“Bring Your Baby to Life With Your Wii Remote?”

Nov. 2, 2009 Not sure which part of this creeps me out more, the fact that 21st century baby dolls have a Wiimote crammed up the wazoo to ‘bring the baby to life’ as a Wii system accessory, the passive pink gender cues for girls and total absence of boys as video parenting poppas, or the product picture being a dead-ringer look alike of my own offspring at that age. Ewww all … [Read more...]

Virtual Reality Meets Health2.0 For Kids Wellness & Therapy

Oct. 9, 2009 Once upon a time in my former life as a creative director and copywriter, I was asked to create a compelling headline for a learning simulation  where young Stanford law students could practice on an interactive CD leading them down different paths of evidence and ‘what ifs’ rather than risk oopsie moments with humans. This was long before the days of snazzy … [Read more...]

Health2.0: Hunting Cryptic Cryptids in Cryptozoo!

Oct. 8, 2009 As we observe October as health month in multiple media iterations of kids' mental and physical well-being, it's fitting that I've been away covering the excitement at Health2.0 this week. What's it all about? To me, the Health2.0 conference is ideally a place where innovation technology collides with human needs in ambitious acceleration of fast-track … [Read more...]

Shaping Youth is in the Philadelphia Inquirer Today

Sept. 2, 2009 For a media shy writer wonk who likes to fly under the radar, you might say I’m a ‘glutton’ for punishment each time I agree to making a comment to the press. The Bebé Glotón toy story originated at Thingamababy about the Spanish breastfeeding doll with slurpy sounds and strap-on-bib; human not included. Since then, it's taken off into controversy land and … [Read more...]

healthGAMERS: Newly Launched Hub For Serious Gaming

June 26, 2009 Just as some kids can sniff out an ‘educational’ experience and shut the learning light switch off (or dim it at best) others do the same with the phrase "Serious Games." Though it's an accurate label for the new healthGAMERS site, I hesitate to use ‘serious games’ because it can send people bolting in the opposite direction faster than you can say ‘disease … [Read more...]