Crave

(Credit: Handipoints)

For parents, enticing kids to do their chores is often about making deals--a trade of sorts, like taking out the trash for extra time watching TV.

For George Zachary and his 10-year-old stepdaughter, that real-world exchange happens online through a site called Handipoints, a digital chore-list manager for parents and their kids. The Web site lets parents set a list of tasks for their children--like washing the dishes or filling the dog's bowl--and kids can rack up points for completing the list. With enough points, children can cash them in for digital gear in the site's virtual world, or for tangible goods with a few dollars from mom and dad.

"She earned points to get some Disney DVDs and books called The Warriors about an underground legion of cats," said Zachary, who as a venture capitalist knows about deal-making. "The site is her start page."

This arrangement could pay off doubly for Zachary. His venture firm Charles River Venture invested around $800,000 in Handipoints last spring with a group of angels that included former Googlers Georges Harik and Aydin Senkut, Inspiration Ventures, and Keith Rabois, an investor in YouTube.

Handipoints is one of a raft of new child-focused sites and virtual worlds that are competing with established kid favorites like Club Penguin, Gaia Online, and Webkinz. Like those sites, Handipoints runs its own virtual world with games and personalized avatars, but the company has a slightly different angle on fostering community. It's trying first to be a tool for parents and kids.

"We're trying to motivate kids to stay active in the real world," said Viva Chu, who founded the company in January 2007 after helping develop the architecture of Internet marketing company Adteractive.

The company makes money from the sale of goods from the site--books and DVDs, for example--and it plans to sell advertising that would be targeted toward parents. It also plans to charge subscriptions.

Since its launch last spring, the company has drawn about 150,000 registered users of both parents and kids. So it has a long way to go before it can compete with the big sites like Club Penguin, which draws millions of users every month. But Chu said the company, which employs 20 people in Oakland and overseas, expects to raise several million dollars this summer in a Series A round of funding to build out the service.

With luck, that won't be a chore in a tightening economy.

A scene from Pixie Hollow

(Credit: Disney Online)

Online kids playgrounds are more popular than ever. Disney Online said Tuesday that it will add to its online services for children with a new virtual world called Pixie Hollow, based on fictional characters like Disney's Tinkerbell and building on the site DisneyFairies.com. Similar to Disney's Toontown and Club Penguin, the company's newest virtual world will feature instant chat, games and tools to personal the environment. Disney did not specify when Pixie will launch, but it said that it will open the first phase later this year.

Also on Tuesday, AOL said that it will relaunch its kids site KOL with newly featured content from National Geographic Kids, among others. The new site will also let kids customize the page, sign up for a personal e-mail address and play as many as 100 games.

The sites were unveiled at the Toy Fair in New York.

Steve Parkis, Disney Online's senior vice president for online products, said the company also introduced new Disney Fairies toys that will connect to the Pixie Hollow virtual world and let girls make friends, among other activities. "Fans have already created millions of Fairy avatars on DisneyFairies.com, making it evident that there is a strong desire for additional content around these beloved stories and characters," he said in a statement.

Used to turning to Consumer Reports for product reviews? You might want to bookmark MrCoversClassReviews.com.

Students from Fox Meadow Intermediate Center put the Weather X Flashlight/Radio through its paces.

(Credit: MrCoversClassReviews.com)

Sixth graders at Fox Meadow Intermediate Center in Jonesboro, Ark., have started testing consumer products and posting their reviews online. And given their clear and thorough assessments, it looks like Jonesboro may have a future David Pogue or Walt Mossberg in its ranks.

Students in Millard Cover's reading classes are getting gadget-ey to learn to apply analytical and critical skills to nonfiction. "When we review a product, we first review news releases, advertising, packaging, manuals, and other written materials to see how the product is supposed to perform," the students explain on their Web site. "Then we test it to see how it does compared to our expectations based upon our reading."

The young gadgeteers have just posted their first set of reviews--of the Weather X Flashlight/Radio emergency and safety weather device.

Many students gave the product a smiley emoticon for being easy to read and having a number of power sources (rechargeable batteries, AAA batteries, and a hand crank). A number of young reviewers found the alarm hard to set, earning that feature a frown. But overall, the kids found the product up to their standards, ruling that it warrants their own quality-recognition distinction--the coveted "Sly Fox Award."

"This lean, mean, little cool machine is a functional device that can help you in storms such as tornadoes, hurricanes, flash flood warnings and severe thunder storms," writes one team of reviewers. "This device can help you with all those things FOR A LOW PRICE OF $29.99."

Students test the Weather X Flashlight/Radio outdoors.

(Credit: MrCoversClassReviews.com)

Future review products are likely to be a karaoke machine and a flying, remote-controlled helicopter, according to Cover. Manufacturers who would like their goods reviewed by the students can contact Cover via the MrCoversClassReviews.com site. Products can be returned or donated for a student raffle.

But the Arkansas gadget watchers aren't stopping at consumer electronics. As the final step of the reading project, they will use their analytical skills, honed through the review procedures, to analyze scholarship applications. They will then award two, privately funded $500 "Sly Fox Scholarships" to high-school seniors from their school district.

But scholarship applicants best beware. Cover's students have exacting standards.

"The 6th graders who will be evaluating these scholarship applications are ruthless when it comes to checking for grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.," the kids warn on their site. "So, please be sure to edit and proof your application prior to submission."

The X Prize Foundation and Google are looking to whiz kids for robot ideas.

Three weeks ago, the L.A.-based prize organization announced the Google Lunar X Prize--a $20 million-plus contest to put a robot on the moon that can rove for at least 500 meters and send visuals back to Earth. As if to add heft to the unveiling, Google and X Prize executives talked about the mission and the future of space exploration while surrounded by throngs of school-aged kids from around Los Angeles.

Now, the people behind the Google Lunar X Prize are calling on middle-school and high-school kids for winning ideas for the challenge. It's doing this by sponsoring a research and design Web site challenge for kids participating in the Botball Educational Robotics Program, an international robotics series based in Norman, Okla. The contest is called the X Prize Lunar Rover Botball Design Challenge.

The contest calls on teams to build a site that details a conceptual mobile robot lightweight enough to win the Google Lunar X Prize. Of course, the students can't actually win the $20 million first prize for the challenge, which is for private industry teams and must be physically accomplished by 2012 to win the full prize money. But students can win a $1,000 award to travel to the Global Conference on Educational Robotics, to be held next summer. (Winners will be announced on the Botball Web site before the first regional Botball tournament on March 1, 2008.)

"One goal of the Google Lunar X Prize is to engage and encourage this next generation of scientists and explorers. (This competition) will give these students, and their teachers and parents and friends, a direct and personal connection to space exploration," William Pomerantz, X Prize's director of space projects, said in a statement.

Text-message spam may go up this November for voter-age youth.

Turns out that young people are more likely to vote when they receive a text-message reminder, according to a new study published this month by researchers at Princeton University and the University of Michigan.

(Credit: WhiteHouse.gov)

The researchers ran their test in the November 2006 election, with text reminders sent to roughly 4,000 young voters. Researchers pulled data and cell phone numbers from voter registration records at the Student PIRG's New Voters Project and Working Assets Wireless; and following the election, they matched the files to find out which registrants had voted.

The study showed that voter turnout rates rose by 4 percent in the sample group of young people who had received a text message to vote. According to the study, short, to-the-point reminders were most effective, with a rise of nearly 5 percentage points.

But in a follow-up survey, nearly a quarter of the respondents said the messages were annoying just like you might expect from unsolicited messages. About 59 percent said the texts were helpful. That percentage could be hopeful news for campaigners this fall, especially considering that the study pegged the added cost per vote at $1.56, compared with about $30 for door-to-door canvassing.

English company is considering adding satellite tracking devices to its line of school uniforms.

(Credit: Trutex)

Parents already have a way to monitor kids' phone calls and text messages, and soon they might have the means to track children wearing school uniforms.

An English manufacturer of uniforms is considering adding satellite tracking devices to its line of school clothing so that parents can locate their child's whereabouts at all times, according to an article from the Daily Telegraph in Australia. The manufacturer, Lancashire-based Trutex, believes there is a demand for such clothing. In a recent survey of its own, the company found that 59 percent of 800 parents surveyed were interested in buying uniforms with embedded Global Positioning Systems.

Still, it seems unlikely that a teenager would willingly wear a GPS-laced outfit. According to the article, only half of kids 12 and under (who were surveyed) said that they wouldn't mind wearing the clothes.

Mattel started selling a new "Barbie Girls" MP3 doll this week, in an attempt to get hip to a generation immersed in technology. About three months ago, Barbie launched a new virtual world for girls online to compete with likes of Club Penquin (recently bought by Disney) and Webkinz, maker of plush toys. Barbie's new MP3 player is designed to buoy that virtual world effort and resuscitate flagging sales of its traditional glamor doll. Barbie Girls are handheld MP3 players that can be accessorized like a doll and used to unlock special animations, make friends and shop in a virtual world on the Web.

Mattel is hoping a Barbie MP3 player can lure an audience of little girls through music, and eventually outpace other real-to-virtual-world toys. The music player, which began selling in stores this week for about $60, can hold up to 120 MP3s or 240 WMA-file songs. Girls can buy $10 accessory kits to dress up the toy MP3 player. The question is, will girls buy them?

New York Senator Carl Marcellino

(Credit: SenatorMarcellino.com)

A New York state senator has recently proposed a bill that would make it illegal to send a text message while driving in the state. The proposal from Senator Carl Marcellino was made in response to a fatal car accident involving four New York state teens. Police believe the driver, a recent high-school grad, was text messaging a friend before crashing into an oncoming trailer and killing all four in the vehicle.

A recent study shows that almost half of all teens send text messages while driving, making the odds considerably high for this kind of accident. The senator's bill, S.3195, would ban the writing, sending or reading of text messages on mobile phones while driving.

"Talking on cell phones isn't the only distraction that causes distracted driving. The explosion of text messaging has created a new problem," Marcellino said in a statement. "Now is the time to end texting while driving before more of our young people become victims of distracted driving."

Seems like only a matter of time before this kind of legislation shows up in more states.

If you've ever wondered who's driving like a bonehead up ahead, it could be a teen who's behind the wheel, steering with one hand and sending a text message with the other. According to a study from AAA and Seventeen magazine, cited by this USA Today article, almost half of teens surveyed admitted that they send text messages from the driver's seat. (The researchers interviewed about 1,000 teen drivers in the United States to compile the data.)

That dovetails with a study published Tuesday about teen cell phone habits, which commonly include texting from the classroom, movie theater and dinner table. It would seem high-school kids are cut from the cloth of the text-crazy adult in this parody video about the "CrackBerry." In the Disney Mobile/Harris Interactive study, 44 percent of U.S. teens said that text messaging is their primary form of communication.

At this rate, it won't be long before one-handed texting joins parallel parking on the driver's test.