We told you back in December about the enTourage eDGe and how excited we were to visit them in Vegas and get some hands on time. Today we have a video demo we did, straight from their booth at the Consumer Electronics Show. Check it out and tell us what you think. Did we call it right? Is this the future of homework?
The image above, courtesy the New York Times, is from Xbox Live’s interactive adaptation of NBC’s now defunct gameshow “1 vs. 100.” An article published in the New York Times today outlines Microsoft’s focus on providing more content like that – and more- through it’s Xbox Live service. This content however, isn’t just interactive video game adaptations. According to the article, they’re working with various media outlets -including Disney- to bring more film and television content to your living rooms through your broadband/Xbox connection. Xbox already allows users to download Netflix content for a fee, interact with Facebook and browse Xbox’s online mall of movies and TV episodes. Basically, it’s looking like they’d like to take on cable at some point which I see as a natural progression of things. At some point in the future the attempt will be made, however successful, to integrate all of your entertainment media into one deliver system. Pardon my geekiness, but “Several services and one box to rule them all…”
Of note are some numbers from the article:
“Nearly 60 percent of American homes now have at least one console, according to the consulting firm Deloitte, up from 44 percent three years ago….Microsoft said this month that it had sold 39 million Xbox 360 consoles around the world. About half sign into Xbox Live each month…The company says it regularly counts more than a million concurrent users — and topped out at 2.2 million at one point during Christmas week last month. That compares favorably to some of the top channels on cable, like TBS and the Cartoon Network, which reach about one million viewers at any given time, according to the Nielsen Company.”
With numbers like that it’s easy to see where this is going and I’m excited to be alive to watch all of these things changing and evolving around me and my family. But that change and evolution is also why we need to be savvy parents and raise savvy children because with the increase in content delivery comes, well, an increase in content delivery…..both good and potentially objectionable for your younger children.
The full article can be read here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/business/media/19xbox.html
One of our missions at the Consumer Electronics Show was to take a look at the options available to parents for keeping tabs on and helping guide children’s choices as they interact with the internet. One stop on that journey was to InternetSafety.com’s booth to talk about the latest release of their popular parental control software, SafeEyes6. Stanley Holditch, Internet Marketing Manager for InternetSafety.com took a moment to speak with Digital Shepherds regarding the philosophy of the company, the latest features in SafeEyes6 and their iPhone/iPod Touch app.
Mr. Holditch talks about their iPhone/iPod Touch app.
Mr. Holditch talks about the company’s philosophy.
I know one thing that was, and from time to time still is an issue for me is YouTube video content and it’s good to know that SafeEyes6 also works on YouTube to help your young internet users steer clear of inappropriate material. Once the software is released, we’ll take an in-depth look at it and post up a review. To learn more about SafeEyes, or to download a free trial, you can check them out at http://www.internetsafety.com
While at CES, we took a second to chat with the folks at the Princeton Review booth. If you don’t know who that is, you probably don’t have a kid in high school yet, but they’re the people responsible for helping many a college hopeful brave the grueling SATs and GREs.
For the busy college bound high school student, Princeton Review teamed up with Modality (who has an impressive library of academic/educational iPod/iPhone apps) to create the SAT Vocab Challenge application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. We’ll let them tell you a little more about it. By the way, this app won the “Editor’s Choice Award” from Children’s Technology Review.
You can find the app here: SAT Vocab Challenge Lite for free. In addition, SAT Vocab Challenge Volume 1 and Volume 2 are NOW AVAILABLE for $4.99 from Apple’s App Store at www.itunes.com/appstore/.
Marian Merritt is Symantec’s Internet Safety Advocate. She took time out of her schedule in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show to speak with Digital Shepherds about Symantec’s parental control, web-based software, OnlineFamily.Norton.
In this second clip she talks about some interesting information that Symantec discovered when looking at the usage habits of some very young internet users.
Finally, Marian shared her thoughts on the concept of “cyberbullying” as opposed to bullying in general and best practices for computer and digital device use by youths, including how we as parents can be the most effective in raising smart consumers of personal electronics and digital media.
With new media content and web content becoming increasingly ubiquitous, D-Link has provided a way for you to watch content from the net, or from your computer’s hard drive…on your TV/HDTV. The Boxee Box is essentially a media server which comes with a remote that has a built-in QWERTY keyboard on one side and has a glossy black case that is a finger print magnet, but once it’s set up you shouldn’t be touching it anymore.
As you can tell from the picture above which shows the rear of the Boxee Box, it comes with quite a few connectivity options to get you hooked up. The connections on the rear of the Box are:
Over the next week, we’ll be cross-posting some of our videos from our trip to CES on one of Fox’s local affiliate websites in Los Angeles. We’ll keep you in the loop by cross-posting here so you can read up on some of the hottest gadgets to come out of one of the world’s largest consumer electronics shows.
With that said, take a look at iLuv’s App Station. An updated take on an older concept that we actually liked!
We’re still working on bringing you the coverage that matters to your family, but we’re also doing some blog posts for Los Angeles’ local Fox affiliate, KTTV Fox11 News at http://community.myfoxla.com/tshakadshepherds. Stay tuned here in the coming days as we upload interviews with some of the companies who are making e-Readers, also, David Sutphen of the Internet Innovation Alliance and much more!
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