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Parenting Tip: Limit screen time using Kaboom App Timer
Limiting screen time is a challenge for any parent. It's easy to hand an iPad to your kids and even easier to get distracted and forget to take it away. One way to move that responsibility away from your forgetful self and onto the device is using the Kaboom App Timer. As its name implies, Kaboom is a timer that runs in the background while your child plays with your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. Kaboom has two timers -- one called Play and one called Rest. Play is the amount of time you want your child to use the device, and rest is the amount of time the device is not accessible to play. Each timer is based in minutes / hours and can be set for as little as five minutes or as long as 24 hours. Unfortunately, there is no clock option so you can't set the device for play time from say 8:00 - 10:00 AM and rest for the remainder of the day. Before you can use Kaboom, you have to set up the alerts in settings > notifications and change the alert type from banners to screen alerts. Once that is done, you can open Kaboom, set the play and rest timers and let your child enjoy some time with your iOS device. When their play time is up, a screen and sound alert will let your child know it is time to take a rest. During rest time, the app disables your device by sending a screen alert every time your child moves away from the Kaboom app. These alerts have a Close and OK button. Pressing Close will send a continuous stream of alerts to the device, while pressing OK will bring your child back to the Kaboom app and put a stop to the alerts. These constant, nagging alerts make it difficult, if not impossible, for your child to use the device during rest time. Of course, savvy children will learn very quickly that they can just turn off the timer in the Kaboom app to stop the nagging alerts. Thankfully, a parental lock feature prevents kids from making any changes without typing in a passcode. If they are determined, a child can fight their way through the stream of alerts and turn off notifications in the settings. Hopefully, an attentive parent will notice this flurry of alerts and intervene to take the iPad, iPhone or iPod touch away. Kaboom - App timer is available in the iOS App store for US$0.99. It's well worth the dollar to help you control your children's time in front of the screen.
Daily iPhone App: Artkive helps you save your child's artwork for posterity
I first learned about Artkive last week at an event here in LA, put on by Technori and designed to show off some of the best startup ideas in the City of Angels. The company has been around for quite a while, and has picked up a whole lot of buzz from mom bloggers and the parenting industry (which explains why I'm so late on it: I don't have kids and don't plan to any time soon). But I have to admit, after watching the presentation at Technori, that Artkive is a really impressive app, with a lot of potential going forward. The basic idea with the app, as you might have guessed from the name, is that it's designed to work as an "art archive" of your children's work. All parents get plenty of artwork from their kids as they grow up, be those macaroni sculptures, finger paintings or just roughly scribbled-on coloring books, and sometimes that art goes on the fridge or into a box at the bottom of the closet. But Artkive's goal is to keep it saved away digitally, available to either be shared with others via social networks, or eventually printed off into a keepsake book or on other items. The app is as simple as it gets -- you simply use the iPhone's camera to take a picture of your kid's art, you can tag it with some relevant information like their age or where it was done, and then you have a quickly growing archive of all of their work. Artkive's representatives at the Technori pitch pointed out that while the app has been smoothed over through its various versions and iterations, it's far from done. Not only do they have lots of opportunities in terms of licensing and item sales (one company has even approached them to try and make a set of Artkive-branded creative tools like a paint easel or a crayon set), but what they'd like to do eventually is turn the app into an archive of everything your kid does including art, which would mean pictures as they grow, any special awards or commendations, or anything else you'd like to save from your child's childhood. That's a pretty big idea -- for now, Artkive is obviously focused on just keeping the art safe. This is definitely a solid app, and if your child is at that age where every other day they're bringing home something creative, this might be the perfect way to track and store exactly that they've done. Artkive is a free download, available right now from the App Store.
10 things I learned from playing WoW with my 7 year old
I took advantage of one of the many Blizzard sales to get The Spawn's account up to date through Cataclysm a few months ago. We made a pandaren duo together and played through the Wandering Isle, choosing Horde, my faction of choice. This is the first time playing together when she's been able to read the quests without my help, so she's a real partner instead of a tagalong. The experience has been illuminating. The title of this article is kind of misleading, because some of these things I already knew, but "10 things playing with my daughter illuminated for me but I already knew, they just weren't at the forefront of my mind" is a bit unwieldy. Regardless, here they are: Sprites are scary. Anne Stickney had pointed this out before, but I didn't really get it until playing with The Spawn. After being swarmed by them and dying, I had to play her character in order to get her through a particular questline. It's all OK now. No nightmares. It could have turned into another Raving Rabbids incident -- she still fears them in her sleep. That was a big video game fail on my part. (It's the screaming.)
How 5 minutes AFK cost one WoW player 476,000 gold
We've all been there: leaving World of Warcraft running on our computers while we've run off to grab a soda or take a bio break. However, most of us return to find our characters safe and sound just as we left them. Not so for WoW-player 1104, who returned to his desk to find that most of his 476,000 gold was missing in action. The culprit? His 6-year-old son, who went on a pet shopping spree, picking up the rarest -- and priciest -- pets on the auction house. It could have been worse, of course: clearing out gold isn't nearly as bad as clearing out a real life bank account, as kids have done accidentally with in-app purchases in mobile games. But still, getting half-way to the gold cap is nothing to sneeze at -- it represents a lot of time and effort, if nothing else. So what's a WoW-playing parent to do? 1104 couldn't really blame his son, but does think this might be a sign that it's time to walk away from WoW. On the flip side, he could also take up pet collecting: he's bound to be off to a great start!
Parent iPhones can track kids' non-iPhones with MobileKids
The delicate dance of independence, safety and personal boundaries between anxious parents and digital-generation kids is always tricky. Some apps and device usages are A-OK, some are a highly concentrated essence of bad choices (looking at you, Snapchat) -- but most fall into a gray area, subject to negotiation. Some parents may choose to know as much as possible about what their kids are doing online, and in turn they want their kids to know that they know. MobileKids, the parent / child paired app launching in the US today, aims to replace uncertainty with information whenever possible; the goal, according to development house Bipper, is to bring back the transparency of kid tech usage that we had before mobile took over. "We aim to help parents define limits for a mobile generation much like parents did in previous generations when the only phone in the household was a landline attached to a wall," says founder and Norwegian mom Silje Vallestad, who was moved to launch the company when she noticed her daughter's friends using cellphones... at the ripe age of 6 years old. The child app (only available for Symbian and Android at the moment, with a limited iOS client coming soon) delivers usage reports for the kid phone directly to the adult phone. Bipper previously offered a SIM-based parental reporting tool in Europe, but now focuses completely on apps (including the adult SOS app bSafe). The platform-independent parent app can monitor kid device usage, check location (much like Find My Friends), set time controls or other usage thresholds, and in future versions will include geofencing alerts on the kid phone location. The parent app runs on both iPhone and Android, plus a web portal. Full-on iOS households, however, aren't going to derive the maximum benefit from MobileSafe. As mentioned, right now there's no kid app for iOS at all; when it does arrive later this quarter, it won't be able to do the detailed monitoring that the Android and Symbian versions can deliver. It will, however, keep most of the location features and the Safety Alarm / SOS alert that kids can trigger to notify guardians of their location. Of course, it's possible that even iPhone-loving parents might choose a different device for their kids, and in that case the MobileKids pair may work well. The MobileKids app has already launched in the Norwegian App Store, and now US customers will be able to give it a try. The SOS alarm and basic features are all free to use; the advanced reporting features (most of which are not applicable if the child uses an iPhone) require a subscription plan at US$5.90/month or $59.90 per year.
Mom gives son iPhone with 18-point contract
Blogger and mother Janelle Burley Hofman gave her 13-year-old son, Gregory, an iPhone for Christmas. That's a pretty great gift. The iPhone came with a rather special accessory in the form of an 18-point contract between mother and son, which must be observed to the letter. Highlights include: "I will always know the password." "If it rings, answer it. It is a phone. Say hello, use your manners. Do not ever ignore a phone call if the screen reads 'Mom' or 'Dad'. Not ever." "Turn it off, silence it, put it away in public. Especially in a restaurant, at the movies or while speaking with another human being. You are not a rude person; do not allow the iPhone to change that." I love it. As the father of a soon-to-be teenager, I'm saving this for future cribbing. My favorite bit is at the very end: "You will mess up. I will take away your phone. We will sit down and talk about it. We will start over again. You & I, we are always learning. I am on your team. We are in this together." Well done, Janelle. [Via The Next Web]
5 chat safety tips for young players
It's winter break. The Spawn is seven years old and home for three weeks. She wants to go swimming, have playdates, check out books from the library, play Zelda Windwaker, and collect pets in World of Warcraft. The first four are easy -- there are already safety nets in place. But now I have to get her WoW account safe for little, reading eyes. Get the Bunny Censor add-on. I'm going to do other things to protect her from chat, but just in case anything gets through, it's hard to be traumatized by "Bunny you!" Have the talk. Don't talk to anyone. Don't join groups. Be considerate. See Penny Arcade for an excellent depiction of what we parents have to go through in this day and age. Leave all public chat, especially Trade and General. The command is /leave and then the channel number. So to leave trade chat for most people, type /leave 2.
Parents with questions may find guidance in Questioning Autism? app
It's the rare mom or dad who's never spent a sleepless night wondering "Is my kid OK?" Developmental issues, in particular, can be a nightmare to classify and confirm. Normal variations between children may mean that a milestone delay is nothing to worry about; for another child, when seen in context with other symptoms, that same delay may justify an evaluation by a professional. That's why the Questioning Autism? app for iPhone, released earlier this month, is an interesting and useful tool. With 12 straightforward educational questions, the app helps guide parents who may be concerned about a young child in preparing feedback and comments for a conversation with a pediatrician. It's not intended to diagnose autism or related disorders, but can help parents understand the signs and symptoms of autism. Parents can annotate each answer, so that their emailed or printed notes are available when discussing particular behaviors or incidents. At the end of the question panel, parents can tap through to web resources and further tools. The Questioning Autism? app is the brainchild of Brooklyn-based UX guru Michael McWatters, who tells the story of his own family's struggles at his ASD Dad blog. Michael and his wife have twin sons, one who has autism and one who is neurotypical. Their pediatrician dismissed their concerns about their son's developmental arc for some time, so Michael's blog is intended to help other parents combat the anxiety and isolation that may come with parenting a special-needs child. Although there are other screening apps for mental health, Questioning Autism? is distinguished by a few factors: it's free, it's gracefully designed, and it's drawing on the real-life experiences of a parent who has been through the challenges and frustrations of a child's autism spectrum diagnosis. You can download it or other apps from ActiveHealth Management on the App Store now. [hat tip Ditmas Park Corner]
How a kid-friendly app leaks mature content via YouTube
With the rose-hued glasses of nostalgia firmly in place, today's tech-tangled parents may long for a simpler pre-Internet time when kids simply got into fights or stayed out too late, rather than getting tangled up in sexting mishaps or giving out inappropriate personal info on Facebook. For all technology's hazards, however, it has given moms and dads the opportunity to engage and explore our kids' preferences in media and leisure activities collaboratively with them. When we're enabled by parental controls or app ratings to help our kids make good choices, that's a win. When the rating systems or the restrictions don't encompass an edge case, unfortunately, that's a problem. Reader Chris A. emailed us to point out a subtle gap in the App Store's rating system when it comes to games and other apps aimed at kids. The example app here is the Avengers Initiative game (US$6.99 and rated 9+ for cartoon violence), but several others exhibit the same potential issue. In the settings and social content area for Avengers Initiative, there's an option to visit the "Marvel XP" microsite for supplementary content, character profiles, videos and so on. In order to get to the good stuff, you've got to register a Marvel account; in fairness to the company and to Apple, there is an age challenge during registration that requires you to say you're 13 or older in order to sign up. A parent might sign up for a child, however, on the assumption that the web content in Marvel XP would be consistent with the rest of the app. Here's where it gets dicey: the video content in Marvel XP is hosted on YouTube, so if a young person taps on the Hulk's video introduction the player window that comes up includes the YouTube player bar on the bottom. Guess what happens if you tap the YouTube logo in the bottom right corner? Indeed, the device screen is taken over with the full m.youtube.com interface, including the search button. Funky sexy adult-type videos, here we come! You can see the steps to reproduce this in the video below (hosted, un-ironically, by YouTube). Sure, it's an obscure pathway to get to the fun stuff. But this is likely reproducible in most applications with embedded YouTube content, regardless of rating or intended audience. Disabling the YouTube app (pre-iOS 6) doesn't block it, nor would putting restrictions on Safari. It's simply not considered in the ratings matrix. The good news is, there may be a simple fix for these apps that keeps the video, but without the "let me see the whole world" button. YouTube's "modestbranding" flag, applied to the embed HTML snippet, should permit developers to embed video sans logo & link which may in turn keep the tots from meandering around. If the Ghostbusters and Avengers app teams took this simple step, that would help Chris's peace of mind when it comes to his kids' iPad time. Developers who don't have the correct embedding setup should probably let parents know that the apps they're browsing include a video escape clause. Another way around the whole problem: game devs, don't host your video content for your sub-17+ apps on YouTube at all. Pony up for a paid account on Viddler or simply run your own streaming server, instead. Rating apps on content and appropriateness is never going to be a perfect system. Most apps that provide web browser functionality should technically be rated 17+, which has been a point of contention for years now. On some level, that flag makes some sense; there's no way for the iOS restrictions system to control where those apps end up on the big scary Web. Different families will have different tolerances for exposure to edgy or inappropriate content on YouTube. (I think I hit my limit this weekend when the Harry Potter videogame playthrough chosen by my eight-year-old turned out to include a rather impressive amount of profanity.) But it's harder to have the conversation about what's appropriate or allowed if you don't even know about the library of out-there videos that's hiding in plain sight, right behind the Hulk.
What happens in a toddler's brain when they use an iPad
Those of us who have used traditional computers for a while think the iPad is pretty magical. t's super fast, super portable, and the direct interactivity is a very different experience from what we're used to with a mouse and keyboard. But those comparisons aren't as valid for children who are growing up with this technology. While the iPad is a sea change for traditional computer users, the effect of using it on young minds is still mostly undetermined. This article in the Wall Street Journal talks about the scientists currently studying that effect. Studies on developmental experimentation usually take about three to five years, so with the iPad only available to the public for a little over two, actual research is still forthcoming. But so far, there are both good and bad effects for children using the iPad. First, because it is so direct and interactive, scientists have seen that kids are much more easily immersed in material they read and browse on Apple's tablet. Books, especially, are ideal on tablets, because they can use sound, video, and other forms of interaction to bring students right into the content. But the flip side of that is that kids can apparently get too immersed. Because the iPad is so focused and easy to use, too much screen time can interfere with childrens' development. On the other hand, too much of anything is obviously a mistake for toddlers. As with everything, iPad use will have to come down to what parents think is healthy, and best for that individual child.
An iPod touch for kids and parents: one dad's guide
I've been separated for about two years now; as any part-time custodial parent will tell you, it can be tricky to communicate with the kids when you're not around as much. This past Christmas I decided to get an iPod touch for each of my kids. At the time, they were living about 30 minutes away from me, and for whatever reason we didn't always have nightly phone calls to stay connected. "If only there was some easier way to stay in contact," I thought, "then they won't have to miss me as bad." Well, the experiment has been a success. In the process it yielded a few interesting tips for divorced parents, and also anyone considering an iPod touch for a kid under 11 (as both of mine are). I do recommend that parents think hard about getting their kids iOS devices before making the leap. Most kids I have met under 10 are not responsible enough to "own" an iPod touch without a lot of supervision. User Accounts In order to keep iMessages from losing its mind, and to get the next generation started on the path to full digital humanhood, I set up individual iCloud accounts using a Gmail address. The main thing to remember here: Go into Google's settings and lock everything down first. Google+ sharing is turned to full discovery mode by default, and I'm not keen on people adding my daughter to their circles! You may optionally want to go back in and change their Apple IDs to something other than soandso@gmail.com, but I didn't. For some reason I don't recall seeing the option to get a free @me account when setting up their iPods, as this how-to for the iPad indicates. As a result, I have no idea if my kids have iCloud email accounts, no do we know what the addresses are. Further, this has set us on a path of using more Google services since (as far as I knew) we needed that Gmail account to set up the iPod touch to begin with. There's really not an intuitive way to fix this, so my kids will probably never use an @me account, nor use iCloud for calendars. If I had it to do over again I would much prefer they simply use @me addresses, but when I set these up (late November 2011), I could not see an option that allowed this. Access Controls Of course, after locking down the Google account I went into the iPods and locked down the in-app purchases and 17+ apps. Something that's a real bummer is the inability to have granular control here. The best example is the YouTube app, which disappears when apps are set to one age threshold. My 10-year old daughter hates this, and so do I. I would much prefer the age gate be set IN the YouTube app, but the way Apple does it, the app just disappears entirely unless you remove the restrictions. There's actually a lot of useful stuff on YouTube that I wouldn't mind my kids seeing -- if only Apple would let me enable it without making those decisions for me. Same with Netflix, which will also disappear around the 13+ age gate. The good news is that 90% of the time the iOS parental controls work great. FaceTime, Skype, IM+ Oh you didn't think you'd just need an iCloud account did you? As I said earlier, for whatever reason I can't just set up "an Apple ID," as I had to have an existing email account. Well, that email account will get some extra use as FaceTime and iMessages will fail you. A lot. FaceTime still can't work on cellular networks and WiFi is required. Guess what? I'm not always in a place with WiFi, but my magical iPhone can use products from competitors (Microsoft and Google, in fact) to place a video call. So I set up my kids with Skype accounts for those times when I'm not sitting at home waiting for their calls. Also, their mom is an Android user, so the Google accounts plus IM+ from Shape Services come in handy when they are with me and want to message her. Get a good case and insist it stay on The iPod touch is really cool to look at, but a shattered screen is not. My daughter got a cheap "fashion" case from someone and then dropped her touch on a hard floor. Since there's no AppleCare+ for the touch, that cost me an extra $99 to repair. We started with some clear cases from Griffin, but ultimately I found the FlexGrip Action (also from Griffin) provides a good grip, adequate protection and a wrist strap. A good case is worth the cost, no matter what. Capacity The biggest mistake I made was buying the 8 GB iPod touch. I have no idea who uses an 8 GB iPod touch. Someone with no desire to download apps, that's for sure. Now my kids get to juggle software updates (because you have to have a lot of empty space to "Update All" or do a system update), pictures or video and apps. Memory management in the age of the cloud -- I find it quite hilarious. To mitigate the issues I subscribe to music streaming services, but still it's a chore. The good thing is my kids are smart and have learned that deleting an app means you can download it again later. They "test" a lot of apps that way. I'm surprised how unsentimental they are about it, but that's how it goes in a deleting-isn't-permanent ecosystem. My advice? Buy more capacity then you want to. The 8 GB iPod touch is just far too constrained to be used by anyone who visits the App Store each month. Gifting Apps Boy I wish Apple would make gifting somewhat easier on the recipient's end. It took a few times to explain to my kids (who are not big email users, hello 21st century generation) that they have to go into email, look for the iTunes email, scroll to the very bottom of the email, click the Redeem button, which will then launch the App Store, then allow them to download the app. Not the definition of ease-of-use, but not a tragedy either. Wouldn't it be better if you got a system message that said "So-and-so has sent you a gift app! Would you like to download it now?" Apple could do this easily. Instead, if you buy something yourself and download it on your Mac and you have iCloud enabled and WiFi downloading enabled it'll just start downloading on your iOS device. I can see why this would be problematic with a gift app (Grandma sends kid a huge app that jams up their device -- another issue which Apple should fix is that "jamming" that happens when memory is low, but that's another article). Just know that if you "gift" apps you'll have to train the kids on how to redeem the things. It is not intuitive, at least not for those who don't automatically read email every day. Backing up data Since I set up Gmail I started recommending to my kids that they email themselves pictures before deleting them if they want to save them. Because after a month of Photo Stream, they begged me to turn it off. Not even my kids like how Photo Stream works! But iCloud backup is great. When I took my daughter's touch in to fix the screen, of course they just swapped it out with a new one. Within minutes all of her data, apps and customization were back on the device thanks to the iCloud backup. If you use iCloud for nothing else, use it for this. The experiment continues... After the initial excitement wore off, I found my kids using the iPods in different ways. My daughter loves music, so she listens to her Rdio account all the time. My son isn't much into just listening to music, so he and I share a Spotify account. Instead, he likes stuff like Frames or Eden, where he can actually create things. My daughter likes to snap pics of the cats and her friends and add flair to the pics. My son tends to try and FaceTime me every night, whereas my daughter is often busy reading herself to sleep (she doesn't use iBooks, however) or writing little stories using Pages. I recommend the iPod touch as a great communicator for separated, divorced or non-custodial parents. If both sides can agree to the rules, regular communications are good for kids, and the iPod touch makes it easier than ever before to see and hear your kids on a regular basis. Plus, with a little parenting, the touch can open a world of creation and discovery that is beneficial to children. I can't wait until they get their own iPads someday!
The Daily Grind: Do you play your favorite MMO with your kids?
Today's Daily Grind is for the parents -- or those who plan to be parents one of these days. It's only natural for little ones to take an interest in what mom and dad spend their leisure time with, whether it be a sport, some sort of craft, or gaming. MMO gaming in particular lends itself to being a family activity, where Mom, Dad, and the kiddos can team up and take on the Big Bad in their chosen game (provided there are enough computers around the house). Granted, not every MMO is suitable for the younger crowd, but plenty are. As a parent, do you round up your child for some gaming time? If so, do they join you in your game of choice, or do the two of you spend quality time in a game that you set aside to play together, like Free Realms and Wizard101? Those of you who are looking at parenthood down the road, do you plan to introduce your kids to gaming as soon as possible? Click that handy little comment button and let us know what you think! Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The iPad and parenting
Parents with young children are often faced with a difficult decision when it comes to the iPhone and iPad. Kids love Apple's mobile devices! They are bright, colorful, responsive and easy to use. They can be used as a tool to help young children learn their colors, shapes and letters. And a recent survey by Common Sense Media suggests 20% of parent use a mobile device to keep their child entertained so they can get some errands done. Once you get over the fact that you are handing a $600 electronic device to a toddler, the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch can be a valuable parenting tool. These mobile devices, though, have a darker side. When a child is given an iOS device, they often get absorbed into their own world while they tap away. These devices become a major distraction that takes kids away from imaginative outdoor play and keeps them from fully interacting with their parents. They can also lead to bad behavior as some kids get so hooked on using their parent's mobile device that they throw a temper tantrum when the mobile device is taken away. Even parents can get caught up in their child's love for iOS and use the device to bribe their child to behave, when they really should be disciplining them instead. It's all about balance and parents today have to decide how much device time is enough. Unfortunately, there's no magical number and this optimal time varies from child to child and family to family. To make things even more challenging, an increasing number of games and other applications are now targeting children. Between white noise generators for babies and Disney's new Cars game for the iPad, this line of appropriate usage will become even more difficult for parents to define.
How do you balance game and family?
This post has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. No matter your walk of life, we all have time management challenges. Within that spectrum, there are the most fortunate who have personal assistants to manage their next nose hair removal appointment, to those dealing with significant life-and-death issues that none of us would ever want to contemplate. However, within the WoW community, there is a sizeable portion of us who are full-time working parents. Gone are my early college days (early '90s, egad!) when I used to slack off and play MUDs (Valhalla, anyone?) all night long without a care in the world ... I could always blow off a class or two and still pass. With kids, it's a completely different ballgame. Not only do young children demand your attention after you get home from a long day at work, it's your responsibility to spend quality time with them. Make them a healthy dinner, read books with them, play games, go outside for a walk, give them a bath, watch a ballgame with them. These are precious moments that I savor. However, this added responsibility can add a lot of stress. It's therapeutic to expunge it when we actually have a free moment. Gaming is one of my releases. I feel fortunate that I can actually squeeze in two raiding nights a week, but that's it for me. With raiding, there is a schedule that my wife and family are comfortable with. It's how I choose to prioritize my WoW goals. I can't run heroics. Dailies, yeah, right -- it's either bath time, a tee ball game, or we need to rush our toddler to the doctor because his diaper is full of purple poo. Stay out of the purple poo, BTW. As a parent, how do you prioritize in-game goals?
Breakfast Topic: Do your kids play WoW with you?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. My 10-year-old son is quickly becoming a World of Warcraft junkie (can't imagine where he gets that from ...). He has two characters, a gnome mage and a tauren warrior. He hasn't managed to level either of them past 13, but that doesn't bother him in the least. He runs from capital to capital, fishing, riding the zeppelin or Deeprun Tram, hooking up with whichever relative is "lucky" enough to be on at that moment and even occasionally completing a quest. My brother, brave fellow that he is, actually took my son for a run through Ragefire Chasm. I still haven't heard the end of that. I confess to sometimes using his WoW obsession for nefarious purposes -- it makes a great reward for chores or homework well done! If you have kids, do you let them play WoW? What types of characters do they play? Do you find it necessary to take any precautions? What limits do you set? Whether you do or you don't, what is your reasoning behind it? Are you concerned that they might fall in with a "rough crowd?" Do you love the idea of teaming up with your kiddo to take on Erudax? Are your kids in your guild? Chime in, all you WoW parents out there!
Drama Mamas: The case of the underage scammer
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. It's always more interesting when Lisa and I disagree. This week is very interesting. Let's get right to it. So... Here's my story. The first part is probably pretty typical, but it's what I did in response that I'm conflicted about. I feel I could use the advice of someone who understands WoW. I saw somebody advertising in trade that he was selling the ruby shades for 500g. I'm not sure why I thought even for a second that it might be real; even on a low-pop server, that's two orders of magnitude low. But I did, so I arranged to meet with the "seller". He expressed some hesitation about the 500g price and we negotiated a higher price - none of which turned out to matter, since it quickly became clear that he did not have the shades at all. At one point he put an item with the same icon as the shades (yes, I have seen the real ones) into the trade box.
The Soapbox: The raid can wait; your kids can't
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. No, seriously. When I'm on voice chat and I hear a child in the background asking for his mommy's or daddy's help with something, it breaks my heart when the parent responds with frustration. "Not now, honey, Mommy's busy." "Go ask your Mommy -- Daddy's very busy right now." "Can it wait?!" Sure, it can wait, but if you've ever found yourself saying something like that, look into that child's eyes next time. All a child wants is your guidance, attention and love. When you take any of those away from him for the sake of a potential loot drop, you might want to re-evaluate your priorities.
Drama Mamas: When NSFW guild chat aggros a parent
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. We are planning a special Drama Mamas that talks about the results of our advice -- good or bad. Some of our letter writers have responded in the comments, but we'd love to hear from more of you. If you have had your letter answered here and would like to be included, please send us an email at DramaMamas@wow.com letting us know how your situation turned out. Now on to this week's letter: Last Saturday night very late in the evening and pushing into the early morning, our guild chat erupted into the usual filthy conversation as drunk people came home and got online, and those of us that were online slackened our usual standards to join in. However, this time, one of the guild members exploded after about half an hour of this, claiming that her 12-year-old child was on, that we had scarred him for life and ruined his childhood. I helpfully pointed out that perhaps she was not being the best parent for allowing her young child to be playing the game very late at night with an unfiltered chat box -- not the best move I have ever made. This has now blown up to the point where I have left a guild I was very happy in to attempt to ease the obvious grief that the guild leaders were getting from this person. Unfortunately, this has not stopped it, as many of the guild members who were involved are still arguing about the situation and are disappointed that I have left. This guild member is now going to report us all to Blizzard and attempt to get us all banned from the game permanently. I was hoping for a neutral view on this.
Foto Find: Angry Birds breakfast
This is super cute -- a breakfast styled to look just like the popular Angry Birds app. A woman had some complications during her pregnancy, and she was bedridden and restricted to only eating certain types of food during childbirth. So, her husband started making food art, using the various foods that she could eat in the morning, and he eventually came around to this little tribute to one of the most popular games on the App Store. It's wild -- those are pickles and carrots along the bottom, whole grain Eggo waffles in the middle, halved hard boiled eggs for the birds, and I'm not quite sure what the pigs are; they're probably some kind of veggies. But he even got the eyes and the eyebrows just right. Very impressive! Parenting magazine says she's due in December, and we definitely hope that everything works out all right. [via Neatorama]
Prototype of robot that develops emotions on interacting with humans officially complete
The first prototype of a Nao robot that can develop emotions as it interacts with a human caregiver has been completed. A team across Europe was led by Dr. Lola Cañamero of the University of Herefordshire in the UK to develop the bot, which differs in several significant ways from those that came before it. These robots develop over time in much the way that a child does, learning to interact with and respond to the human beings around them. Modeled after human and chimpanzee childhood development paths, they are programmed to be highly adaptable to the people around them, and to become attached to whatever person is most suited to its needs and 'personality' profile. Over time, the more they interact, the more they learn and bond to the human being. These little ones, moreover, are capable of expressing a wide range of emotions, including anger, frustration, fear and happiness. The next steps are to research the bots' emotional and non-linguistic behavior, and to move toward combining linguistic and non-linguistic communication to become further attached and adapted to them. Yes, we want one.
