Bill Handel – Leo Laporte

Here are my gadget picks for the kids in your life, as heard on the Bill Handel Show on KFI Los Angeles, Wednesday 19 December 2007 at 7:45a.

Kajeet – the cell phone for kids, with parental controls on what the kids can do and when. No activation cost. No termination fee. 35Â¢ per day. Phones for $60.
Everybody wants Webkinz, the stuffed toys from Ganz that have a second life online. $10 and up
But if you want a dinosaur instead, how about Pleo. An autonomous robot that learns as you play with it. $350.
Rock out with Rock Band for the Xbox360 and Playstation – the whole family will love this game as you form your own band, create and customize your own rocker, and travel on a fast rise to fame around the world. $60 for the game, but you’ll want to get the guitar, drums, and mic, too, for a total of $170.
Get up close and personal with your belly button lint, hair follicles, and fingernails (eww) with the Jakks EyeClops Bionic Eye. This $40 200x microscope camera hooks up to any TV and provides hours of grossout fun.
The Leapfrog FLY Fusion Pentop Computer puts a computer in a pen. Not as useful as they make out for doing homework, but lots of fun and a real tech marvel. $80
I mentioned it Monday, but it’s still a great idea: A USB, camera, and green screen for the kids for under $100, the RipRoar Creation Station.

What are you getting for your kids this holiday season?

Leo’s News Links

How Verizon and a BGP Optimizer Knocked Large Parts of the Internet Offline Today 25 June 2019

This was the equivalent of Waze routing an entire freeway down a neighborhood street — resulting in many websites on Cloudflare, and many other providers, to be unavailable from large parts of the Internet.

Why AirPods—and Earbuds Like Them—Are Especially Bad for Your Hearing 25 June 2019

This style of earbud, which rests next to your ear canal but not quite inside it, offers practically zero noise isolation. In other words, AirPods, by far the most popular wireless earbuds, do a poor job overpowering noise like chattering colleagues or teens on the subway. The natural response is to turn the volume louder […]

The Internet Has Made Dupes—and Cynics—of Us All | WIRED 25 June 2019

The internet is increasingly a low-trust society—one where an assumption of pervasive fraud is simply built into the way many things function.

Once More With Feeling: There Is No Legal Distinction Between A 'Platform' And A 'Publisher' | Techdirt 23 June 2019

So, let's be clear, once again and state that there is no special legal distinction for "platforms," and it makes no difference in the world if an internet company refers to itself as a platform, or a publisher (or, for that matter, an instigator, an enabler, a middleman, a gatekeeper, a forum, or anything). All […]

YouTube under federal investigation over allegations it violates children’s privacy - The Washington Post 23 June 2019

The possibility of a hefty penalty against YouTube — including a settlement forcing YouTube to change its practices to better protect kids — could signal a new phase in the FTC’s enforcement of the child-privacy law, which many critics say has grown weak amid technological changes over the past two decades.

Tag: Bill Handel

Gadget Ideas for Kids