Now an Online Game to improve Mental Health of the Youth

A youth welfare group has come up with a new way to improve the mental health of young people: an online video game. Called “Reach Out Central”, this online role-playing game has been promoted by the Inspire Foundation. In this game players can “test-drive life and play it when and how you want to”.

Helping and befriending the computer-controlled characters that inhabit the online world is essential, and the Inspire Foundation hopes skills developed in the game and choices made there about friends, partying, work and life in general will transfer to the real world.

The foundation’s director of programs, Jonathan Nicholas, said that young people aged 16-25 would be targeted, as they were the most vulnerable.

He also said a major focus was to develop a cool, fun game that looked good and was engaging. Engagement was difficult to achieve by simply forcing booklets of information at young people.

Mark Rosser, senior program manager for youth at national depression initiative beyondblue, said one in five young people suffered from depression each year and he was concerned that fewer than 40 per cent of them actually went on to seek help.

Nicholas believes Inspire’s use of an engaging game to deliver mental health information online is a winning strategy. He said much of Reach Out Central’s content was based on an education program used in schools.

“Rather than being a static game it’s probably best to think about Reach Out Central as an online soapie game - we’ll continue to add in and write new storylines,” he said.

The Sony Foundation stumped up the $500,000 needed to develop the game, but it is also supported by beyondblue, NSW Health, Teen Spirit Foundation and The Golden Stave Foundation.

Source : healthyjockey.com

Mozilla Firefox Campus Edition Rilis Perdana

Akhirnya baru-baru ini Mozilla telah merilis Firefox Edisi Kampus (Firefox Campus Edition) secara perdana. Firefox Edisi Kampus ini merupakan esensial back-to-school. Firefox Campus Edition ini merupakan kombinasi antara kecepatan, keamanan dan fitur-fitur yang ada dalam Firefox browser dengan tambahan istimewa yang memberikan akses "streamlined" ke musik, site-site keren, dan informasi yang berguna.

Firefox Campus Edition ini sangat cocok digunakan bagi para pelajar dan harganya tentunya disesuaikan dengan kantong pelajar yaitu GRATISSS !!!
Dalam Firefox Campus Edition ini ditambahkan 3 buah add-ons yang berguna bagi pelajar yaitu :

1. FOXYTUNES yang berfungsi sebagai media manager berbasis web, yang dapat memainkan beragam file multmedia, dan mencari lirik, cover, video atau biografi penyanyi via internet.

2. ZOTERO merupakan plug-in yang dapat digunakan untuk mengatur, mengkompilasi artikel-artikel, dan mengutip dari sumber-sumber riset.

3. STUMBLEUPON yang secara random membuka salah satu website dari sejumlah besar website yang kita inginkan. Semuanya dilakukan secara otomatis.

Bagi anda yang telah menginstall Firefox dan ingin merasakan Firefox Campus Edition ini, anda tinggal mendownload dan menginstall ketiga add-ons tersebut.

63% of Malware Emerges from U.S. Sites

Cyveillance,Inc. report chronicles a continued rise in malware distribution and phishing attacks.

U.S.-based Web sites hosting malware are responsible for the majority of malware distributed on the Internet, according to a report by security company Cyveillance,Inc. Click here to see the report (PDF).

The company's "Online Financial Fraud and Identity Theft Report" found that Web surfers visiting sites based in the United States are more at risk from malware attacks and online identity theft than visitors to sites based in other countries, with more than 63 percent of malware distributed to visitors via tainted U.S.-based Web sites.
ADVERTISEMENT

In addition, 25 percent of malware-hosting sites, where the actual binary malware files are hosted and served up, are based in the United States. China leads the way with 34 percent of malware-hosting sites, the report found.

"We believe that this is simply a case of following the money," said Todd Bransford, vice president of marketing at Cyveillance, based in Arlington, Va. "The criminals want access to the computers of U.S. citizens so they can eventually tap into their financial resources. Therefore, they distribute malware on sites visited by U.S consumers."

eWEEK.com Special Report: Cyber-Crime

"Obviously, a drop site hosted in the United States can be accessed from anywhere in the world, so the high percentage of U.S.-based drop sites may be more a factor of the simplicity and level of automation afforded by U.S. service providers to criminals … with a stolen credit card number," he said.

The report includes data collected and analyzed between April 1 and June 30, 2007, based on information collected from more than 200 million unique domain name servers and 150 million unique Web sites. Some 2 million URLs were found to be distributing malware.

eWEEK.com Special Report: Internet Security

"Conservatively, it is fair to estimate that malware attacks via the Web doubled in Q2 compared to Q1," Bransford said. "Given that more than 60 percent of these sites were hosted in the United States, it seems fair to assume that the malware threat to U.S. citizens on the Web is up 100 percent."

The Cyveillance report also recorded a 20 percent increase in the aggregate quantity of brands targeted, indicating that phishers continue to change targets. Since 2005, over 1,400 companies have been attacked, the report concluded.