[LINK] Child control/safety devices

[Jan Whitaker]

Speaking of 'protecting the children' and white lists as Greg mentioned, I 
saw a very neat device for just this thing yesterday on a US tv 
program.  It's called the Wee-mote, and is a channel limiter for cable tv 
access.  Parents can set it so that the kids have a way to move around the 
various 'child friendly' channels.

Also on the same program were some new devices in the US in other areas:

1) a Kodak combination film/dig camera on the Advantix (?) format.  You 
take the pic, then can preview it immediately.  They didn't say if it went 
onto film immediately or was transferred there after, but it does allow you 
to modify the image, so maybe it is a delayed transfer on request.  At any 
rate, they said you could indicate how many copies you wanted printed of 
that particular image when you put the film in for processing.

2) Audrey - from 3Com.  It's a limited purpose computer with built in 
calendaring, diary, address/phone directory, email, webserver, and also 
allows for a docking station for your palm pilot to coordinate 
with.  Audrey uses both a keyboard and a touch screen and stylus entry 
interface.  It blinks when there is email waiting.  The example for 
demonstrating was a family with four kids and two working parents who 
needed a new method for coordinating their schedules.  Price was under $500US.

3) The Palm organiser mentioned with Audrey was also cool, incorporating a 
standard mobile phone, so that the phone directory can be used as a dialler 
as well as the standard stylus accessible info storage.

4)  This next one looked like an ERG product, the 'smart' service control 
systems people.  It is a 'wand' that attaches to your keyring and somehow 
OKs purchases at petrol [US: gas] stations.  You fill your tank, then pass 
this wand over the sensor to authorise the direct payment.  Similar in 
outcome to the bowsers with EFT card services.  The one demonstrated was 
from Exxon/Mobil.

5)  The last one I remember was a personal locator/safety device for 
children.  It incorporates satellite location and mapping output.  Also has 
a dialler to emergency services, one would assume in case the kid is being 
snatched.

There were a few others that were less impressive, one down right dangerous 
which was a camera/monitor system for driving parent to watch baby in 
capsule in the back seat!  -cootchy, cootchy, crash!

All this should be on oprah.com, but evidently their site got hijacked, 
because I got a porn site then the pink panther for an mp3 site! uh-oh.....

Jan
JLWhitaker Associates
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit@primenet.com  --  http://www.primenet.com/~jwhit/whitentr.htm