Life 360: Family Locator Apps-Mapping the Shades of Grey (Part 1)

Oct. 15, 2012  Teens call them ‘trackers,’ parents call them ‘tools,’ and the telecom industry refers to GPS and LBS (location based services) as sheer “growth” in a mobile market that’s booming with map-based apps that pinpoint the whereabouts of users. We need to uncork this whopper of a conversation beyond the micro (oooh, handy! or ewww creepy!) and into macro … [Read more...]

“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...]

Beyond Tech Toys: Pico=A Playful Invention Company (Part Four)

Feb. 6, 2009 Today I had the pleasure of speaking with global fellowship recipients in Stanford's Innovation Journalism Program (here's VentureBeat's audio of Director David Nordfors explaining the concept of innovation journalism). I tried to explain Shaping Youth's version of innovation learning and thankfully, had asked Scott Arpajian, co-founder of virtual world Dizzywood … [Read more...]