Magisto: A (baby) Step for Video Amateurs
Have you ever thought about those glassy eyed audience members that you force to watch your family videos? I mean, really thought about how they feel and what they could possibly be thinking? I’m pretty sure they’re wishing that some genie in a bottle would come and either whisk them away to an undisclosed location, or at least do some …
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Trendspotting: Parents Earn Play Rewards for Kids
I first saw this with Knowledge Adventure’s Spa Adventure game – a Facebook social game where moms could earn points for their kids to spend in the virtual JumpStart world. Now WebKinz from Ganz is offering parents a chance to do the same. In Ganz Parents Club, parents of WebKinz world devotees can earn extra KinzCash and items for the …
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Play Later: Like TIVO for Internet Streaming Video
Play Later (why do I keep calling it After Play in my head) is a simple and useful idea that should become popular as streaming Internet-based entertainment is more and more prevalent. Just like a DVR captures your favorite programs on broadcast, Play Later captures your favorite streams off of the Internet. For us normal folk, the idea of saving your …
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How Disgusting Can You Make Your Product?
No doubt, I should have been a product torture tester. Or maybe I already am…Here are two of my latest “how the heck” issues. First, there’s my laptop. HP’s glossy case finish is on my arms, my linens, my clothing. I’m starting to look like I was doused in glitter at a rave. At the moment, the pattern of finish …
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Boomers: Don’t Blame Us, Make Your Next Fortune On Us
There isn’t a generation that hasn’t blamed their parents for something or other, but the Baby Boomer generation seems to have fallen so far from the “greatest generation mark” that we’re seeing a boomer backlash. Boomers have been lambasted for their self-centered greed, destroying the environment, focusing on the nuclear family, not saving for a rainy day (or any day), …
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High Tech Mouthguard Monitors Impact to Head During Sports
Watching their kids play sports, every parent I know has their heart in their stomach, for fear of injury, especially to their still-developing brains. And for good reason: at least 250,000 concussions occur in high school football every year. And the CDC estimates almost 4 million sports-related brain injuries occur each year, many going undiagnosed or untreated. Kids are often …
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STRIIV Turns Fitness Monitoring into A Game
The more you work, the more you win. Pedometers and fitness monitors get more and more sophisticated, but it’s hard to call them fun. Striiv offers a new twist on monitoring your caloric output by turning it into a fun activity. The motivation to use it is built in. You get games that open to new levels, personal goals that …
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Pew Reports on the Perceived Value of Online Learning
Based on a national poll of the general public and a survey of college presidents done in conjuction with the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Pew Research Center just released a study about the value of online learning, the prevalence and future of online courses, use of digital textbooks, the internet and plagiarism, and technology use in the classroom, as …
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Apple and Education Minus Steve Jobs
Any school teacher who began in the 80′s surely remembers getting an Apple II in the classroom. And most of them remember when the Apple II’s became woefully inadequate. The big surprise was that technology would need to be replaced every few years — something most schools hadn’t counted on. Today, Apple is often used synonymously with tech and education. …
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Millenniata: A New Disk Writing System Promises Data in Perpetuity
Hammurabi chiseled stone and now Millenniata believes that they have a way to chisel a disk so that it, like Hammurabi’s, will endure in perpetuity. It’s a way cool idea that by the very nature of the process may prove to be a complicated sell. The Problem: All of those disks that you write – the ones that store your …
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