Earlier this year Lego and Digital Blue announced combined efforts that would yield a variety of Lego-centric electronics aimed at kids. Slated to be released by this Summer, the announcement included details on a digital camera, a walkie talkie and an MP3 player – nothing too crazy. These functional toys would appear as though they had been built from lego bricks and would all fall into an affordable $20 – $60 price range. Cool. An anonymous tipster may have just shined some light on a yet-to-be-announced element of this partnership however, that might bump the endeavor’s interest-factor from a 1.1 to an even 2.

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Today I decided to conduct an experiment. I started calling people I knew and asking if they had one or more videogames in the house. Then I asked if they breast-fed their children. To my great shock, most answered “yes” to both. One couple I contacted switched to formula after their child’s birth, and told me that they didn’t play videogames. The data, based on my first round of calls, was conclusive: If you play videogames, you are much more likely to breast-feed your children.

You’re probably ready to shoot five thousand holes in my argument. For one, I only called people I knew—we’re talking about a small sampling of individuals who happen to be friends with someone who writes about games for a living. Second, my friends are firmly in their 20s and 30s, which means they grew up playing games. I could have asked them almost anything and linked it with playing games. I did my job though, and you clicked on the headline. You may comment on this story, as well. It’s a good way to get readers, this tactic of linking a popular topic on a tech Web site to any other controversial topic.

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A bill forcing cellphone cameras to make a sound when taking shots has been introduced in Congress, with its sponsor citing voyeuristic and exploitative picture-taking as the reason behind it.

The Camera Phone Predator Alert Act would require camera-phone manufacturers to include an audible “click” or other sound when the device takes a photo. That sound won’t be able to be disabled or silenced, according to the draft of the bill.

“Congress finds that children and adolescents have been exploited by photographs taken in dressing rooms and public places with the use of a camera phone,” the draft says.

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For years, Attorneys General Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut have been leading a coalition of 49 states that were pushing MySpace to add technology to verify the age of its members. The attorneys general argue that age verification will help keep younger children off the site and therefore prevent them from being contacted by sexual predators and other unsavory characters.

Tomorrow, however, leading researchers in online child safety are expected to submit a report to the attorneys general stating that age verification technology is flawed and will not protect children from online dangers.

Following are excerpts of separate interviews with Attorney Generals Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who led the charge for social-networking safety standards.

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Parents of videogaming children, take heart: Your kid is not destined to become an anti-social hermit who lives at home until he’s 35. In fact, a new study shows that all that game time could actually be making him a better citizen.

No, this isn’t a study funded by the videogame association. It’s from the respectable folks at the Pew Internet & American Life Project. And it’s the first, says study co-author Joe Kahne, to track the sorts of things kids do when playing–not just how much time they spend playing. “It’s really valuable to focus heavily on the quality of those experiences,” he says.

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We’ve never quite understood Nicholas Negroponte’s position when it comes to the $100 Laptop/OLPC/XO (whatever it’s called these days). While the idea behind creating a super-cheap, super-durable useful computer for children in developing nations is good, Negroponte has always approached the idea as one where only he should be allowed to see that vision through. When other companies decided it might be a good idea and wanted to target that market themselves, Negroponte flipped out and started attacking them for trying to undermine his project.

Sorry, Nicholas, but competition isn’t undermining.

In fact, competition is generally what drives all parties to be better at what they do, in order to fend off the competition.

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Again? State after state after state has passed laws that ban the sale of certain video games to children, and time after time after time those laws are struck down as unconstitutional. Not a single one has passed muster, and yet court time and taxpayer money are wasted over and over again on these same issues, with at least 10 states having gone through the same process with the same results. States cannot ban the sale of video games to children. It’s a violation of the First Amendment. This does not mean that stores themselves can’t make such a policy, just as movie theaters have voluntarily (not based on a law) agreed not to let kids see movies of certain ratings.

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