Tag: kids
KidZui launch kid-friendly web browser
Features over 2 million websites, games, photographs and videos suitable for children, jointly approved by parents and teachers.
The Firefly glowPhone – a restricted phone for kids
The Firefly glowPhone is to be released in the UK by the end of the year. The child friendly handset which has become a big hit in Ireland (7,000 units sold) aims to tap in to the ever increasing children’s mobile phone market – over half of all under 10s in the UK own a mobile phone.
The phone has a fairly basic setup – perfect for younger children. It has just five buttons and two of these are dedicated for mum and dad. There is a 1.5-inch colour screen with 128×128 resolution that kids will be able to customise with their own wallpapers. Other features include built in games, customisable ringtones and a flashlight.
The phone has capacity to store up to 50 contacts although everything is pin protected so as parents can control all in and outgoing calls. Blocking texts is also a function on some models.
Not surprisingly there is some criticism for the phone. Not surprisingly a lot of this criticism is via The Daily Mail.
I think the phone is a great idea. It comes as SIM-free so parents can stick a PAYG SIM in it, put £5 credit on and restrict the calls to only allow ones to/from themselves and selected others. It’s just another expensive toy for kids to play with. I know my youngest nephew would love one.
The glowPhone will cost around £85 and should be available from Firefly direct.
(via ITProPortal)
PayPal offers pocket money for the 21st Century
PayPal has long dominated the market for online payments, but the company has just announced a new initiative that it’s calling ‘PayPal Student Account’. It lets you add up to four sub-accounts to your PayPal account and allocate money to those accounts as you wish – in a single chunk or as a recurring transfer.
There are no fees to pay, and the parent can also give their kid a real-world debit card, linked to the account, which the kid can use to buy stuff in bricks-and-mortar shops. Parents can sign up for alerts for unwanted spending – asking them to approve any transaction over $100, for example. Also, if the kid needs cash unexpectedly, they can text PayPal, who’ll notify the parent and ask them to approve or deny the request.
At the moment, the feature is in an invite-only beta period, and there’s no word when it’ll open up wider. I suspect it might be a little while before we see it in the UK too, so for the moment, you’ll have to stick with the old ‘hand-them-cash’ approach. Sorry.
How much pocket money did you get as a kid? Let us know in the comments. I got £3.50 a week in the mid-90s. Paltry compared to my friends.
Paypal (via New York Times)
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Final of Intel Studio fast approaching
For the past six months or so, Intel, in conjunction with record label KIDS, has been running an unsigned bands competition. The site, at www.intel.co.uk/studio, allows bands to upload their songs, and people to rate the music that bands have already uploaded.
The top bands each month have been be invited to play live in Camden at the (lovely but expensive for drinks) Proud Galleries. The winning band each month is entered into the final, which takes place at Proud Galleries on the 3rd December. The prize is a record deal with KIDS.
SHINY VIDEO REVIEW: Swinxs – 21st century party games
Occasionally we actually get to see some sunlight here at Tech Digest. The video above chronicles the results – we all get a bit giddy and descend to the intellectual level of 8-year-olds. Lucky Swinxs was around to save the day…
Curb your teenage tearaway with Ford's MyKey
New MyKey technology, developed by Ford, will be rolling out next year. The development will allow parents to put limits on their kids’ driving. They can put speed restrictions in place, give fuel warnings, or prevent kids from using the radio until their seatbelt is fastened.
The full listing of features is over the jump, but as someone who has never driven, teenage or otherwise, the only message this sends is mistrust of your poor kids. Unless you have a particularly troublesome kid, this seems remarkably unnecessary. Speeds artificially limited? Reduced radio volume? If you don’t trust them not to exceed 80mph, then why let them drive at all?
Swinxs brings out the kid in you and feeds him microchips
This is Swinxs, and it’s sort-of like a games console, but not really. I suppose it’s the logical extension of the Wii’s “getting people active” push. It’s a brightly coloured box, with armbands containing RFID chips, that lets you play a bunch of traditional party games, but with actually-quite-awesome technological extras…
M-Toy MP3 player makes kids puzzle over playing music
I'm all for technology being used to help kids to learn, but sometimes, a basic device should just do one thing. Take an MP3 player. All it has to do is to play the music uploaded to it, in…
Porsche's bobsled for whippersnippers is affordable even for the poor(sche)
Porsche has joined luxury car manufacturer Ferrari in an attempt to take over the world by branding every tenuous product with their colours and logos. We’ve seen everything from coffee makers to gym machines, but bobsleds are something I never would’ve considered they’d lend their name to.
Designed for the discerning…
Transform learning into fun with a Transformers Trans-Portable laptop
Forget the kids – I want Optimus Prime to teach me mathematics and important grammar lessons!
Gone are the days when kind old Mrs. Potter at the local state school is solely relied upon for teaching, as…
