Google Is Making A Porn-Proof Search And Other Kid-Friendly Products

 

As much as parents want to protect their kids, it’s damn near impossible today to totally block access to the internet. Google is moving forward with plans to create child-friendly versions of its most popular products to help kids under 12 go online safely.

 

Google’s VP Engineering Pavni Diwanji, who leads the project, talked about the plan today, discussing how her own children were motivators. “I don’t want them to feel like they’re going to the back room to use technology,” Diwanji explained. She didn’t mention a timeline or which specific features would get their ‘Lil Guy Kidz version, beyond showing screenshots of a child-friendly search un-creatively named Safe Search Kids, though it’s likely YouTube and Android will make the cut.

 

We’ll know more as soon as more details are revealed, but I suspect this will be incredibly difficult to implement. According to the children’s online privacy law COPPA, websites and services need to get consent from parents to legally be used by children under 13. Many services, like Facebook and Snapchat, formally do not allow people under the age limit to use their services. But there are tons of 12-and-unders using social media because getting around the age requirement is as easy as taking candy from a baby who is too busy posting to Tumblr to properly guard his lollipop. Kids just put in a different date of birth.

 

The primary way most of these services enforce the rule is by age-gating, a profoundly stupid and ineffectual policy. Google doesn’t even have an age gate though, so F for effort-an actual newborn could search “breastfeeding yum” and see some seriously freaky shit if they had substantially accelerated motor skills and access to the internet.

 

The challenge Google is up against is making services for children that are legitimately more appealing than their normal services in the eyes of children. Otherwise it’ll be hard to force kids to switch, especially when they’re in the 10-12 age range, which is primetime for your first “what is a rim job” Google experience.

A Wallet That Charges Your Phones

 

some smartphones, when it comes to battery, are not so smart. However, in this day and age, you would be a fool to cry about your smartphone’s battery.

 

There are a number of options available to charge your smartphone, even when you are not carrying your charger, and believe it or not, you can use your wallet to charge your smartphone’s battery.

 

The guys at WowThem have come up with Power Wallet, which is a slim, lightweight wallet with a rechargeable 3000mAh battery. It is crafted from Saffiano leather, is durable and scratch-resistant.

 

Along with an integrated charging cable and discreet port for re-charging, Power Wallet comes with a section to keep your notes, four slots for keeping your plastic money, and one compartment dedicated to keeping your coins.

 

Android and Blackberry devices can be charged directly while Apple users would have to buy an adapter for charging their iPhones. It can charge an average smartphone by upto one and a half time.

“IPad Air Plus” Leak Supposedly Details Apple’s Upcoming Mega Tab

This weekend, a leak from Japanese magazine Mac Fan (subsequently picked up by Macotakara) reveals what they believe to be schematics and specs surrounding Apple’s rumored 12.2-inch tablet, the same mega tablet that Bloomberg reported was coming back in August.

 

However, this leak shaves about 0.7 inches off the 12.9-inch tablet that Bloomberg was expecting. A few more details also say that the huge tablet will have the currently unannounced A9 processor and “four speakers to offer stereo sound in any orientation,” according to 9to5 Mac, who also points out that it’s near impossible to verify Mac Fan’s claims of legitimacy regarding these schematics, but the publication did provide accurate dimensions of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus before its launch.

 

Many have pegged this new monster iPad with production starting this month, but the Wall Street Journal reported in October that delays due to high iPhone 6 demand had delayed Apple’s plans.

 

Regardless of Apple’s plan for production and distribution, I’m having trouble finding the point of making bigger iPads. Other than increased real estate, the iPad Air Plus-as described currently-seems like another spec bump in comparison to the current generation of tablets. I still have an iPad 3, and I’m still not seeing a reason to upgrade to anything new, mainly because iPads are forever.

 

Also, along with this report, Apple will supposedly launch an iPad mini 4, which will have a “design” similar to this year’s iPad Air 2. That kind of makes it sound like it’s the mini that should have launched this year, instead of the uninspired iPad mini 3 that only added TouchID and nothing else. In fact, this lackluster outing for the mini, coupled with Apple’s new iPhone 6 Plus, made it seem that the mini was facing extinction. This rumor would suggest otherwise.

 

But that’s all it is, just a rumor. But regardless, would a A9-powered, 12.2-inch iPad Air Plus be just thing for you to finally upgrade your tablet?

The effect of sleeplessness goes beyond just being tired the next day. Scientific research done in the past indicates that if parents work long hours, children too have to bear the brunt of that, particularly on sleep and weight aspect. A recent study conducted at the University of Illinois throws some light on this.

According to this study, there is a correlation between working hours of mothers and sleep hours and Body Mass Index (BMI) of their preschooler children.

Let’s have a look what the new research says

The study authored by Katherine E Speirs, a postdoctoral research associate in human and community development at the University of Illinois, investigated the link between mother’s employment and weight of their children over a period of time, trying to assess the impact of intermediaries like the amount of time children’s spent watching TV, family mealtime routines, children’s sleep, and their eating habits.

Katherine and co-authors Janet M Liechty and Chi-Fang Wu monitored 247 mother-child pairs from the Strong Kids study. The kids, between the age of 3 to 5 years, were weighed at the start of the study. Researchers repeated the same process after one year. They found that 12% of the preschoolers were obese and 17% were overweight. There were 66% mothers out of the 247 pairs, who were full time employees with work hours of 35 or more per week. On the other hand, 18% were part-time employee, having work hours between 20 to 34 hours per week.

Children’s of 3-5 years of age group require a sleep of 11-12 hours. Children of mothers having full-time employment clocked lower hours of sleep as compared to children of mothers having part-time employment. On an average the children got only 9.6 hours of sleep at night. Only 18% of the children got the necessary 11-12 hours of sleep.

How mother’s long-working hours affects preschoolers sleep and BMI?

The key findings of this study are that preschoolers of working mothers are more prone to being overweight and obese within a year. According to the research, night-time sleep is an important factor of regulating weight. This was the reason why Katherine and team looked at night-time sleep for this study.

Mothers who work for long hours face the challenge of work life balance. Work pressure drains a lot of energy because of which mothers tend to get in bed early. Children in such cases get less time from their mothers. Also, the children have to get up early as mothers need to take them to day care centre on the way to their office.

The study was conducted on mother and children pair who were enrolled in 32 day care centres of Central Illinois. The household earning is also an important factor in children getting required amount of sleep. Out of the group of mothers, 66% had college degree. Mothers with college degree will get a better job than a mother without a degree. The better job entails standard working hours and good pay. The standard work hours will help provide an opportunity to the mother to give more attention to the children. At the same time, good pay will ensure that the mother doesn’t have to work elsewhere.

The Most Affordable Windows Phone Running Device Launches In India

Well, if Microsoft cannot manage bringing out sub Rs 5,000 smartphones with Windows Phone then domestic brands gladly oblige. The decision to give Windows Phone (WP) platform, free of license fee to any device below 8 inches has helped many India-based names to launch affordable WP devices.

 

Micromax has one, so does Xolo and now Celkon joins the group with its first Win 400 smartphone. The phone is priced at Rs 6400 but get one today for Rs 4,703 via Snapdeal, making the brand to dish out the cheapest WP phone, probably extending to the world also.

 

The phone sports a 4-inch 800x480p display and runs on Windows Phone 8.1 platform. It packs a quad-core 1.2 GHz Snapdragon 200 processor but paired with just 512 MB RAM. The other aspect you might want to know is storage and internally there 4 GB space, expandable up to 32 GB. There’s a 5 MP rear camera, 1.3 MP front snapper as well and loaded with a 1,500 mAh battery. You get dual-SIM support, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and even GPS for that matter.

 

The phone must be making you think, when Celkon can offer the same chipset at a lower price, why can’t Microsoft do to same with Lumia 535

? Granted, there’s more to the latter than one considers but still this is more like the affordable pricing, people expect from brand like Microsoft as well.

 

We’re not sure whether the Win 400 is anywhere close to the quality of a Lumia device but it’s a start and we hope to get many more affordable offerings like this.