Mobile Devices For Kids On the Go

Thanks Next Great Thing

June 23rd, 2009 by NGT

For many young people, the mobile phone is a status symbol and an extension of identity. For aspirational young kids and tweens, this is no different. For them, getting a phone is a rite of passage, and the age at which this happens is getting younger and younger. According to Nielsen Mobile, the average age a kid starts using a borrowed cell phone is 8.6, and they typically get their own at 10.1.

However, most handset manufacturers don’t cater this this market — only recently shifting their adult-centric view. Parents may also be relutant to pass back their new iPhone (though we’re seeing this as well). This has opened up a market for special mobile devices just for kids. Here are some of the players:

• Fisher-Price offers the Pixter, a PDA-style portable activity center for kids. It has a color touchscreen and stylus with which children can draw, color and play with, not entirely unlike Adobe Illustrator. Separate software adds more features like math lessons, and an extra snap-on digital camera makes the “phone” just like Mom and Dad’s. While the Pixter is a fun tool, it still seems more like other handheld gaming devices for children than an actual mobile.

• If realism is what you’re going for, Bandai has you covered there with the “Mobile Communicator Smart Berry” for kids. This Japanese “toy” lets users actually email, text and play online games with each other as long as they’re within 10 meters of one another. It works on a wireless network and comes with a keyboard and an LCD touchscreen. Following this TotBerry trend, LeapFrog recently introduced the Text & Learn, affectionately known as the ‘baby BlackBerry.’ It even looks like a giant, colorful version of the real thing. Made for kids ages three and up, the Text & Learn features a full QWERY keyboard and pretend browser, and encourages little users to “text” with the virtual guide Scout.

• For slightly older children with a desire for phone-like capabilities, there’s Firefly Mobile, “the mobile phone for mobile kids.” It has actual voice services and a pay-as-you-go-plan. However, it’s made for smaller hands and instead of a regular dial pad, there are just five keys. Parents use a PIN to program up to 22 outgoing numbers into the phone, putting adults in charge of just who their kids are talking to. The Firefly has struggled to find a market though. Tweens, who now increasingly own real phones, find it too babyish, while younger kids have less of a need since they are almost always with adults. Still, the Firefly can be seen as the training bra of a mobile lifestyle.

• Aware of tweens’ fashion sensibility and love of “real” phones, another contender for the tween market, Kajeet, offers LG, Samsung, and Sanyo phones that parents (with their kids) can customize. The Maryland-based company offers shared payment plans (the kids can pay the texts, the parents can pay the calls), limits for call or text usage, blockable contacts, and GPS for the restless children. On the other hand, Kajeet does not offer any kind of data service, a crucial feature for generation Y.

So what does this mobile mania for pre-teens mean? Some are concerned. In France, there are even new laws in the works that crack down on children’s use of mobile phones. Advertising these devices to children under 12 will be prohibited under the legislation and steps will be taken to ban the sale of any phone designed to be used by kids under six years old.

However, if the trend we’re seing in youth adoption continues, pacifiers will soon come with keypads. If nothing else, we’re breeding a tech savvy generation who will be the next wave in mobile innovators.

Augemented reality applications

Thanks Gizmodo for this post on a really cool iphone app. This is pointy end of a fast approaching world 2.0 that i personally can't wait to see arrive.

Sekai Camera Turns On World's Balloon Help
Posted by Jesus Diaz at 6:15 PM on September 11, 2008

Sekai Camera is the killer iPhone application I was looking for: just point your camera anywhere around you to have instant feedback about whatever is on your screen. Directions, reviews, messages, offers, and any tag you can imagine will appear floating in front of you, adding a graphic overlay to the world.

Tonchidot defines their amazing Sekai Camera--in Japanese, World Camera-- as a "social tagging device" for the iPhone. It combines most technologies in the iPhone 3G, from the camera and the GPS to the internet connectivity and its microphone. When you start it, the application first checks where you are using the built-in GPS in the iPhone 3G.

At that point you can do two things. One, you can see information about places and objects around you, overlaid on the real-time video. Two, you can add your own information, whether you are an individual, a business, or any other kind of organisation. You just point and add your tag, which can include text, images, and sound. [Tonchidot via Dvice]

More on youtube about this app: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=KgTwSXK_5dg


Also very cool is the Enkin work done for android...


Enkin from Enkin on Vimeo.

Internet of things- At&T's plans

Thanks - NY TIMES

By Laura M. Holson

Want to track Fido using GPS? Frame a new photo for grandma in real time?

AT&T has created a new division within the company to help devise new consumer devices – digital cameras, devices for cars, even dog collars – which they hope will make it easy to access the Web using AT&T’s network.

The idea behind the new initiative, said Glenn Lurie, president of the new emerging devices division, is to quench consumers’ desire for access to the Internet at any time or place. Because nearly 9 out of 10 people already own a mobile phone, AT&T can’t grow fast enough by selling more phones. It needs to find new sources of revenue, particularly devices that use data. Industry analysts suggest that the market for new Web-enabled devices will grow faster than cell phones in the next ten years.

Mr. Lurie said AT&T has dedicated more than 50 people to the division and is negotiating with potential partners. But he already has a few ideas in mind. “Everyone loves their pets,” said Mr. Lurie. So much so, AT&T is interested in a developing a Web-enabled animal collar. If a dog comes up missing, an owner can go to a Web site and, using AT&T’s network, find where their dog has wandered.

Mr. Lurie said too that he saw in-car entertainment as a market for such devices. For example, instead of popping a DVD into a car player, movie watchers in the backseat could access the Web on a screen, buy a movie from iTunes and watch it right away.

Mr. Lurie also mentioned a Web-enabled digital camera that could send photos in real-time to a specially designed Web-enabled picture frame. Of course both products would have to be compatible so photos could be transmitted via AT&T’s network. That’s no small feat given all the partners involved. But Mr. Lurie said it was technologically possible.

“We wouldn’t put this level of commitment to it if we did not think it was possible,” Mr. Lurie said of the initiative.

AT&T does not plan on making the devices themselves. And the hard part will be getting the makers of cameras, cars and dog collars to agree to put chips in their products dedicated to accessing AT&T’s network. (Verizon Wireless uses a different network.) And even the simplest of devices could be months or years away. Mr. Lurie, though, said he hoped to make some announcements about partners or new products in the first quarter of next year.

Top Mobile Trends

Thanks to NGT

Top Mobile Trends: Location Curation
One of the great things about cell phones–besides Brickbreaker–is their ability to find you in a geographical haystack. As more and more phones come with GPS, developers are increasingly incorporating it (and other cell-spotting technologies) into their apps, called location-based services (LBS). If mobile is about place and time, LBS aim to provide the right place at the right time.

TMI (Too much information)

Loopt, Brightkite and Limbo are a few of the services that help locate your friends via mobile. At their best, they’ll work wonders for your social life. As more people use them, though, they face the TMI problem. Too Much Information. We’ve seen this happen with online communication tools–that’s why SocialThing, Chi.mp and FriendFeed have all stepped in to help you manage Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc… But phones are personal, and mobile services themselves need to help manage and cull information.

PHONES AS GUIDES

If location technologies can make my phone a homing device, I want it to guide me, not make me a target. This is why most services let me choose whose information I receive, so I can “curate” my social map. These people may include my more intimate friends, or loose contacts who provide information I want. For instance, I may only choose to follow my club-hopping friends so I can learn about the trendy new nightspots. These friends can be seen as experts who help me pare down my outside world. This sort of “location curation” by trusted sources offers a more sustained value than pure social plays for both users and advertisers.

POINTS OF INTEREST

Take, for example, Untravel Media, whose “Mobile Narrative System” combines online mapping with audio, pictures, and video to produce “sightseeing experiences” that run on mobile phones and GPS devices. The technology is state-of-the-art (a Flex and AIR front end communicating with a back-end Java server that generates media for a Flash Lite-based player), but more importantly, it’s easier to use than to build. A simple interface allows experts–historians, filmmakers, curators, and travelers–to help craft and narrate tours.

Socialight is another LBS focused on combining place with topics of interest. Using their site or my phone, I can curate “urban mixtapes” to help friends discover New York. I could also find out the “Best fall picnic spots in Wine Country” according to Winetravel.com or if I’m near one of Anthony Bourdain’s favorite restaurants. City of Memory, while not yet mobile, is another good example.

BRANDED MOBILE UTILITY

To reach consumers, LBS need to be useful–and so do brands. This presents a huge mobile marketing opportunity. A brand can show people, quite directly, places of interest related to their “expertise” (e.g., Adidas–sneaker shops, Pampers–nearby restrooms). Louis Vuitton Soundwalk, celebrity-narrated mp3 tours of Chinese cities, does just this (if only it had a map component…). So did Guinness’ mobile app for the Sevens in Hong Kong and Socialight’s “Gossip Girl” and “Project Runway” guides to New York. With open APIs like uLocate’s Where, Google’s Android and the iPhone SDK, we expect to see more brands use LBS to get you–and their marketing message–to the right place at the right time.

You should also check out: Multimedia Microblogging

Original post at:http://www.nextgreatthing.com/wordpress/2008/09/23/top-mobile-trends-location-curation/