LeapFrog LeapPad 2 and Leapster GS Explorer hands-on (video)

If you've got little ones of your own, you're probably familiar with LeapFrog's various learning devices for children. Since last year, the company stepped things up a notch by offering up its LeapPad tablet breed for youngsters and pricing it at just $100. Not only did it ensure you'd never have to your precious iPad loose into rigors of the adolescence (read: having it tortured by kids in unimaginable ways), but it also packed LeapFrog's developmental education know-how into all of its apps. If you'll recall, it was just yesterday that the company announced its second iteration of the device, the LeapPad 2, and today we were able to spend some time with near production-quality engineering samples. On that note, the same can be said of its latest Leapster, the GS Explorer -- a $70 Gameboy-like portable unit focused more on educational gaming. Join us after the break for a brief rundown of what's been improved and our initial impressions of both.

Gallery: LeapFrog Leapster GS hands-on

Gallery: LeapFrog LeapPad 2 hands-on

Continue reading LeapFrog LeapPad 2 and Leapster GS Explorer hands-on (video)

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Growing up: What a 10-year-old wants to drive when he grows up

Sure, growing up too soon happens to plenty of kids these days. But when our guest blogger's 10-year-old started asking about culinary school and car shopping online? Whoa, kid. Whoa.

By Lauren Parker-Gill,?Guest blogger / June 19, 2012

Growing up too soon, the author's 10-year-old son is already looking online for cars and asking about culinary school. Next he will be looking for apartments. Other kids use cardboard boxes to create a grown-up world with cars and houses, including these Build A Dream Playhouses.

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Earlier this week, Grande asked for a Facebook account. No way. (Personally? I think the ?recommended age? of 13 is even too young!) He?s also been asking me about culinary schools (he wants to be a baker, like the?Cake Boss) and has been car shopping online. He?s 10.

Skip to next paragraph Lauren Parker-Gill

Contributing blogger

Lauren Parker-Gill is? a wife, mother, purse fiend, gadget girl, chocoholic, and coffee addict who refers to her three boys as Venti, Grande, and Tall in her Spill the Beans parenting blog.

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Grande:?Mom. There?s this car and it?s only *$20,000. Since it?s not that expensive, I?ll get that one when I can drive.

Me:?Ha! Start saving now, Bud. Also, give it six to seven years. It?ll come down in price.

Grande:?Oh, like it?ll go on sale?

Me:?More like it will be used and it won?t be new, so it will cost less.

Grande:?Oh, I do NOT want a used car!

Me:?Hello? Our van was used when we got it! And if you have to choose between a used car or no car, you?ll probably think differently. WHY ARE WE EVEN TALKING ABOUT THIS???

Grande:?I am planning for the future.

I like that he has an idea of what he wants to be when he grows up. He loves helping in the kitchen, with baking and cooking, and I am happy to help nurture that. I?m even looking into cake decorating classes in our area. I?m answering his questions about culinary schools, how long it will take, the different programs, etc. But car shopping? He?s 10! What?s next, apartment hunting?

Take it down a notch, kid.

*For those wondering, he built and configured a?Volkswagen Jetta?SE with convenience package.

The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best family and parenting bloggers out there. Our contributing and guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor, and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. Lauren Parker-Gill blogs at?Spill the Beans.

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World?s first commercial IBM Hot-Water Cooled Supercomputer Consumes 40% Less Energy

The Leibniz Supercomputing Center (LRZ), in collaboration with IBM, today announced the world?s first commercially available hot-water cooled supercomputer, a powerful, high-performance system designed to help researchers and industrial institutions across Europe investigate and solve some of the world?s most daunting scientific challenges. The new LRZ SuperMUC system was built with IBM System x iDataPlex Direct Water Cooled dx360 M4 servers with more than 150,000 cores to provide a peak performance of up to three petaflops, which is equivalent to the work of more than 110,000 personal computers.

Palestinian footballer to end strike, go free

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) ? A member of the Palestinian national soccer team, imprisoned by Israel for nearly three years, agreed Monday to end a hunger strike of more than three months in exchange for his release July 10, his lawyer said.

The deal to free Mahmoud Sarsak would end the longest hunger strike ever launched by a Palestinian prisoner held by Israel. In a symbolic act, Sarsak, who has shed nearly half his normal weight, ate a small piece of chocolate on Monday evening to show the strike was over.

Israel has accused Sarsak of being active in the violent group Islamic Jihad, a claim he has denied. He was arrested in July 2009 at a crossing between his native Gaza and Israel on his way to the West Bank for a football match. He has been imprisoned since then without formal charges or trial.

In March, he launched a hunger strike to press demands for his release.

As his condition deteriorated, prominent figures in the sports world came to his support. FIFA's president asked Israel's football federation to urgently intercede on Sarsak's behalf with the Israeli authorities and FIFPro, an international organization of professional footballers, called for his release. Former Manchester United great Eric Cantona, British filmmaker Ken Loach and others signed a petition calling for freedom for the player.

Meanwhile, Palestine soccer officials, citing Sarsak's ordeal, asked UEFA to remove Israel as the host of the 2013 European Under-21 Championship.

In a letter released late Monday by Israel's football association, UEFA President Michel Platini said the tournament would be held in Israel "despite a certain amount of pressure being put on us."

Sarsak's lawyer, Mohammed Jabareen, said the agreement to release his client was reached with Israel's Prisons Authority.

As part of the arrangement he will be transferred from a prison clinic to a civilian hospital on Tuesday to help him recover from the long fast, the lawyer said. On July 10, the 25-year-old Sarsak is to be released and sent to Gaza, Jabareen added.

Israel's Prisons Authority spokeswoman Sivan Weizman declined comment Monday.

Earlier this month, independent doctors who examined Sarsak said he suffered from fainting spells, memory lapses and dangerous pulse disruptions. Six days ago, as negotiations on a release deal moved ahead, Sarsak agreed to drink vitamin-infused milk, and he has gained five kilograms, or 11 pounds, since then, Jabareen said.

Hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel have staged hunger strikes this year, but none have generated as much international support as Sarsak, who kept going when the others stopped.

Israel portrayed Sarsak as a dangerous activist in the violent Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad, which has killed scores of Israelis in bombings and shootings. Israel's Shin Bet security service has alleged that Sarsak once planted a bomb that injured an Israeli soldier but acknowledged in a statement that "there is no evidence available to try him for criminal activity."

Palestinians have hailed hunger strikes as the first effective means in years of exerting pressure on Israel. The protests, which brought several prisoners close to death, Sarsak among them, have also drawn attention to Israel's practice of holding Palestinians without charges or trial, in so-called administrative detention.

Among those held without trial or charges, Sarsak is a special case. Israel has imprisoned him as an "unlawful combatant," a status with even fewer legal rights than those of administrative detainees, according to the Israeli rights group B'Tselem. There's a legal review every six months, but the burden proof is on the prisoner to show he is no longer dangerous, the group said.

The designation of "unlawful combatant" is used for detainees from abroad, and Israel places Gaza in that category. Israel says it cut all ties with Gaza when it withdrew in 2005, after 38 years of occupation. After the takeover of Gaza by the Islamic militant Hamas, Israel declared the territory a "hostile entity."

Sarsak is currently the only "unlawful combatant" held in Israel, according to the Israel Prisons Authority.

He was arrested on July 22, 2009, at a crossing between Gaza and Israel. At the time, he was en route to the West Bank, on the other side of Israel, for a game against a West Bank club.

___

Associated Press writers Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, and Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank contributed reporting.

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WWDC days four and five

On the fourth day of WWDC, Rene and I had a bit more of a relaxing day where we got to hang out at the Moscone Center, talk with a few devs, spend time with Seth and Mark Gurman, and have a nice dinner with the folks at Agile Bits, Ecamm, Jake Behrens, and Merlin Mann.

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Romney won't say he'll overturn immigration order

BRUNSWICK, Ohio (AP) ? Mitt Romney in an interview aired Sunday repeatedly refused to say that he would overturn President Barack Obama's new policy allowing some young illegal immigrants to stay in the United States. He claimed Obama's decision was political, while senior White House adviser David Plouffe said the move wasn't motivated by politics.

The Republican presidential candidate was asked three times in an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation" whether he would overturn the executive order issued Friday if he's elected in the fall. He refused to directly answer.

"It would be overtaken by events," Romney said when pressed for the second time by moderator Bob Schieffer during the interview taped Saturday while the former Massachusetts governor's bus tour stopped in Pennsylvania.

He explained the order would become irrelevant "by virtue of my putting in place a long-term solution, with legislation which creates law that relates to these individuals such that they know what their setting is going to be, not just for the term of a president but on a permanent basis."

Romney's Rust Belt tour swept through Ohio on Sunday. He attended a Father's Day pancake breakfast with two of his sons and five of his 18 grandchildren. He told a rain-soaked crowd that the weather was a metaphor for the country and that "three and half years of dark clouds are about to part." At a second event in Newark, near Columbus, Romney told a cheering crowd that the president's slogan had changed.

"Last time when he was running for president his campaign theme was hope and change. This time he's hoping to change the subject because the American people are not happy," Romney said, speaking for about nine minutes as Occupy Wall Street protesters yelled from a nearby sidewalk.

He planned a third in the state Sunday, where he was set to campaign with House Speaker John Boehner.

In the TV interview, Romney suggested that Obama's decision on immigration was motivated by politics. "If he felt seriously about this he should have taken action when he had a Democrat House and Senate, but he didn't. He saves these sort of things until four and a half months before the general election," he said.

Plouffe, the Obama adviser, sent by the White House to four of the talk shows, contended that Obama's action, which appeals to Hispanic voters who are critical to the president's re-election effort, was not "a political move."

Still, Plouffe acknowledged that Obama's team expects an extraordinarily close election. "It's going to come down to a few votes per precinct in a few states," Plouffe said in an interview on NBC's Meet the Press. His comment underscores the reality that a small number of extra votes from Hispanics could make the difference in some key states like Nevada and Colorado.

Obama's order has put Romney in the difficult position, forcing him to decide between possibly alienating Hispanic voters with tough talk or stoking anger within a conservative GOP base that was slow to warm to him during the primary process.

Romney's comments represent a further softening of his rhetoric on immigration since the GOP primary campaign ended.

For example, before the Iowa caucuses in January, when he faced the challenge of winning over the right-wing base of the GOP, he pledged to veto legislation backed by Democrats that would have created a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. Instead of emphasizing the plight of illegal immigrants, Romney focused on the consequences illegal immigration has for U.S. jobs.

Obama's immigration announcement disrupted the start of Romney's five-day bus tour through small cities and towns in six important states.

The tour, now on its third day, scheduled three stops, including two in Ohio towns just outside the metropolitan areas of Cleveland and Columbus. Romney spent the first two days in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, where he assailed Obama and insisted that he's the candidate who will give middle-class Americans "a fair shot."

The Obama administration said the policy change announced Friday will affect as many as 800,000 immigrants who have lived in fear of deportation. Obama's move bypasses Congress and partially achieves the goals of the Democrats' long-stalled legislation aimed at young illegal immigrants who went to college or served in the military.

Under the administration plan, illegal immigrants will be able to avoid deportation if they can prove they were brought to the United States before they turned 16 and are younger than 30, have been in the country for at least five continuous years, have no criminal history, graduated from a U.S. high school or earned a GED diploma or certificate, or served in the military. They also can apply for a work permit that will be good for two years with no limits on how many times it can be renewed.

Romney's CBS interview was his first in more than a year with a Sunday talk show on a network other than Fox. It covered a range of topics, including health care, Romney's political future and the European financial crisis.

Romney said that the American banking sector "is able to weather the storm" in Europe. He said European countries are capable of dealing with their mess "if they choose to do so" and the U.S. doesn't want to get into the business of bailing out foreign banks. Romney also does not favor another round of economic stimulus by the Federal Reserve, saying a previous one didn't have the desired effect.

Romney also taped an interview with CSPAN, aired Sunday, and emphasized he wouldn't implement an austerity plan in the U.S. if elected. "What we would never do would be to dramatically slash spending by a trillion or $2 trillion as I came into the White House," he said. Instead, Romney said he will cut programs that would have otherwise grown more expensive over time.

In the CBS interview, the former Massachusetts governor ? whose healthcare plan for the state served as the model for the national health reform law ? outlined steps he'd take if the Supreme Court strikes it down.

On Iran, Romney said he would be willing to "take military action if necessary" to prevent the country from becoming a nuclear power.

Romney also insisted that he isn't worried about his own political future. "I don't have a political career," Romney said. "I spent my life in the private sector.I don't care about re-elections." Moderator Bob Schieffer asked, "So you're not saying you just intend to serve one term?"

Romney replied that for him "this is not about politics. This is not about did I win this or did they win this. This is about what can we do to get America right."

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State Laws Cut Teen Drinking and Driving, Large Study Shows

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