PDAs For Kids

fiftyfly writes "Wired's running a story about the Pixter - a sort of etch-a-sketch/palm love child. At an estimated $50.00 I'm sure someone out there must have had a go at hacking it. No mention of anyway of getting the drawings off, I'd imagine that would be a good place to start. For $75CAD I'd give it a go, eh?"

Comments

Reminds me

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

of my first Sony.....

Isn't this the point of the Cybiko?

[AnimeFreak]

http://www.cybikoxtreme.com/

This device was released a few years ago and it is basically a PDA for the younger generation. They go for about $100 CDN here ($65 USD).

Re:Isn't this the point of the Cybiko?

[raymondlowe]

http://www.cybikoxtreme.com/

This device was released a few years ago and it is basically a PDA for the younger generation. They go for about $100 CDN here ($65 USD).

No, the Pixter is for like 4 or 5 year olds -- I think this Cybiko is more for young teens.

R.

Re:Isn't this the point of the Cybiko?

[rusty0101]

This looks like it is aimed at an even younger generation. Cybiko appears to me to be aimed at kids who can already read and write. This appears to be aimed at kids who can't yet.

As there appears to be a modular software interface, I would suspect that this will be a toy that will grow with the kid until he or she decides that it is time to move up to a more powerful PDA, like a Cybiko.

Also with the modular interface, I expect that a pc interface will be developed within the next year, if for nothing more than to be able to send grandma and grandpa the pictures that little tyke has drawn.

-Rusty

Re:Isn't this the point of the Cybiko?

[echucker]

Actually, the real point of the device is to keep kids from walking off with Mommy or Daddy's Palm and dipping it in a jar full of jelly, or putting it in the fish tank to showy Goldie what they drew.

The Original Solid State is Better

[Devil's BSD]

... a sort of etch-a-sketch/palm love child. well, whats the challenge in this if you can lift your pen/stylus? The whole point of Etch-a-Sketch was to create a picture from a single, continuous line. If I had a kid, I'd get him/her an Etch-A-Sketch for $10 rather than this $50 "creativity device", as the article calls it.

Re:The Original Solid State is Better

[G-funk]

Yeah you're right, better not give your kids any pencils while you're at it.

Re:The Original Solid State is Better

[qslack]

I'd get him/her an Etch-A-Sketch for $10 rather than this $50 "creativity device", as the article calls it.

Hell, I'd get my cow-orkers a $10 Etch-a-sketch instead of a $3000 laptop! Pocket the difference. They'll never notice.

Re:The Original Solid State is Better

[jred]

Not me. My kid (7yo) *has* an etch-a-sketch. She would much rather draw on my Palm M105 than doodle with that. She's from the battery generation. If it doesn't have batteries, she doesn't care about it. Her birthday is Thurs. and I know what I'm getting her now...

crayons

[EricBoyd]

Man, kids these days! Back in my day, we were happy with pencils. And crayons, man, a pack of those could keep us happy for weeks, until nothing but little stubs were left!

Now kids got all these newfangled toys with bright color lcd's... it's almost sick! I bet they don't get the preverse pleasure of drawing on walls with 'em thou...

Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon

Re:crayons

[56ker]

Does anyone else remember Etch-a-Sketch other than me? I always did wonder how it worked. Now there's a sign of your age of you can remember that! Do they still make them with that red plastic or have they gone out of fashion?

A little heads up...

[Daniel Wood]

For those looking for a cheap PDA, the Visor Basic can be had for as little as $55. Check Pricewatch.

Speak 'n' Spell emulation?

[d5w]

Just looking at the device made me think back to the Speak'n'Spell. I'd guess that this new toy has plenty of power to do the emulation if they feel like offering it (or if someone feels like hacking it). It would be an amusing evolution of emulator technology to have even Fisher Price toys digitally emulating their ancestors.

Re:Speak 'n' Spell emulation?

[connorbd]

What's bugging me...

Why did they not rerelease the Speak'n'Spell to coincide with E.T. being rereleased? It'd be pretty cheap (they could make it half as thick, on one chip), it would sell like crazy, and it would take one's mind off the fact that it is currently a little dicey to continue having dirty thoughts about Drew Barrymore.

/Brian

Re:Speak 'n' Spell emulation?

[anthony_dipierro]

They definately should. When I saw the E.T. rerelease in the theatre and heard that voice I remembered it immediately, and realized that that device single handedly taught me how to spell (I used to think that ' was pronounced "doink"). I leaned over to my friend and told him "if no one is making one of those things any more, I'm going to make one."

It'd probably be legal. I'm sure the patents have expired, the voice was public domain, and I could clean-room engineer the look and feel. Call it something like "Spelling Speaker" and you'll avoid trademark laws. With so many of the twenty-somethings now married with their own children, I bet they'd sell like hotcakes.

If only I knew the first thing about manufacturing. Anyone?

Re:Speak 'n' Spell emulation?

[BigJimSlade]

Check out SASS for a trip down memory lane. The creators have sampled both the UK and the US versions of the original hardware and made a (windows only I think) simulator. It's defintiely fun for five minutes or so :)

Re:Speak 'n' Spell emulation?

[fishbowl]

>Why did they not rerelease the Speak'n'Spell to
>coincide with E.T. being rereleased?

They're afraid that kids today are savvy enough to actually make a device that will summon an alien ship.

>a little dicey to continue having dirty thoughts
>about Drew Barrymore.

Well, Erika Eleniak totally stole that show from Drew. And she's still WAY hotter.

Re:Speak 'n' Spell emulation?

[ryanwright]

There is a better alternative: LeapPad Learning System. Go to Target sometime and play with one in the store. They're very cool for kids.

The trend of PDA's

[CmdrTaco (editor)]

Most of the people I know, at least the ones that are in non managerial positions, have at some point in their lives bought a PDA, either a Palm or a Visor. Every single one of these people used the PDA for menial tasks, such as shopping lists and phone numbers for friends. I always argued that the PDA method was quite ineffecient, and recommended the failsafe method of a pen and paper instead. But these people insisted on carrying their PDA with them 24 x 7, and after several weeks of the extra burden of weight and having to make sure the battery was charged, most either gave up or started using their PDA exclusively to play games.

Thus, from this slightly drawn out anecdote, I can conclude that if mature adults don't have the self control to carry a somewhat burdensome piece of productivity hardware for a significant amount of time, there is no hope for children. Their "PDA" will become a veritable Game Boy in a short amount of time.

Re:The trend of PDA's

[JWW]

I think you're wrong on a couple of fronts. At work my group supports about 50-60 palm users. These people alomst all use the palm exclusively for scheduling their appointments and to-do lists. Games are pretty much a sideshow. My palm is used for (in order), my schedule, to do list, contact list, notes, and then for games.

My son also has both a pixter and a gameboy. Both devices are remarkably different. The pixter focuses mostly on educative games and in actuallity hoing the skills necessary for using a PDA. The games are fairly interesting an centered on learning mostly. The anamation cartrige enables the creation of simple cartoon style animation. The gameboy is a pure gaming machine and pretty nice at that. My son uses the gameboy more. But depending on his mood and what kind of activity he wants to do will judge which device he picks. The gameboy is definately the higer energy more intense device, but the pixter is the more engaging thinking and creativity toy.

Re:The trend of PDA's

[Navius Eurisko]

The primary use of my Palm is as an alarm clock. I have a bad habit of forgetting to do things/go to events, so my Palm serves to remind me about doing all the little things I plan on doing during the day.

Battery use on a Palm isn't so much an issue on other types of PDAs. Pop in 2AAAs and I'm good for 2 -3 months.

Size and weight is still an issue, thought. Even with my thin Visor, it still makes an unsightly bulge in my pockets (no puns please.) Only when PDAs are as unobtrusive as a little black book, will they finally be ready for most people.

Re:The trend of PDA's

[IHateEverybody]

That's not my experience at all as a PDA user. I found that my first PDA (a Palm III) became an indispensible part of my life in short order. Over the years I upgraded to newer models and still use my for PDA for mundane tasks because it allows me to perform these mundane tasks more efficiently.
But I also use it as a cellphone , to keep passwords secure, to connect to the Internet, read news, e-books, as a desk and travel alarm clock and for many more things. I don't know if children will really use the device in this article but this mature adult will never grow tired of his PDA.

Re:The trend of PDA's

[silentbozo]

After a while I found all I was using my Clie for was to play Bejeweled instead of paying attention in my courses. I ended up selling it on eBay and picking up a little Dayrunner thing for much cheaper. It's a little more bulky, but it's ten times more convenient.

Ahh, and what happens when you put your entire life into your Dayrunner and you lose it? I used to be a Dayrunner user, but after a close call (someone found it and returned it), I lived in mortal fear of losing my Dayrunner again. Being able to backup your data and sync it to a replacement unit (I have a spare in my desk, used Palms are cheap), was the key selling point for me when I bought my Pilot 5000. Besides, you can always load it with a couple of e-texts for when you're on the bus, and it doubles as a calculator.

Re:The trend of PDA's

[i0lanthe]

Agreed, I carried around a paper addressbook and a paper 12-month appointment book, one of those cheap knock-offs that doesn't have a memorable brand-name or replaceable pages, for at least four years. (The 12-month calendar had some pages for addresses but then I would have had to copy them over every year, hell with that.) I could not live without them; the calendar did not fit in my pocket (I had way too much going on to use a pocket calendar) and the addressbook would have been a tight squeeze; ergo I could not live without a backpack. During those four years I lost (or had stolen from me) a hat I liked, an umbrella, my best scarf, and the wallet I had made myself in junior high (and of course all its contents)... pretty much every loose article except for my backpack, which is partly due to watching it like a hawk and partly luck.

Then a friend showed me his Pilot (back in the day). It fit in a pocket and it could be backed up in case in case it grew legs and walked away; I got one myself and never looked back. I have a Visor at the moment. It sings, it dances, it plays reveille when I need an alarm clock at camp. But mostly it earns its keep by telling me where to go and what to do and by fitting in a pocket.

However, mileage definitely varies. I know someone who loses things really frequently.. got a Palm and lost it in the first week.. that gets to be a bit expensive. I know someone else who (afaik) never used an organizer.. got a Visor but his life really doesn't need organizing.. he uses the address book occasionally, and plays games on it when travelling without a laptop, but I think that's about it. And of course some people just prefer paper because of its physical properties or because it affords fewer distractions.

Thieves

[Hyperfrog]

Recently there has been an increase in mobile phones stolen. OVer 10% of these thefts have been from children - including the children targetted by this device.

So, is this device just another expensive toy waiting to be stolen?

What market?

[Spaceman Spiff II]

I can't help but think that that toy is targeting a rather small market. Who wants it? Certainly not people over say... 12? Most kids would want it, but who's parents would actually get it for them?

I suppose some people wouldn't mind spending $50 on a toy for a 6 year old . . . just look at LEGOs.

hacking and expandability

[Sparr0]

one of the first steps to hacking this would be to get your hands on some of the ROM expansion packs. On the Go and Learning Fun would be too good choices at $10 each. The interface for connecting to the ROMs would definitely be the easiest way to connect to the toy and get info on/off of it. Someone get some software on it that can read my handwriting and ill buy one.

Not exactly new

[British]

...minus the drawing stylus.

The Etch-A-Scetch animator was released in the '80s, and you can do frame-by-frame animation with it. Used the same 2 knobs just like the original.

Re:Not exactly new

[DeadMeat (TM)]

The Etch-A-Sketch Animator 2000 even had a stylus, no less. But the screen wasn't touch-sensitive; the stylus area was a seperate pad, like on a notebook computer.

Expensive as hell (unless you got lucky and Target sent you a raincheck good for 50% off any toy in the store: note to Target, not a wise financial move giving an 8-year-old 50% off any one item he wants). But a cool little toy though.

For God's sake

[v23]

Give the kids paper and pencils.

Why?

[commonchaos]

I've seen one of these before, they are huge.

I can't see any use for these except perhaps a wacom tablet emulator... even then, you can get a wacom 12"x12" on ebay for $40, older palms sell for less than $40...

Not the coolest ever from FP, though..

[connorbd]

I want my Pixelvision.

My childhood best friend and I both owned PXL-2000 camcorders. I'd rather have one of those than one of these; the Pixelvision was easily the coolest toy Fisher-Price ever cooked up, and it's rather a shame they didn't last very long. We all used to think we were TV producers back in the day -- parodies of Star Trek and 20/20 were the big thing.

/Brian

So uh, who's got one?

[drinkypoo]

We need a dissection. Or at least to find out a> what kind of CPU it uses, and b> how much ram it has, of what kinds.

VTech Phusion-been there done it already

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't belive slashdot actually posted this story. Why is this such a big deal. Look at the VTech Phusion, it's long been discontinued, but it has got a ton more features than this Fisher Price. Phusion has all the features of the Fusher Price, but the Phusion has a built in camera. Get it here for $29.00.
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/iitemcom/vtec phuspcli. html
I don't know why slashdot crew has to post this childs stuff. How about some REAL news. Yea Rite.

Etch-A-Sketch Animator

[sig]

Etch-A-Sketch made something just like this back in the 80's. It was called the Etch-A-Sketch Animator and as I recall, it sucked. Maybe they've got something better here, but I feel that for my money, you can't beat a tablet of paper and a 64 pack of Crayolas.

NOT an etch-a-sketch

[yetiman]

This toy is not an etch-a-sketch, you are thinking of the wrong toy. This gadget is more like the old magna-doodle :-)

This IS old-fashioned fun...

[FaithAndReason]

It's just a MagnaDoodle(TM) that allows you to save pictures to your PC. As for geekifying kids, my own (ages 8, 5, 3 and 1) are already attached to the computer. One of these gizmos would be a clever way to actually give them some "old-fashioned" fun: say "hey, it's your very own computer!" when all they're really doing is drawing. Sure, it costs more than pencil and paper, but my kids probably go through $10 of paper, crayons, coloring books and markers a month, and that's not even counting the time and cost of cleaning off the 3-year-old's "artwork" from our apartment walls! I'd rather give him a stylus than a pencil any day - less damage that way...

(He's also already trashed the MagnaDoodle I got him for Christmas -- it seems that with enough use, the "writing surface" becomes magnetized, so it doesn't "wipe clean" any more... Another reason why the digital version is better than the analog one...)

As an aside, did you really mean to suggest that the best thing for children aged 4+ is to "give" them "members of the opposite sex" for "old-fashioned fun", or was that just some odd Freudian slip? ;-)

Video Game?

[screwballicus]

Is this a video game? If so, will my scribbly pictures of pretty houses and pretty trees be a protected form of speech under new legal precedent?

Think about it people! Kids could draw anything in this video game. They could draw offensive words, or lewd sexual acts. They might even hack the device to install a free operating system that in every way contradicts the principles on which our capitalist nation is based. They could visually depict violent acts and criminal behaviour! Are these the kinds of things we want our kids seeing? Hell, no. Expose your kids to this kind of medium, and they'll be sexually retrograde serial killers in no time. Censor the art of drawing! Now!

Old story

[PatSmarty]

This has already been discussed before.

Anybody own a Cybiko?

[NanoGator]

I'm seriously tempted to buy one. Has anybody bought one? Done anything cool with it?

*likes buying high tech geek toys*

Re:PDAs useful?

[biglig2]

In my mind, where a PDA scores big over paper is in a few key areas:

• You can search the contents.
  
• It can beep when appointments are due.
  
• You can back it up effortlessly.
  
• Physical size. (This is comparing the Palm with the combination of address book, notebook, a paperback novel, diary, newspaper, etc.
  
• It can in a pinch do PC type stuff, like read e-mail and play video games.
  

Here I refer to a PDA as distinct from a Pocket PC. Those iPaqs are really just attempts to miniaturise a PC to fit into your pocket, so at the cost of size, battery life etc. they do the PC type stuff well, and manage the PDA stuff too since PCs can do that, if you see what I mean.

Ethical needs.

[shomon2]

I think the main problem with most geek-child toys, such as consoles and this PDA too, is that the children are mostly just playing on their own when they use such things. This means they miss out on competitiveness, social awareness, companionship (so they don't feel lonely, I mean) - and above all closeness to human beings.

I'm not anti-tech, and to those who would say for example that they don't like their children watching tv all day because it's bad for them, I'd say - watch it with them then. Sit with them, enjoy the thing together, laugh, or even teach stuff about what's being watched if you think that won't be boring and ignored.... If nothing else, it's a chance for the child and the rest of the family to snuggle up together and do something they all enjoy. Or it can be a horrible box that breeds alienation. They are tools...

So anything tech-wise that doesn't allow others to join in (if the child wants: you have to leave them their space to be alone too!) - is going to be limited, and potentially limiting, for your child. With hardware like the PDA, we can adapt and help, but can't change the overall structure. I think with software we can go a lot further, and actually create things which by default encourage this sharing and companionship.

With regard to this, and this generally being an open source related forum, I think there's 2 software areas where children could benefit from the connectivity you get from the internet:

1) a mail reader - same as the article featured, kids draw simple sketches, can send to friends. This is much the same as any mail client, except the interface would be child friendly, and have pictures of the intended recipients, rather than their email addresses...

2) a peer to peer game - some way of exchanging drawings and sounds, or even "objects" made up of drawings and sounds together, all though a first person perspective.

But these are just my views on possible projects. There are already loads of children's games on linux, usually written by parents while the child had the age the game was intended for, and abandoned later. There's no larger scale project that I know of that directly addresses the child's "linux"(or any open source) desktop. I think it's my responsibility as a programmer and parent to do something about this. Can anyone help or inform me about what's currently around in terms of software projects?

Ale

I bought One

[Chrome-Dragon]

For my seven year old a Christmas time. I was rather unimpressed, the pixel size sucks so all your lines (when you are drawing) are fat and nasty plus the tracking (angled lines, direction change) when you draw just isn't as good as even the cheapest PDA. The ROM packs that you can load into the top have some fun games but the base unit grew boring quickly. As a hack / mod it might be fun but the issues with the screen make me think its not worth the effort.

Mentioned before

[Tha_Zanthrax]

mentioned before
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/22/173425 5&mode=thread

nothing new to see here

Web-A-Sketch

[asmithmd1]

not a lame flash version...

Re:PDAs useful?

[lizrd]

I've used a couple of different ones and really like having a PDA. I mostly use it for keeping my schedule. A PDA really works well in an Outlook/Exchange environment. It's nice to have something that I can carry with me that is always up to date with my calendar at work.

In addition, I make some use of the addressbook feature (though I find I keep most phone numbers in my cellphone anyway). The todo list gets used quite a bit both for todo things and as a shopping list. I also like having a place to keep notes that I might want while I'm out and about. It's pretty rare that I use the PDA as an information capture device, mostly it's just a data viewing device.

Maps are another really great PDA thing. I my favorite map software is Mapopolis they have pretty good free maps and reasonable prices of more detailed maps.

Overall I'd say that it's a good investment, but I wouldn't want to put more than about $200 into one.