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Monday, December 31, 2012

Kid-Friendly and Kid-Safe Web Browsers



These days kids are exposed to technology at an early age. Even pre-school and kindergarten children play with educational electronic toys. Occasionally, they may grab their parents’ smartphone or tablet. They are familiar with the touchscreens and they may be familiar with how to operate some gadgets. By the time they reach elementary school, some of them may be using computers or iPads in their classrooms. Most of them are well versed in gaming and using some apps. At this age your kid may be curious to access the Internet. It is time for the parents to set up the parental controls on home PCs, tablets and smartphones.  

There are some kid-safe apps and browsers available for free. Zoodles is a kid friendly free browser suitable for the kids in the age group of 2 to 8 years. Zoodles is available for Windows and Mac. Recently, they have introduced mobile version, also. Zoodles offer an interesting feature called interface scaling. You can install a simplified, text free interface for young children and increase the complexity of the interface as the child grows up and learns to read and write. You can set up filters to access only kid friendly games and content.

Another kid-friendly, child-safe browser is KidZui. KidZui offers a long list of websites, games, pictures and videos that are safe for the kids to browse. This list is prepared by a group of volunteers comprising of parents and educators. You can install Kidzui as an independent browser or you can install it as a Firefox extension. Either way, it is easy to install and operate. Kids can join KidZui’s social network and interact with other kids. However, information sharing is very limited and personal information such as home address etc cannot be shared. If you wish to add some websites to the list, you have to send the link for approval. KidZui is an amazingly safe browser that requires minimal amount of parental supervision.

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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Tablets for Kids



If you ask kids what they want as a holiday gift, they are likely to ask for a feature phone, tablet or gaming device. Even the 2 years to 4years old kids are familiar with the devices and their vocabulary includes the word “app.” It won’t be long, when each of us would want our own tablets to remain connected. You can buy some inexpensive tablets for young ones. Some kid specific tablets are already in the market.

LeapPad 2 is the most popular tablet for kids with 5” screen and 4 GB memory. It is loaded with thousands of educational games, eBooks, videos and games. Tabeo is another tablet made and marketed by Toys “R”US. It comes with 50 free pre-installed apps and has access to thousands of free educational programs, games and books in the app store. Nabi 2 is the most powerful kids tablet that runs on Ice Cream Sandwich. It has with WiFi capabilities and access to a library with more than 9,000 children’s albums.  It is also pre-loaded with free games, songs and books.

Kindle Fire 7 and iPad Mini are slightly on the higher side of the price range and appropriate for teens. Kindle Fire offer a huge educational and entertainment resources at $3 per month. Amazon creates a custom library for kid as per their gender, age and preferences. They offer plenty of content from Disney, Nick, PBS, Marvel and more. iPad Mini is the perfect tablet with the best app store. However, you may not buy it exclusively for your kid. But hey, you can always share it with your child!

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Tablets in 2012



The year 2012 was undoubtedly the year of tablets. Tablets are the hottest gift item this holiday season. People want tablets for work and for play. The top 5 players in tablet market are Apple, Google, Samsung, Amazon and Microsoft. Other than these top 5 companies, there are many firms that offer good quality tablets at affordable prices. As tablet market is growing rapidly, all the firms are expected to invest huge amount of resources for improvements and innovations in the product.

Apple’s iPad mini was the hottest selling tablet followed by Google’s Nexus 7 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire. People prefer 7” tablets for their size and price. Smaller tablets are easier to carry and sleek and stylish in looks. They are less intrusive than laptops and better choice than smartphones. Smartphones have screens too small for gaming. Mini tablets are perfect for casual browsing, status updates etc while relaxing. You can carry them in a handbag or use them at breakfast table. A 7” tablet is ideal for watching films or TV, and gaming and apps.

Other than ideal screen size, tablets offer variety in brand, specifications, content and experience. They have huge range of applications, longer battery life and instant turn on features. 71 million tablets were sold in the year 2011 and this year the figure is expected to cross 122 million. Apple’s dominance in apps gives it an edge in the competition. However, Microsoft, the biggest player of desktop era is missing in the race at the moment, but the year 2013 will tell who will lead the race in future.