Insignia's Little Buddy Child Tracker encourages kids to run away, disown parents
By Darren Murph 
posted October 23rd 2009 8:52PM
posted October 23rd 2009 8:52PM
[Via Navigadget]
posted October 23rd 2009 8:52PM
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Imagine one of these babies implanted into your body.
I like this Bear
I know you think you were being clever and witty here, Darren, but you failed miserably. How about you try to just do your job and report information on gadgets.
No doubt, stick to the facts and leave the opinion to me..I mean us.
Good to see the parental posts here, noting the snarky nature of the original article.
On Tuesday in north Florida, a 7 year old girl was just abducted and murdered while walking home from school. Her body was dumped in a landfill in Georgia, and a child murderer is still on the loose here. Nice timing on the snarky comments.
There are a lot of parents in Jacksonville who would buy this.
give over. people are abducted and killed every day around the world. what are they meant to do? scroll the news channels and hope a month turns up where noone in the world has been abducted just to post an article on a tracking device?
Shame on you, Endgadet, for such insensitive and ignorant statements about a product that could give parents peace of mind and options for any number of scenarios, from a child lost on their own, abducted [rare and overblown as a general fear but it does happen] or even for keeping tabs on a child that's prone to not always be where they should be. That's what parenting is; watching, guiding, helping error correct and oh, yeah, keeping them safe. You obviously don't have any children. Oh, god.... I so hope you do not....
Who cares about kids, this would be cool to put around a pet's collar in case they run away. It'd also be pretty neat to see where they go during their crazy animal days.
maybe those who doesnt have kids shouldnt be commenting at all. this product is good for kids, but not for your teenagers. kids tend to get lost on malls, on way to school, during a fields trip. this gadget is one peace of mind for parents.
"but if you're okay with shoving this extra-small stick "
very well placed line break.
agreed with alot of comments here the truth is this No child is the same as much as no parents are the same,there are so many conditions and sitiutations that are too numerous to comprehend to grasp ,but for example there could be Autistic or (hard to control children),that warrent such a device,it does not mean the parents are bad,just there conditions may not be so,similar ,if you don't need it fine but dont bash someone if they do need such things,But i do take on points of some people saying such things can be abused ,but tht is true of every device and item ,etc ,etc
the choice is up to the parents who should analyse and decide on it accordingly,but it should not be to too much scrutiny,not everyone is mrs or mr perfect, i for one have not seen one yet,if you do i would very much like to see it.
Its about time that parents got control of their kids.
i personal use (to track my kids cell phones) http://www.MyPhoneLocator.com
joe
Remember: Trust is good. Controll is better.
I'd totally buy this.
Nothing new about this, GPS devices for this purpose been available for a couple of years, in Europe at least.
I normally don't direct attacks directly at the bloggers here, but I'll make that exception here.
Darren, you are a farking idiot. Can you really not see the benefits for parents with this device? Have you ever read the paper or watched the news? Do you realize how many children just "disappear" everyday? Do you not understand how many lives would have/will be saved with devices like this? Can you not understand that parents *care* about their children and want to make sure they are safe at all times and will take whatever measures are necessary to ensure their safety?
I take away from your snarky blog that you do not have any children, or at least I pray you don't if that is your true mindset. You are a true douche. I'm sure my account will be banned (again) and I'm sure this post will be deleted (again) but not before you read it, Darren. Just know that their are people out here that truly don't like you not because they care about your opinions on gadgets, they just don't like you as a human because you are a piece of shit. Know that, dude.
I rarely go to Engadget because I had heard from second-hand accounts of terrible bias towards certain hardware and software vendors, which I can, to a degree, accept, because even really great sites like AnandTech and DailyTech have a little bias creep in them.
What I didn't expect was Engadget to have a complete imbecile working for them. I can only assume you're a personal friend of Ryan Block or some other higher up in the Engadget hierarchy, because any self-respecting publication would have fired you long ago Darren Murph. What's even worse, I've only read two of your articles so far, this one, and your Microsoft Courier article (where you made equally stupid comments). You need to reflect on that. How poor is your writing that a once-a-month-or-less visitor to Engadget thinks you should be fired from your job because you can't get the simple reporting format down? Its so simple, and so endemic to all areas of reporting, that a 1st century B.C. Greek laid it out for us:
Quis, quid, quando, ubi, cur, quem ad modum, quibus adminiculis.
(Who, what, when, where, why, in what way, by what means)
Comes straight from Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ws
I don't know where, or if, you went to college, but its sad when you can learn more about news from a public encyclopedia by reading a 10 minute article than you obviously did in all your years of high school and/or college.
Just the facts, if you please. We'll ascribe our own opinions.
Can this device be used to track Alzheimer patients who may wander off? Doesn't seem to be limited to tracking children. Sew a few in their clothing?
Great for keeping an eye on the elderly as well; especially those prone to fall or wander.
Best tie it to a weatherballoon and give that to little Timmy or Falcon.
Mind you if I lived in one of the fucked-up countries in the world like mexico or the US I'd certainly think about tagging the kids, even though I'd hate myself and the society for it every second of the day.
I logged on to rag on Darren because it seems like he never watches the news (not even the tabloids) concerning child abductions. But random guy said it best.
Go on trying to be funny though, as long as we can talk back.
Perhaps he also watches the other items on the news and sees the growing clampdown on freedom and people more and more accepting it and even cheering? And aren't both phenomena two sides of the same coin? A general basic lack of respect for other humans.
Thanks for the kudos, but I was just speaking from personal experience.
@Wwhat, I concede your point that there is an escalating amount of invasion of privacy and restriction of freedoms in the world. You can be assured that if Governments started requiring these (or anything even close), I would be among the first to denounce and rebel.
That being said, I would hate for someone concerned about the well being of their child to look at this and hesitate just because some blogger out their decided he hadn't hit his snark quota of the day. Can you imagine the guilt later on.... "Well I was gonna get a tracking system for my kid that just wandered off and drown, but Darren Murph made it just seem so uncool at the time"
The fact of the matter is that we should all make informed decisions for ourselves. The unfortunate part is that people look to gadget blogs to help inform themselves in order to make those decisions, and bloggers like Darren influence their opinions and ultimately their decisions. I prefer Engadget over the many alternatives out there, I would just hope they realize that an article is not valued based entirely on it's snark content.
If you raise your kids based on views of random (often childless) bloggers and peer pressure from such, well then you have bigger issues and the kid might well be better off kidnapped.
So now kidnappers have to go the extra step of sweeping for bugs
this is all you need hint hint "balloon boy"
If these get smaller, at this price I'd have one for my dog and cats. This is great and if it keeps a child, elderly or disabled person from ending up hurt or dead, I'm totally cool with it.
I would have liked actaul information to be in the engadget post, but I suppose we can't have everything, can we?
Hey I know a great solution...mention (or discuss) what you want to do concerning this thing, with your child. I am sure youse can come to an agreement for their safety's sake.
I'm going to buy 24 and tape them to my beer... then I can keep track of where I set them down, AND when my teen's friends take them away.
LOL
As of Monday, October 26, we just had two small girls abducted and murdered in the USA. These were highly-publicized crimes, added on to the recent recovery of Jaycee Dugard, who was abducted, raped and fathered 2 children with her captor over an 18-year period of captivity. They are still examining bones recovered in the captor's backyard, as several other little girls went missing in his region of Northern California at the same time. My advice to the Tech critics here and on Engadget is to think a little more about the parents' concerns. To so blindly rail against the purpose of this product, AND encourage children, even jokingly, to run away from home only portrays the reviewing staff as callous, cynical and incredibly isolated from real-world concerns. If you think me overly-concerned about kid safety, then maybe the recent federal sweep that recovered 600 child prostitutes from around the USA may convince you of a need to keep an eye on the kids. If not, please return to that exciting round of World of Warcraft and have your mom or wife bring you a snack, as usual.
Yeah . . . snarky childless hipsters criticizing the parenting of actual parents on MY internets? I'm shocked.
Look, I would have loved to have been handed one of these things by my parents back when I was a teenager. I would have hidden it in the library or at some phantom jobsite while I went out and did God knows what. Then, as long as I wasn't too drunk to remember to retrieve the device before stumbling home, I would have had instant plausible deniability. Sweet. Maybe tracking Jenny at the prom isn't the best application for this.
However, I have a five-year-old daughter. Because I am a terrible parent and allow her some independence in letting her play with the neighborhood kids without my direct supervision at all times (back in the 70s when I was her age, we called this "childhood"), I think a device such as this one would come in handy. Hell, I would have LOVED to have had one on that day when she mistakenly got on the wrong homebound bus after school and I spent a panicked half-hour trying to locate her when she didn't get off the bus at her stop. LOL -- I'm so paranoid! Parents are dumb!
I'd rather have a smaller one that can go inside a shoe or someplace more discreet, though. Still, it would be nice to be able to locate my kid instantaneously.
This blogger is an idiot. I won't rehash all the aforementioned reasons, just wanted to add another vote to the "fire him" pile. Douche.
All those "up the asses" comments are pretty funny but wait until you lose a child as my sister did...forever. I have been waiting for a reliable product like this for my autistic daughter and can hardly wait to buy one. To the critics of and naysayers on this blog please consider the positive uses.
Yes, with the number of children that go missing each year, every parent should use a personal GPS tracking device, but you dont have to be a parent to need or benefit from owning one of these devices. Motorcycles, skis, musical instruments, laptop computers, purses & luggage, even the family dog: EVERYBODY has SOMETHING they want to protect!!!
When considering the purchase of a tracking device, do your homework because not all GPS systems are alike. Aside from features such as Geofencing, speed-alerts and so on, the one thing you really need to look into is the COST. Most GPS devices I've looked into have HIDDEN costs such as monthly/annual renewal fees or charge you per track ontop of the purchase price. When I called Best-Buy to get more info on the "Little Buddy" they couldn't even tell what the OTHER costs of thier system were.
I ended up buying a system called "The GPS Guadian" at http://www.thegpsguardian.com . Not only did I get the device for FREE by purchasing 3 years of service up front, but I got the 4th and 5th year of service for FREE as well.
Someday, when your mother gets alzheimer's disease and starts wandering, you'll maybe understand the value of a product like this.
I roamed my community for hours looking for my mother through tear drops. I would have loved to have put this around her neck in the morning along with her medical alert card.