Growing up with today’s technology has its advantages. Constant access to family and friends via social networking, and the ability to take all of your music, photos and videos with you wherever you go are just a few perks. As many parents will tell you, there are also downsides to growing up in the “always connected” generation.

Kids can all to easily be maliciously bullied via texting, Twitter and Facebook. All without any physical contact. Even worse, kids can even become targets for sexual predators — all from that mobile phone you gave them only for ‘emergencies.’ A company called SMobile is working to help families block what’s dangerous, while offering monitoring and location-based services to help ensure your child’s safety.

Read on to see SMobile’s full list of features and learn how it can help protect your loved ones.

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A MELBOURNE magistrate has pleaded with young people to think before sending hate-filled text messages, as he prepares to sentence a cyber bully whose victim killed himself.

Allem Halkic was aged 17 when he jumped to his death from Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge in February 2009.

Shane Gerada, 21, of Bacchus Marsh, west of Melbourne, had sent him five threatening text messages in the hours leading up to his death.

He pleaded guilty to stalking in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court today.

The court was told cyber bullying had reached plague proportions.

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Forget about the notion of creepy older guys targeting young children in a park. With the anonymity and ease of going online to connect with hundreds of children, predators can now forgo the schoolyards.

Fuelled by Facebook and a growing number of online social networking sites, cases of Internet child luring happen more often than you think, according to a world-renowned cyber-safety expert, and most parents are clueless. Research also suggests the vast majority of luring by using electronic means to set up a meeting with underage children for a sexual purpose is never reported in Canada.

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It’s 10 p.m., do you know where your children are? The good news is that your cyber-nanny can help.

A software application from SMobile Systems, offered in partnership with ContentWatch, can help parents answer that question more easily. The technology works with a range of smartphone platforms to keep tabs on their communications. It works by filtering text traffic for certain keywords, such as party, or by monitoring photos they were sending or receiving. If one of your selected variables is targeted, you’ll get a text. What’s more you can go retrieve said offspring, if necessary, by using the GPS tracking features in their phone. The application also has Internet filtering capabilities, so it can make sure that your children don’t visit inappropriate Web sites with their smartphone.

Read more about applications from SMobile to protect your children

Officer Mike Webster said the first sexual assault case arising from social networking to gain national attention happened in 2005.

A 12-year-old girl stole the password to her older sister’s MySpace page, then she and her friend began communicating with a man they met there. He arranged to meet them behind a school on a Saturday afternoon and he sexually assaulted them, Webster said.

“I ask my students ‘where do you think this occurred?’ The answer to that is Newington, CT. David Leonard was the predator. He was arrested by six other police departments and they think he had about 10 victims in total. He’s currently serving 25 years.”

The case was a wake-up call, said Webster, who used to teach the anti-drug DARE program in town. It was no longer enough just to tell kids about harmful substances, he said. Suddenly there were online predators, cyber-bullying and sexting to worry about.

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Dan Hoffman, Executive VP and CTO for Smobile Systems speaks with Michelle Sklar of bnetTV.com at the 2010 CTIA Wireless show held in Las Vegas

Click here to view the video

Mobile phones should be fitted with improved parental controls so that children can be prevented from accessing harmful internet material, a Government advisor will say today.

Tanya Byron will say that youngsters are increasingly accessing the internet via their phones and that the national safety strategy must keep pace with technology.

She will call for the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) to work with phone manufacturers to enhance parental controls on mobiles.

There are concerns about young children accessing social networking sites, which can be used for cyber-bullying, and internet pornography.

Read more about the demand for Parental Controls

With millions of preteens and teenagers carrying mobile phones, instances of cyber-stalking, cyber-bullying and “sexting” are on the rise, and has resulted in everything from the prosecution of children and parents to teen suicide.

To help parents protect their children from these “mobile assaults,” SMobile Systems has unveiled the latest version of its Parental Controls and Monitoring service to now include GPS tracking and picture monitoring.

Mobile Marketer interviewed Neil Book, CEO of SMobile Systems. Here is what he said.

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Open communication is still the key to protecting children, parents were advised – especially when it comes to social networking.

As their children begin using Facebook, e-mail and cell phones, parents today are finding a whole new set of dangers to worry about – like cyberbullying, sexting, and online sexual predators.

“I’m very nervous about the whole cyber-space issue,” said Earlene Biggs of New Hope. Biggs, who has three grown children, now cares for her 12-year-old niece and is discovering that technological advancements have made parenting today a lot different from 10 years ago.

Biggs came to the Central Bucks Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday to participate in a discussion on the new issues facing parents in the age of the Internet, led by family therapist Fabian Salgado of Growing Within Counseling in Doylestown.

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WARREN, Pa.—Police say a New York man sent nude and lewd text messages to several teenage girls in northwestern Pennsylvania after accessing their personal information on Internet social networking sites.

Pennsylvania State Police in Warren don’t believe 26-year-old Adam Larson ever met any of the “thousands” of girls he claims to have texted between June 2008 and December 2009.

Rather, they say he collected cell phone numbers of 14- to 17-year-old girls from MySpace and Facebook and then would send mass text messages to the girls. Police say Larson sent nude photos of himself, requested the same from the girls and offered his Jamestown apartment to those who would run away from home.

Police expect Larson to surrender in Warren on Monday. The Associated Press could not locate a home telephone for him.

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