quality Hollywood hits, it's a mobile destination channel for convenient, enjoyable entertainment, and the latest offering in SPT's distinctive portfolio of mobile games and video.”

Getting Off the Couch

Sony is reportedly in talks with other U.S. carriers to offer PIX, but did not give details about which other companies might be picking up the service. The pricing models for the new network have not been announced, though analysts said individual carriers will likely set their own pricing schemes. Some carriers may choose to offer PIX free with an ad-supported model. Others could choose to charge per movie.

A longtime concern with mobile TV has been the size of the screens. According to William Ho, a wireless services analyst at Current Analysis, handset makers are working to develop devices with larger screens that offer clearer images. Even so, he cautioned, mobile TV appeals to a different audience than the typical couch-potato viewer.

“Get the being-on-a-couch thing out of your head. You are in an airport. You are killing time between your kids' soccer games. In those cases, mobile movies could be compelling,” Ho said. “If you are really busy, you won't go out of your way to watch mobile TV. But if you have time for it, you could jump into a movie.”

Jumping into the Future

Jumping in may be an issue for some consumers, though. Sony is taking a broadcast TV-schedule approach with PIX. That means consumers may or may not get stuck in the airport at a time when a movie they want to watch is just beginning. It takes an astute user, Ho noted, to jump into a movie he or she has never seen and pick up the plot in midstream. Sony may, however, be moving to an on-demand model in the future, according to news reports.

“Mobile TV is the direction we're heading,” Ho said. “I was talking to Qualcomm. They look at it as akin to the adoption of cable. In the old days, everyone was watching broadcast TV with rabbit ears, and then cable came along and showed that people will pay for programming. In the case of mobile TV, the paid model comes first, and the free will come later.”

SAN FRANCISCO - Dissident shareholders belittled CNet Networks Inc.’s leadership as incompetent and lackadaisical in its latest efforts to steer the slumping technology news and entertainment company in a new direction.

The harsh criticism of CNet’s current board and top executives was contained in a 38-page assessment released Tuesday by a mutinous crew of shareholders led by New York investment fund Jana Partners LLC.

Wielding a nearly 15 percent stake in CNet, the disgruntled shareholders have been waging a three-month campaign to overthrow the San Francisco-based company’s board.

Tuesday’s document provided the most detailed look yet at the potential that Jana sees in CNet’s stable of Web sites, which include News.com, TV.com, Mp3.com, MySimon and GameSpot.

By deploying better tools to sell more advertising and highlight CNet’s listings in Internet search results, Jana believes it can substantially boost the company’s earnings and restore much of the roughly $1 billion in shareholder wealth that has evaporated since December 2005.

“There is no reason to believe that the current leadership, left to its own devices, should be further entrusted to stop the destruction of shareholder value,” the Jana-led group said in its assessment.

Besides lambasting CNet’s board, the document questioned the Internet savvy of the company’s chief executive, Neil Ashe, and chief financial officer, Zander Lurie. The Jana group argued the men’s background in investment banking makes them poor choices to lead an online media company.

Without providing specifics, CNet said the Jana group’s analysis contains “numerous misstatements” and “is misleading in many respects.” Still, the company said it will carefully review Jana’s suggestions and “respond in due course.”

As part of its turnaround efforts, CNet last week laid off 120 employees, or about 4 percent of its work force.

Although its Web sites rank among the most popular on the Internet, CNet so far hasn’t been able to capitalize on the online advertising boom.

U.S. advertisers spent $21.1 billion on Internet ads last year, up 70 percent from $12.5 billion in 2005, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

But CNet’s stock has plunged by nearly 50 percent since the end of 2005. CNet shares gained 35 cents, or nearly 5 percent, to finish Tuesday at $7.45.

The Jana group believes its turnaround plan could catapult CNet’s stock price beyond $11 next year by improving the company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA — a key yardstick that investors use to appraise companies.

Jana estimated its plan will generate EBITDA of $183 million in 2009, excluding costs for stock awarded CNet’s employees. That’s far above the average EBITDA estimate of about $103 million among analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.

CNet tried to negotiate a truce with Jana last month by offering the dissidents one of the seven seats that they hope to secure on the company’s board, according to Tuesday’s documents. Jana rejected the offer, calling it “insufficient.”