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Many guardians of English fear that Internet instant messaging will harm the language. They cringe at the slang, shorthand, and sloppy grammar and worry the IM style will bleed into more formal writing.

A new study from American University linguistics professor Naomi Baron suggests that language grumps don't have much to worry about. Baron studied thousands of instant messages exchanged by college students.

Jon's daily tech news links:

CNET News.com: Firefox fixes phishing hole

Wired: Watchdogs sniff out terrorist sites

New York Times: Startup seeks profit in podcasting

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As violence and sexuality in the $10 billion video game industry become more pronounced and realistic, more state governments are debating proposals that would keep games away from children. Many of the best-selling games, such as Grand Theft Auto, are rated mature -- which means the ratings board recommends the games only for those 17 or over. But the ratings are a voluntary.

Lawmakers in six states are considering measures to restrict the sale of violent and sexually explicit games to minors.

In California, a new bill from California Assemblyman Leland Yee would impose a fine of up to one thousand dollars on individuals who sell violent video games to anyone under 17 years of age.

Guest: Leland Yee

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First came Seti@Home, a program which taps the collective power of home computers to search for radio waves which could suggest alien life in the universe.

Now, physicists want to use your computer to help find gravitational waves. The wrinkles in time and space are considered one of Albert Einstein's boldest predictions. The Einstein@Home project, from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the California Institute of Technology and the Albert Einstein Institute, borrows idle time from home PCs to scan massive amounts of data collected by gravitational wave detectors originating from observatories.

Guest: Bruce Allen, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

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Home networks are great for sharing a high-speed Internet connection or printer, or for moving files and playing games. But it can be very tricky connecting your PCs, and you have a difficult choice to make before you even get to that point.

Future Tense's Dwight Silverman, technology columnist for the Houston Chronicle, recently had to make some decisions about his home network.

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It started out as a Web site to promote a novel. Now, Nationstates is a popular online game that might be bigger than the book.

Australian writer Max Barry started the build-your-own country game to call attention to "Jennifer Government," a satirical novel that envisions the world as controlled by corporations.

Hundreds of thousands of people now play Nationstates, creating virtual governments that range in character from dictatorships to democracies.

Guest: Max Barry

Jon's daily tech news links:

Reuters: New York times buys About.com for $410 million

BBC: Robots hit stride with human walk

AP: Random house to place books on mobile phones

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The Association for Computing Machinery has awarded technology's top annual prize, the Turing Award, to Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn.

Working for the U.S. Deaprtment of Defense in the 1960s, they created the networking infrastructure called "TCP." It allowed distant computers to communicate with each other. TCP led to the Internet, and is still behind 'Net applications like the Web and e-mail.

Guest: David Patterson, professor of computer science at UC Berkeley, and president of the association

Jon's daily tech news links:

Register: "Grand Theft Auto" makers face Alabama murder charge

Wired: The fight over cyber oversight

Microsoft: Parents' guide to computer slang

New York Times: Philly plans to lead way in Wi-fi

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Chairman Bill Gates says Microsoft will provide its new spyware-scrubbing tool for free, and release a new, more secure version of the Internet Explorer Web browser.

Expect both this summer.

The move comes three years after Microsoft, the world's biggest software company, launched a major initiative to improve the reliability and security of its software, which runs on about 90 percent of all personal computers. Most viruses, worms and hacker attacks exploit weaknesses in Microsoft products.

Analyst Michael Cherry with the independent research firm Directions on Microsoft says the spyware tool, which will target malicious programs that keep tabs on Internet users and clog their machines with pop-up ads, will help computer users.

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Make is a new quarterly magazine that, according to publisher
O'Reilly Media, "...celebrates and inspires those who are driven to
make cool an unusual things with technology."

Launching in a challenging economic climate for technology magazine,
Make features step-by-step instructions on how to build things like a
waterproof case for your iPod, and a device that can reveal hidden
information on magnetic stripes on credit cards.

Guest: Mark Frauenfelder, editor in chief of Make

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A recent study of European school children found that students who use computers extensively perform worse in math and reading.

The study, conducted by the CESifo economic research group in Munich, contradicts some earlier work which suggests computers boost grades. Critics of classroom tech say the new research does a better job of controlling for demographic factors. Researchers took into account that computer-using students tend to come from more affluent, better-educated families, and those students tend to do better on tests.

Guest: Todd Oppenheimer, author of the Flickering Mind: the False Promise of Technology in the Classroom, and How Learning Can Be Saved

Jon's daily tech news links:

CNET News.com: Microsoft, eBay join anti-phishing campaign

Reuters: Artist grabs Grammy with Web-only sales

New York Times: Bloggers as news media trophy hunters

BBC: China closes thousands more Internet cafes

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Million Dollar Baby, Sideways, Ray -- these are a few of the Oscar-nominated films that have found their way to the Internet, by way of Academy members and others who are given preview copies known as "screeners."

A year ago, the Motion Picture Association of America and Hollywood studios attempted to clamp down, but the problem is worse this year, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times. There are more Oscar-nominated films for download on the Internet, and the quality is better, since screeners are DVD, not VHS videotapes like last year.

Authorities last year took advantage of "watermarks" which help identify the original source of a pirated film to catch an academy member who lent screeners to an acquaintance. The academy member was expelled and ordered to pay two studios in $600,000. The other man is to be sentenced on federal copyright infringement charges later this month.

LA Times reporter Jon Healey says the movie industry was trying to make a point.

"They felt this would send a message to members of the Academy," Healey said.

But it's not working.

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A report from IBM says mobile phones, PDAs and embedded computers other are the next frontier for malicious hackers, virus writers and other miscreants.

IBM Security Intelligence Services surveyed 2,000 security experts for its report.

Guest: Stuart McIrvine, director of security strategy at IBM

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Fifty-three million Americans are banking online, according to new data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. That's about 44 percent of all Internet users, and a 58 percent jump since 2002. Researcher Susannah Fox says banking has grown faster than any other Internet activity since 2000.

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Voice Over IP, or "VoIP", is an increasingly popular way to make a receive phone calls. Voices are routed over the Internet instead of the old telephone network. It offers more features and lower prices--but appears to be vulnerable to the same security threats that plague the 'Net.

A new industry group, the VoIP Security Alliance, wants to get on top of would-be VoIP hackers, spammers, and fraudsters before they ruin the new technology.

Guest: VoIPSA's David Endler

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The new issue of the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology examines the problem of accidental exposure to pornography and other sexual material on the 'Net. The issue is based on research conducted by the Children's Digital Media Center at UCLA.

Patricia Greenfield is director of the center and UCLA professor of psychology. She says it's difficult for teens to avoid highly sexualized material that is intended for an adult audience.

Jon's daily tech news links:

Wired: New group forms to boost VoIP security

New York Times: As supco battle nears, P2P debate grows manic

CNET News.com: 'Apprentice' quitter works at Microsoft

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Freely distributed open-souce software, like the Linux operating system and the Firefox Web browser, is increasingly popular. But growing legal troubles are seen as a threat to its future.

Recent lawsuits claim that privately-owned software code found its way into open source software, which is created cooperatively.

A new non-profit, pro-bono legal center is stepping in to provide counsel.

The Software Freedom Law Center, which has received four million dollars from corporate donors, will help developers, distributors and users avoid lawsuits.

Guest: Eben Moglen, a law professor at Columbia University and chairman of the new center

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A new study by Web useability firm Nielsen Norman Group finds that adults surf Web sites more effectively than teenagers.

Thirty-eight teens between the ages of 13 and 17 performed tasks on 23 specific Web sites. A group of adults did the same. Turns out the adults were better at finding answers and accomplishing other tasks.

Guest: Jakob Nielsen

Jon's daily tech news links:

USA Today: Gadgets find spots in Super Bowl ad lineup

Wired News: Hide your iPod, here comes Mr. Gates

New York Times: Google defies its warning, grows quickly

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Researchers say tiny radio-transmitter chips that power millions of high-security car keys and gasoline passes can be cracked using cheap technology.

The radio frequency identification (RFID) system uses a device that prevents a car from starting unless both the right key and the correctly coded RFID chip are used.

The gas-purchase system uses a reader inside the gas pump that recognizes a key-chain tag waved nearby and automatically charges a designated credit card.

Johns Hopkins University and RSA Labs say the RFID system made by Texas instruments uses a relatively simple code that criminals can easily decipher, making it easier to steal a car or get a free tank of gas.

Guests:

Avi Rubin, technical director of the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute in Baltimore; Bill Allen, Texas Instruments

Jon's daily tech news links:

Wired: Meet the F/X gods of Hollywood

New York Times: Law barring spam allows flood instead

BBC: Microsoft launches new search tool