New research shows video games stimulate kids? imaginations (Yahoo! News)

Gaming might not be all bad for kids

We all know that parents should pay attention to both the amount of time kids spend playing video games and the type of games they're playing, but contrary to some prevailing wisdom, a new study shows that kids who play video games may actually be more creative than those who don't.

The study of 491 12-year-olds was conducted by lead researcher Linda Jackson, a professor of psychology at Michigan State University, as part of the Children and Technology Project. It found that the more kids played video games, the more creative they were in tasks like writing stories and drawing pictures, as gauged by the figural version of the Torrance Test of Creativity. The test uses picture-based exercises to measure mental characteristics like originality, elaboration, and emotional expressiveness.

The study found that in general, boys played video games more than girls, and, perhaps not surprisingly, that boys also tended to play sports and violence based games while girls tended to favor games featuring interaction with others. The Entertainment Software Association reports that about 72% of households in the United States play video or computer games.

The study also found that use of technology other than playing video games, such as using cell phones, browsing the internet, or using a computer for other tasks, did not have a noticeable effect on creativity. Jackson is hopeful that video game designers will be able to use the results of the study to design games which can "blur the distinction between education and entertainment."

[Image credits: Marco Ament]

(Source)

This article was written by Katherine Gray and originally appeared on Tecca

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_technews/20111102/tc_yblog_technews/new-research-shows-video-games-stimulate-kids-imaginations

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Exclusive: Regulator concerns about MF Global began months ago (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? U.S. regulators started raising concerns about now-bankrupt MF Global's European sovereign debt exposure as early as June, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The full extent of the futures brokerage's big bets on the recovery of European debt only emerged in recent weeks, as MF Global revealed in public filings that it had a long position of $6.3 billion in short-duration European sovereign debt -- roughly five times the firm's book value, or net worth.

Concerns about the firm's debt exposure then ballooned, prompting ratings firms to downgrade MF Global to "junk," which triggered margin calls and threatened the firm's liquidity.

When attempts to find a buyer failed, MF Global filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday.

The collapse played out quickly, but regulators started turning the screws on MF Global months ago.

Around June, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), one of many regulators that policed the firm, became concerned that MF Global had a substantial position in European sovereign debt and was not appropriately holding capital against it, the source said.

FINRA, which regulates the securities-brokerage arm of MF Global, began conversations with the firm about whether it was appropriate for it to use Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) to park the exposure off balance sheet, according to the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The firm was financing its European sovereign debt bets through "repo-to-maturity" transactions, which allowed MF Global to move the exposure off its balance sheet, despite the firm still facing enormous risk in the case of a default.

Essentially, MF Global borrowed against the bonds until they matured, and earned money from the difference between the yield on the bonds and the rates they were paying on their financing. At maturity, the principal from the maturing bonds would be used to repay the money used to finance the purchase.

FINRA felt that regardless of GAAP, MF Global should take a haircut on the sovereign debt-related holdings, and consulted with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the source said.

After lengthy conversations with FINRA and the SEC, MF Global yielded and infused the additional capital called for, something the firm disclosed on September 1.

In its own account of its collapse, MF Global repeatedly points to regulators as having a critical role in triggering the crisis of confidence in the firm.

In an affidavit to the bankruptcy court on Monday, MF Global President and Chief Operating Officer Bradley Abelow lays out the FINRA-mandated capital change as the first item in "Events Leading To Chapter 11 Filing."

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111102/bs_nm/us_mfglobal_finra

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Herman Cain Sexual Harassment Claims Dog Campaign (ABC News)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/156717501?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Motorola?s Xoom 2 Spied In Catalog, Should Launch Before Christmas

We were half-expecting to see the Xoom 2 officially break cover at Motorola's Droid RAZR launch event (especially since some incriminating photos of the tab leaked just prior to it), but according to the latest Carphone Warehouse buyer's guide, the Xoom 2 should make its debut in time for the holidays. I managed to scrounge up a high resolution shot of the page in question (below), and it points out a few interesting particulars.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/t9LqeoBPk6M/

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Russia: Court victory for girls switched at birth (AP)

MOSCOW ? It was more money than either family has ever seen ? but it's still not clear if it can make the pain go away.

A court awarded two Russian families $100,000 each in compensation Monday from a maternity home that accidentally switched their daughters at birth. It said they could use the money to house the girls, now 12, next to each other.

The story has captivated Russia for ever since the families learned about the switch several months ago.

During divorce proceedings, one man refused to support his daughter Irina ? who has dark hair, dark eyes and olive skin ? because she didn't look like him. A DNA test then revealed that neither he nor the mother, Yuliya Belyaeva, were Irina's biological parents.

An official investigation then tracked down Irina's biological father, Naimat Iskanderov, who had been raising Belyaeva's own child, Anna, in a neighboring town.

Belyaeva said the news still makes her shiver.

"It is very unpleasant to relive those memories," she told The Associated Press. "We still can't fully comprehend what happened."

In video broadcast on Russia's NTV television, Belyaeva laughed with joy Monday after the judge delivered the verdict in a courtroom in Kopeisk, an industrial town of 140,000 in Russia's Ural Mountains, but Iskanderov remained stone-faced.

Fair-skinned Anna strongly resembles her biological mother Belyaeva, while Irina looks like her father Iskanderov, an ethnic Tajik born in the Central Asian and mostly Muslim ex-Soviet state of Tajikistan.

The video showed Belyaeva caressing Anna, while Irina, whom she raised, sat stern-faced with her eyes downcast.

"She feels jealous," Belyaeva said in televised remarks.

Belyaeva married again after separating from her husband and gave birth to two more children. Iskanderov parted with his wife when Anna was five but later married again, according to the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

Despite the verdict, Belyaeva said the swap will leave lasting emotional scars.

"The money just can't ease the pain," Belyaeva said. "All the money in the world isn't worth a child's look at mother ... there are moments when I think it would have been better if I hadn't known anything about that."

Russian television reports said the girls don't want to leave the parents who raised them, so the families were thinking of using the compensation money, which is huge by Russian standards, to live near each other or even share a home.

"I would like us to share a house so that we don't worry about her daughter coming to me and the other way round," Iskanderov said on television.

Belyaeva said she would prefer separate houses nearby, so that "we see our children growing up and take part in their education."

Belyaeva also identified the nurse who she claimed mixed up the babies, but the nurse denied any responsibility.

"I know it was not me who did it," nurse Nelly Prokopyeva told Russian television.

This is not the first time a Russian court decision has resolved a hospital mix-up.

In 2009, a court in the central Russian town of Mtsenks ordered two mothers to swap their two-year-old sons following a DNA test that proved the children were mixed up at a maternity hospital. The case was complicated by the ethnic and religious background of the women ? one of them was ethnic Russian and Orthodox Christian, while the other one was ethnic Chechen and Muslim.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111031/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_switched_at_birth

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Dunkin' Brands' net income falls on charges (AP)

NEW YORK ? Dunkin' Brands Group Inc., the parent of Dunkin' Donuts and the Baskin-Robbins ice cream chain, said Tuesday that its net income plummeted 61 percent in the July-to-September quarter, as the company paid charges related to going public and paying down debt.

Net income fell to $7.4 million from $18.8 million. Without the one-time charges, it would have risen 32 percent to $31.3 million.

Earnings were 28 cents per share without special items, beating analysts' estimates of 25 cents, according to FactSet. Revenue grew 9 percent to $163.5 million, which also beat the Wall Street forecast of $159.3 million.

Dunkin' Brands went public in July, partly as a way to help pay down debt. It's now focused on expanding outside its home base in the Northeast U.S.

The company also said Tuesday that some of its shareholders plan to sell 22 million shares, which represent more than 18 percent of the company's total common shares. The selling stockholders are the three private-equity firms who owned Dunkin' Brands before it went public and still retain big ownership stakes: Bain Capital Partners, Carlyle Group and Thomas H. Lee Partners.

In a statement about earnings, CEO Nigel Travis focused on revenue gains. He said the third-quarter results "reflect the strength of our overall business and underscore the opportunity we have to accelerate our profitable growth in the U.S. and around the world."

Some of the revenue increase was related to new store openings. The company also pointed out that revenue at stores open at least a year, which excludes the impact of newly opened stores, rose 5.6 percent in the U.S. That was a combination of 6 percent growth at Dunkin' Donuts, and 1.7 percent growth at the much smaller Baskin-Robbins unit.

The results from Baskin-Robbins' U.S. division are important because it has been the company's weakest link. The Dunkin' Donuts U.S. division is by far the company's biggest unit, making up about 70 percent of its revenue. Executives have acknowledged that they need to work on menu changes and franchisee relationships at the ice cream chain, where U.S. revenue fell slightly over the year, to $12 million from $12.3 million.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/earnings/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111101/ap_on_bi_ge/us_earns_dunkin_brands

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iPhone Owners: Are You Losing Battery Life? [POLL] (Mashable)

We've seen a number of stories about iPhone 4S users whose batteries have drained far faster than they could reasonably expect. By way of acknowledgment, Apple has reportedly been reaching out to affected users. Now several sources are suggesting the culprit is a bug inside iOS 5 -- meaning that anyone who upgraded, even on an older iPhone, may be affected.

[More from Mashable: What Does 7 Billion People Mean? There?s An App For That]

So we want to hear from the legions of iPhone-toting Mashable readers. Have you had a problem? If so, which device and iOS were you using?

Take our poll below, and let us know the specifics of your problem in the comments. We can't promise to fix it (although turning off time zone location services does seem promising as a temporary solution), but we do hope to help settle the question of whether this is a hardware or a software issues.

[More from Mashable: Inside the Google NYC LEGO and Tech Fantasy Land [PICS]]

SEE ALSO: Apple Enlists iPhone 4S Users to Solve Battery Problem

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/applecomputer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/mashable/20111031/tc_mashable/iphone_owners_are_you_losing_battery_life_poll

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