children

Two important, if somewhat cliche, online public service videos warn teenagers about the dangers of putting photos and personal information online. My question is why it took so long for someone to come up with an educational effort to help kids understand the privacy implications of sharing their images and lives with the world online, something many of them do every day?

The videos can be viewed on the Google Blogoscoped blog. Sponsored by the Ad Council, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Project Safe Childhood in the U.S. Department of Justice, they are part of … Read more

It's depressing, but the steady growth of asthma sufferers worldwide has given rise to more everyday products to deal with the disease. A few months ago, for example, we even saw a snorkel made for those with the affliction. Now, taking some design (and marketing) cues from the gadget world, a U.K. creative team has come up with the "Apod," a line of cases for the pocket inhalers used by those with the chronic respiratory ailment. The brightly colored Apods could prove especially important in de-stigmatizing the inhalers because so many asthma sufferers are children.

"Do as I say, not as I do," probably summarizes the financial advice of many parents. Intuit, by contrast, aims for its new, Web-based Quicken Kids & Money to teach young children fiscal discipline while demanding attention from parents in the process. This $99 yearly subscription includes browser-based interfaces for parents and their 5- to 8-year-olds. The time seems ripe for an interactive service like this, given advertisers' colossal efforts to capture the hearts and minds of children along with the wallets of their parents.

Designed for integration into household habits rather than as a babysitting tool, Quicken … Read more

Sometimes, when parental fogyism gets the better of us, we just have to ask why. Why, for example, would you want to encourage a child to learn text messaging before they need to? Won't they be retreating to their secluded corners with device in hand soon enough?

Mattel apparently wants to accelerate adolescent isolation by introducing the $65 "IM-Me," kind of a training-wheels version of a texting phone or SMS device that we spotted on Gadgets Weblog. About the only good thing we can see is that it doesn't require a two-year contract, working instead only … Read more

Be honest: Can you work all the buttons on your TV remote? If your household is anything like ours, you may well have four or five of them to master.

A company called Fobis Technologies has distilled the functions to their simplest forms with their line of "Weemotes" aimed at children (not to be confused with the homonymous "Wiimote.") But we frankly think the concept--and perhaps these products--could well find a market among addled adult viewers like us as well.

The Weemote can be programmed for up to 10 channels, as Chip Chicklets notes, so it … Read more

Every once in a while, you come across a company that's just really cool. Online CD trading outfit LaLa.com is one such company. Not only does LaLa pay registered artists a percentage of the income generated from CD trades on the site (despite the fact that this is not legally required) and donate unregistered artists' shares to a fund that helps pay for independent musicians' medical insurance, it also revived online radio pioneer WOXY.com and allows users to create and stream massive online playlists--for free. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy when a company that'… Read more

When we saw the "iKids" safety system the other day, we liked the idea but suggested that it come with some other function that might give children more of an incentive to avoid losing it, such as games or music. Japan's Softbank Mobile has come up with a similar idea for an even more obvious device--the phone.

Mobile Magazine says Softbank is marketing its Toshiba 812T clamshell handset specifically for kids, as its pink and blue cases would indicate for the clueless. The phone has an emergency tab at the bottom that, when pulled, sounds an alarm … Read more

It's a simple fact of life: Good ideas often miss something obvious that would make them great ideas. One example is GPS devices for locating lost or missing children.

Many of the tracking technologies we've seen are basically one-way systems--you stick a sensor onto a backpack or clothes, then the parent tracks it with a main unit. But why not make it work the other way around as well?

The "i-Kids" safety system promises to do just that, giving your child a device that allows them to touch a single button that alerts you to … Read more

We've long cautioned against overuse of technology to replace basic parenting responsibilities, but our concerns usually focused on such items as baby cams and RFID backpacks. The "Intellicot," however, takes the proverbial cake.

Cencio, the manufacturer, says the Intellicot is a high-tech alternative to a "wooden cage with a mattress" and helps develop regular sleeping patterns while controlling temperatures. But we agree with the assessment by GearLive instead: "The gadget rocks your baby, has a video camera for surveillance, a built-in lift system, and circulates air. Called a 'labour of love' by Britain's … Read more