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Amazon adds kid-friendly audiobooks to FreeTime Unlimited
FreeTime Unlimited, Amazon's service that gives parents control over their kids' screen time experience, is expanding to Audiobooks. Starting today, more than 1,000 kid-friendly stories from Audible will be available through FreeTime Unlimited. The audiobooks will appear via software update. The service is available on Amazon tablets as well as iOS and Android devices.
US DOT tells self-driving shuttle company to stop transporting kids
Sorry kids, neither you nor robots can be trusted. The US Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has told Transdev North America to stop hauling children around in its EZ10 Generation II autonomous shuttles in Babcock Ranch -- a community in Southwest Florida.
Verizon launches a new generation of its kid-tracking wearable
Your kid almost certainly doesn't need a smartwatch, but you can still strap one to them if you want. Verizon has expanded its dormant lineup of GizmoKids wearables with the GizmoWatch—the first of the bunch to offer 4G LTE.
Baby tooth stem cells could regrow kids' dental tissue
If you injure a tooth as a kid, there's a real chance you'll grow up with a 'dead' tooth whose roots didn't grow properly due to tissue damage. However, scientists have conducted a successful trial for a method that could regrow kids' dental tissue using stem cells from their baby teeth. The team extracted human deciduous pulp stem cells (hDPSC) from patients' healthy baby teeth, allowed the cells to reproduce in a lab culture, and implanted them in the injured teeth. A year later, enough healthy tissue had regrown that the kids could feel at least some sensations, such as hot or cold.
Amazon adds Spanish options to its kid-friendly FreeTime Unlimited
Amazon is expanding its kid-friendly FreeTime and FreeTime Unlimited features by adding Spanish-language media. FreeTime Unlimited is a subscription service starting at $3/month that includes a range of content for kids to enjoy, while parents can control what their youngsters can see and do.
Facebook's Messenger Kids app lets children start friend requests
Facebook's Messenger Kids app has so far been strict about adding friends. Early on, it even required that children count their parents as friends. The social network is ready to loosen things up, however... if only a bit. It's giving its Android and iOS apps an optional feature that lets kids start friend requests. When you turn it on, Facebook creates a random four-word passphrase for your child -- they just have to provide that phrase to their potential Messenger Kids friend. Parents still have to approve requests, but this saves them from having to handle the entire process, and simplifies matters if they aren't friends with their young ones.
Facebook offers educators lessons to teach kids online responsibility
It's important for all of us to stay safe and act responsibly when we're online, and that holds doubly true for young people. To help educators teach kids how to be more mindful when they use the internet, Facebook has released a batch of resources in its Digital Literacy Library. The materials guide educators in helping young people aged 11 to 18 understand issues such as privacy, reputation, security, safety and identity exploration.
UK proposal sets minimum age for drone use
The UK government could ban kids from owning drones weighing over 250g (0.55 lbs), under rules drawn up by the Department for Transport. The proposals suggest children could fly a heavier drone under adult supervision if someone older owns and has registered it. The age limit could be pegged at 18, partly because that's the minimum age for most insurance policies.
Amazon brings its kid-friendly FreeTime Unlimited app to iOS
Amazon's kid-friendly FreeTime Unlimited first launched onto Fire devices in 2012. The curated video and book service made the jump to Android last year and has just landed on iOS. It brings with it the same features as on other platforms, including parental controls, popular characters and a monthly fee.
Ask Engadget: Is Instagram creeping on my kid?
The support shared among readers in the comments section is one of the things we love most about the Engadget community. Over the years, we've known you to offer sage advice on everything from Chromecasts and cameras to drones and smartphones. In fact, our community's knowledge and insights are a reason why many of you participate in the comments. We truly value the time and detail you all spend in responding to questions from your fellow tech-obsessed commenters, which is why we've decided to bring back the much-missed "Ask Engadget" column. This week's question comes to us from a parent concerned about what their social media accounts are sharing. Weigh in with your advice in the comments -- and feel free to send your own questions along to ask@engadget.com! I took all my kid's photos off of Facebook but I still share plenty of them (privately) on Instagram. Is that a totally stupid distinction to make, since Instagram is owned by Facebook and my accounts are still connected? Are they doing facial recognition on my Instagram photos?
Students, send us your gadget questions!
How much laptop does a college freshman need? What's the quickest way to learn Photoshop? Is it worth having a TV in my dorm room? Ask Engadget gets a lot of emails -- and more than a few of them are questions about products. Think: What should I buy? Which product will work best for me? Which ones will last the longest? Now we're looking to hear from students, parents of students and maybe even some teachers too. If you're at all unsure about what to buy or how much to spend, shoot us a note and we'll answer as many of your queries as possible sometime this summer, once back-to-school shopping season is under way. Send your questions to ask@engadget.com and get a mix of answers from our staff and the rest of the Engadget community. (And if you have a non-school-related question, feel free to send that in too! We'll still be doing a monthly column leading up to, and after, our back-to-school special.)
Alexa becomes a playtime storyteller for Lego Duplo blocks
It's not just Amazon setting out to make Alexa kid-friendly. Lego has unveiled an Alexa story skill that guides younger children (aged 2 to 5) through playtime with Duplo blocks. Kids and their parents can walk through customizable stories themed around animals or vehicles with Amazon's voice assistant encouraging "constructive, exploratory and roleplay" experiences. It can ask them to build creatively and recognize colors, for example.
Amazon wants Prime Book Box to be your kid's summer reading companion
Amazon is a little late to the (non-food) subscription box fad, but that won't stop it from shipping children's books to your door. Prime Book Box Kids is targeted at parents, and will deliver either a pair of hardcover books or a quartet of board books on a regular basis. There are four age ranges to choose from, with appropriate titles available for infants all the way up to tweens.
Facebook Messenger 'sleep mode' locks your kids out at bedtime
Facebook's Messenger for Kids has courted its share of controversy in the short time it's been on the scene. In an effort to clean up the app's reputation, Facebook is adding a feature that parents have been asking for: making it inaccessible during certain timeframes. Specifically, during dinner, when they should be doing homework or at bedtime. Thus, "sleep mode" for the app.
YouTube adds more rigorous parental controls to its Kids app
Google and YouTube have been struggling with how to let kids watch videos without also exposing them to inappropriate content. Even the YouTube Kids app has suggested not-for-kids conspiracy theory videos. In response, the video platform started looking at handpicking content for its app earlier this month. Now the company is making changes to YouTube Kids to help keep the little ones a little safer, including curated collections, parent-approved content and an improved ability to turn off search in the app.
Study finds over 3,300 Android apps improperly tracking kids
There's little doubt that mobile apps sometimes overstep their bounds by collecting more data from kids than the law allows. But how often does that happen? It might be more than you think. Researchers using an automated testing process have discovered that 3,337 family- and child-oriented Android apps on Google Play were improperly collecting kids' data, potentially putting them in violation of the US' COPPA law (which limits data collection for kids under 13). Only a small number were particularly glaring violations, but many apps exhibited behavior that could easily be seen as questionable.
Mightier is helping calm kids down through mobile games
Learning how to regulate your emotions is a fundamental skill, but it can be tough for kids, especially those with challenging behaviors, oppositional disorder, ADHD and autism. Mightier, by Neuromotion Labs, is a gaming platform that teaches kids a valuable set of emotion management skills using just a phone, an app and a heart rate monitor.
Google equips school buses with WiFi for homework in rural areas
When you're a rural student, the ride to school can easily take an hour or two. That's a lot of lost time that could be better spent doing homework or studying for tests. Google, however, is determined to put that lengthy commute to good use: it's formally launching Rolling Study Halls, or school buses equipped with WiFi, computers and on-bus educators to help rural students with work beyond school hours. The official program will expand on two pilots in the Carolinas to include 16 extra school districts, starting now with the Deer Trail district in Colorado. If all goes well, Google will have reclaimed about 1.5 million hours for "thousands" of students by the end of the school year.
Logitech built a $49 digital crayon for the new iPad
Apple's new starter iPad is designed to make drawing more accessible, but the $89-plus it takes to buy the official Pencil for that iPad is a lot to swallow for cash-strapped educators. That's where Logitech might help: it's introducing a $49 Crayon accessory for the new iPad that should put art and handwriting within the reach of more schools. It promises low lag, tilt support and sub-pixel precision with an 8-hour battery life, and won't need pairing to get started. The most glaring omission is the lack of pressure sensitivity -- this isn't for pros. Still, it's evident that Apple is comfortable allowing Pencil alternatives if it means getting more iPads into classrooms.
YouTube's Kids app suggested conspiracy theory videos
As much work as YouTube may have done to scrub vile videos from its Kids app, there's still some work to go. Business Insider has discovered that the Kids app was suggesting conspiracy theory videos when you searched for certain keywords. If you looked for "UFO," for instance, you'd find videos from David Icke parroting numerous discredited conspiracy theories, including the notion that the planet is run by reptile-human hybrids.
