What a great idea right? Build a tough camera that little Johnny or Janey can bang around. Make the buttons really big and colorful. Add some camera games and snap, you have a kids camera. Oh, you forgot about the taking picture part. 1.3 mega-pixels. Plenty, right? Small, fuzzy LCD’s. No problem right? Wrong. 

While looking for a digital camera for my children, I found two that led the pack and were available everywhere, the Fisher-Price Kid-Tough Digital Camera and VTech’s Kidizoom Digital Camera. Both were fun and colorful. Both offered 1.3 mega-pixel resolutions and both were built “kid tough.”  This all sounds good, but after looking at specs and reading all the reviews, I have concluded that both are so bad that I’m going to wait until next year. Basically it came down to this. The Vtech Kidizoom takes horrible pictures. Just awful. And, the Fisher-Price, while its picture quality was slightly better, had design flaws such as an easy way to delete pictures, lousy LCD, and gender specific coloring.

This year, Santa is going to have to find something different to put under the tree. Hopefully the picture will be bright and clear next year.

To see an in-depth review complete with sample pictures, go over to ZRecs.com.

Cameras children gadgets kids Product Research

Picture this: Your kids have just spelled out “WE LOVE U GRANDMA” in the back yard using your potted plants and garden tools. You hear them yelling, “BRING THE CAMERA! WE NEED TO TAKE A PICTURE!” You grab your trusty digital shooter and bound to the back door. There they are, arm in arm standing right behind their creation. “Mom’s going to love this” you think to yourself. You start snapping away. First, some, more formal shots, and then everyone gets crazy, laying on their sides, voguing like models, and piling on top of one another. Then all of a sudden you realize, she can see these pictures right now. You call her on the phone and tell her to go to your Flickr site and snap, there they are. How cool. The pictures were uploaded, right from your camera to your online photo sharing site, all while still taking them and all without any extra effort. 

The Eye-Fi is an SD card which can hold up to 2GB worth of photos and has built in Wi-Fi capabilities. With these capabilities, your camera is connected to your Wi-Fi network and pictures can be sent automatically to your computer or to your online photo sharing site like Flickr, SmugMug, and Picasa Albums among many others. Eye-Fi is $99 and can be found where SD cards are sold.

Some things to think about:

1. Unedited photos - If you’re like me, you like to edit your pictures before allowing the rest of the world, or grandma, to see them. If you have the pictures automatically go to your online photo sharing site, they will appear without edits.
2. Public Wi-Fi networks - Because the Eye-Fi has to be paired with a network ahead of time, don’t think that you will be taking pictures at a park and having the public, city Wi-Fi network beam them up to your online photo sharing site. There are ways of taking your Eye-Fi capabilities on the road with you, but it involves a portable router.

This is really a breakthrough product that will change the way you get pictures from your camera to your computer and online photo site. Go forth, take pictures, and share.

Cameras gadgets SD Card Wi Fi

If you’re in the market for a bluetooth headset, Cnet Associate Editor Nicole Lee has put together a bluetooth headset roundup that compares the Aliph Jawbone, Plantronics Voyager 520, BlueAnt Z9, Cardo S640, and SoundID SM100. Of course how the headset feels when worn is exremely important, but this review can help you narrow down the field. I feel I have to add the Plantronics Voyager 510 the mix because it has served me so well for so long.

bluetooth gadgets headset Phones

You may have heard about this project, the $100 laptop for children? It turns out the goal of creating a durable, functional, and usable laptop really ends up costing a bit more, but at $200 the XO is still revolutionary.

This is one of those projects that takes two big, hairy, audacious goals and drives them together to create a revolution. Each goal, in and of themselves would be amazing accomplishments, but when both happen together, the resulting revolution will change the world.

The goals are simple: 1) A $100 laptop. 2) A laptop for every child. Of course, the two work hand in hand, but separately, they have ramifications that will be felt for decades and together will change lives, the computer industry and the world.

As you review the features, think about how they will impact a child somewhere in the world, maybe in a classroom, maybe in a handmade house, maybe in your own living room.

• 3.2 lbs.
• Waterproof, dust-proof, drop proof with a handle
• Viewable in total darkness and direct sunlight
• 2 watts power consumption results in very long battery life and many different charging options including a hand crank
• 1GB flash memory
• WiFi networking
• Mesh networking - XO’s can detect other XO’s and piggyback off each-other to gain network access and share documents and files.
• Word processor, calculator, PDF reader, programs for music, chat, painting, and some games
• Built in camera and speakers
• USB connectivity

Please learn more about this project at www.Laptop.org. You can also learn more at NYTimes.com.

children gadgets

Fully packaged and refurbished Microsoft Zune 30GB on Woot.com for $99 + $5 shipping via a super secret link.

audio gadgets Microsoft mp3 music Zune

From the first 8 guitar notes of “Sweet Child ‘o Mine” to the haunting calls of the howler monkey on your trip to Belize to the light and airey strums of the ukulele band on Kauai, music and sounds have a uniqe ability to take us away to that special place. Capturing these sounds and the music has been possible for a long time, but not until the introduction of the Zoom H2 hand held surround-sound recorder has it been so easy and so inexpensive with such a professional level of quality.

Here are the details:

• 4 track surround-sound recording via 4 microphones
• MP3: 64-320 kbps, Wav: To 24 bit/96 KHz
• SD card storage (4 GB stores 377 minutes at 16 bit 44.1 kHz - CD quality)
• Mini-jack phone/line level output, external mic input, line level input, and USB
• About the size of a hand held razor
• $199

Indepth reviews and specs at Zoom, O’Reilly and Cnet.

audio gadgets mp3 music sound

The latest version of Firefly flyPhone, yep, the one designed for children, has great features but still suffers from poor call quality. So says PC Magazine.

children gadgets kids Phones

Centro is the beautiful new smartphone just announced by Palm. It can handle almost all the programs that run on the Palm Operating System. This could be a huge winner, especially at $99.

Here are the details:

1. Screen - 320×320 pixel Transflective color touchscreen, supports 16-bit color (up to 65K colors) 
2. Radio - Dual-band CDMA2000 EvDO backward compatible with 1XRTT and IS95 
3. Platform - Palm OS 5.4.9 
4. Bluetooth® Wireless Technology Version 1.2 
5. Memory - 64MB available user storage 
6. Camera - 1.3 megapixels with 2x digital zoom and video capture 
7. Battery - Removable 1150mAh, lithium-ion, 3.5 hours talk time, up to 300 hours standby time 
8. Expansion - microSD card (up to 4GB supported)
9. Conector - Multi-connector
10. Dimensions - 4.22″ (L) x 2.11″ (W) x 0.73″ (D); 4.2 oz  See a size comparison

gadgets palm pda Phones smartphone

Your mobile phone. Your Bluetooth headset. Your iPod or mp3 player. Your digital camera. Yes, you have a serious case of gadget ependency. And in the spirit of promoting your dependency, I am offering you 3 solutions for keeping your electronic devices all juiced up with the least amount of cable clutter possible.

Chargepod from Callpod: Charge up to 5 devices at once with this slick looking multi-charger. It’s functionally a very small power strip with short, device specific connectors. $50 plus $10 per connector.

I-Rocks USB Hub w/ Power Adapter: Charge up to 4 devices with this USB hub. The included power adapter means you can charge everything without the need for your computer. $16.

Ikea Charging Box: This is a do-it-yourself solution is simple. Take a plastic box with a cover that opens, put in a power strip, drill some holes and plug in your gadgets.

charging clutter gadgets power

You’re in 26B on a five hour flight, and you are out of juice. Your iPod is dead, and your phone is dead. What will you do? Solar is out. Wind is out. I guess you could use one of those hand crank things, but you won’t last 2 minutes before being pelted with peanuts.  

The Inflight Power Recharger uses the little power that comes through the audio headphone jack to charge iPods, Blackberry’s and any other USB chargeable device. It’s pretty simple. Plug the recharger into the headphone jack and turn up the volume. Plug your iPod or other USB device into the recharger and you’re off and flying. Figure about 3X the standard computer connected charge time. $35-$50. More here.

charging gadgets travel