Posts Tagged ‘Child’
iPod foils potential kidnapping attempt in the hands of quick-thinking child
Apple’s iPod touch can’t make cellular calls — at least, not without a special case — but it did look enough like the similar iPhone to foil one would-be predator. A Delaware suspect asked a 12-year-old girl to get into his van in front of her middle school, but quickly fled the scene, when the girl reportedly put her iPod against her ear and told him she was dialing police. The local authorities did eventually get called and are still looking for the suspect. If you see a “white male, 35-45 years of age, with a dark crew cut styled hair” suspiciously eying the headphone jack placement on devices in your local Apple Store, perhaps you’d best stay away.
iPod foils potential kidnapping attempt in the hands of quick-thinking child originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 Oct 2010 08:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Voice of a Geek: An Interview With Dee Bradley Baker
The many faces of Dee Bradley Baker, a GeekDad exclusive image. (c) Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved. Photo by Joel Aron. Dee Bradley Baker needs no disguises. By voice alone, the actor leaves Fletch and his list of aliases in the dust, and his credits are stacked with geek power: From roles in the Halo and Gears of War franchises to regular parts in animated standouts like Batman: The Brave and the Bold to GeekDad favorite Perry the Platypus on Phineas and Ferb . Baker’s also the voice of Captain Rex and every other clone trooper on Cartoon Network’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars , which is how he wound up at Star Wars Celebration V this month in Orlando – though you get the sense that as someone who meticulously re-marked his Star Wars soundtrack as a kid to match the movie sequences, Baker probably would have been here anyway. In an enthusiastic interview at the convention, the father of two talked about his career, raising his kids and being a geek (and > ahem!< a GeekDad fan!) as well as teasing some neat insights into the next season of Clone Wars and Nickelodeon’s upcoming cartoon spinoff of its animated Avatar: The Last Airbender series. Before we even sat down, we started chatting about geekdom and fatherhood, and the conversation was off and running before I had my recorder switched on, which is why the interview starts right in the middle of things: Dee Bradley Baker: I’m a middle-aged dad, which means I have no social time or life to speak of, and so I connect with my buddies with my Xbox. We play, actually, two of my favorite games which I’m on, which are Gears of War 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 . I’m three new creatures on Left 4 Dead 2, so we kill me while catching up a little bit. GeekDad: So, how many kids do you have? DBB: Two. I have five-year-old and 10-year-old daughters. And actually, we watch a lot of my cartoons. My 10-year-old loves Clone Wars and Phineas and Ferb , and my five-year-old loves Phineas and Ferb as well. GeekDads gotta stick together, you know. Image: Jim Carchidi DBB: I am a geek dad, believe me. I’ve got my iPad with me; I’ve got my iPhone 4; I’ve got my Xbox. I love technology and I want to feel like I’m living in the future, and these devices help me feel that way. GD: When you talk about being a geek dad and having those kinds of interests, does it just happen that you get this work and a lot of it has that geek appeal … or do you naturally gravitate to those projects? DBB: The way that I’ve followed my life is actually more of the latter. When I was a child, I thought I was going to be a paleontologist because I loved dinosaurs. I loved monster movies and sci-fi, and then Star Wars came out, and I was completely out of my mind with that, with Close Encounters , and then I thought maybe I was going to go into special effects makeup, which I thought was awesome. But really, instead of drawing monsters or studying dinosaurs, I just continued doing things I liked to do. I didn’t really target how it was going to pay off. And so, because I just followed these things that I liked, it led me to producing sounds for these things, and being involved with them in that way. It’s from a pattern of me continually doing things that I really loved to do, and then trying to get money while doing that. And it’s led to this. I mean, I cannot tell you how ecstatic I am to be involved with Star Wars . I twittered yesterday about how sad it is that a kid now can’t see Episode V and not know up until that moment when Darth Vader says, “I am your father” how it rewrites those two movies with one sentence. They can’t know that surprise now, and I think that’s a little sad. You go to a movie, and you’ve seen it already. The trailer shows you the whole thing, you’ve read all the reviews, you can pretty much know every single twist. But back then, when I saw that, I remember sitting in that theater in Denver, where I saw it, and just the electric feeling of right up to that moment. GD: So, as far as showing your daughters Star Wars , how have they been exposed to it? DBB: I started showing my now 10-year-old the Star Wars stuff … and started with Episode IV when she was probably about seven or eight. I thought she’d be OK for it then. When she was nine, I had shown her IV , V and VI , and then I and II , but I was holding off on III , because that one, that’s pretty rough. That’s pushing the border. You want to protect your kids, you want to be a good dad, and even though I make this stuff, I don’t just throw everything at them. And we’re watching that episode – and she’s a sharp kid: She’s watching it, and halfway through it, she said, “Daddy, I don’t think I want to see the end of this movie. I think I’ll wait ’til I’m 10.” And I said OK, that’s good. I’m very proud that my kids can tell me things like that, and that she can see that coming. But also, I mean, she had been watching the television series … and it’s established that the clones are heroes, and that Anakin is a hero, and in Episode III , everything falls apart, and it goes south, and the good guys become bad, and frankly, that’s a lot for a little kid to handle. You’re establishing what’s good and what’s bad and just the foundation for them to have a bigger perspective on the world, but I don’t need to shoehorn that into her childhood. I want her to have a childhood, which I think is harder and harder for kids to have these days. I was very proud of her for that (decision), and I felt very good about it. GD: (As a parent), you’ve got to know your kids. DBB: The main thing is that you’re present. That’s what it gets down to, to me. People, they kind of conjure a lot of fear about the media or about video games, and fo rme it’s about, “You know what? Just parent your kids . Don’t let the device babysit your child. You’ve got to be present. If you’re present, you can talk them through stuff, and they can tell you if they’re uncomfortable, and you can check their reactions. Right now (my) kids are working through Nickelodeon’s Avatar series, which I’m very proud of and which – it’s something that’s really important to me: Clone Wars means a lot to me, and Avatar means a lot to me too – I did all the creatures in that. Well, the new Avatar, they put out an audition and they wanted a flashback for the younger Avatar – who is now a girl – from when she was this little fireball five-year-old. I had my 10-year-old audition for it, and it was just two sentences, and, well, my five-year-old said, “Daddy, I want to audition. I want to try this, too,” and so I let her give it a shot. And she booked it. And the name of the series is The Last Airbender: The Journey of Korra – and my daughter’s name is Cora. It was just kind of an odd serendipity. To have her involved, with her playing a namesake, the heroic character of the show, that’s pretty cool. Pretty wonderful. ( Note: Nickelodeon announced the spinoff will be called The Legend of Korra in a July 21 press release , and Baker has confirmed he’s working on it, too.) DBB: But here I am (at Celebration V), in the middle of this thing that was just my dream as a kid, to be involved with Star Wars . I drew a lot of monsters and creatures, and I wanted to send them to George Lucas and say, “I’d like to design your next Cantina bar creatures,” but I never did. I’ve still got the drawings, though. My folks made me a Jawa costume for the Halloween after Star Wars opened in ‘77. In ‘78, when it was re-released, I was hired by the local cinema to be the Jawa: to dress up all summer long, and I could frighten people with my Jawa sounds and my Jawa outfit and watch Star Wars Episode IV all summer long and get paid with movie passes. I really feel like I am living the dream of the thing that I loved so much as a kid. It’s ridiculously exciting. We saw the first two episodes of the new season of Clone Wars – just mind-blowingly good. It’s a prequel of the “Rookies” episode, which is all clones. One of my favorites. And it’s showing them getting their training and getting certified as clones, and in the second half, they’re attacked by Ventress , and Kamino gets this major attack, and there’s this big battle, and it’s incredible , just to be such an integral part of this thing. Dee Bradley Baker’s birthday is coming up on Aug. 31: You should give him a Twitter follow and a Perry-style “ Prrrrrghhht!” Read the rest of this entry »
The Hard-Boiled Truth About the Egg Recall
Salmonella typhimurium (red) invading cultured human cells If your kids are anything like mine, they are not only inquisitive sorts but they catch on to what’s going on in the world and start to ask questions. Sometimes you have the answers to those questions, sometimes you have to make up the answers (or Google them) and the other times you just shrug, tussle their hair and go back to soldering. However, when the questions are concerning something that possibly might directly affect their lives, you can’t just ignore them. Unless you are a vegan family, your kids probably eat eggs and they are wondering right now if that messy omelet you just let them make is going to put them in the hospital. Thankfully GeekDad is here to answer some of the most common questions. How did the eggs get contaminated in the first place? The egg recall last week, that has since been expanded, has put a lot of egg eaters on edge. About 380 million eggs, or 32 million dozen-egg cartons have been recalled. Hundreds of people have reported being sickened by the eggs thus far in at least three states — there have been no reported deaths. Most likely there are more states that will be reporting sicknesses soon, but they might not have iPhones and have to dial the CDC (Center for Disease Control) the old-fashioned way. So how did this outbreak happen? Irresponsible behavior, that’s how. This is a great lesson in how not to run a business. The outbreak came from Wright County Egg in Galt, Iowa. Wright County Egg is part of the DeCoster family agribusiness operations. The DeCoster family of businesses has a laundry list of safety & operational violations. One of those violations was letting 380 million eggs come into contact with rodents, animal feces and unsanitary hen houses. It was only a matter of time before something big slipped through the cracks. Things just got scrambled. What is the danger if I eat contaminated eggs? This question will come from the daring and the stubborn ones. The ones who challenge the facts and want to know – what’s so bad about eating the eggs? Just throw this word at them – salmonella. I’m pretty sure they’ve heard it before, when handling raw chicken or raw eggs. It’s always a possibility, and is the most common bacterial form of food poisoning. In fact, it leads to about 30 deaths in the annual average 142,000 cases a year. Clearly that’s not a high number compared to the population, but it’s a number nonetheless. Salmonella (Kingdom, Bacteria; Class, Gamma Proteobacteria; Order, Enterobacteriales; Family, Enterobacteriaceae; Genus, Salmonella) will make you sick, and many more people get sick each year than get reported. That number goes up considerably when there is a contaminated product like this batch of eggs. If you want to show your kids one of the worst slide shows ever to illustrate a sickness, check out this one over at CBS.com. It deftly illustrates that salmonella will cause stomach cramps, nausea, unfortunate bowel movements and so on. Basically, your abdomen wants to expel the germs as much as possible so it makes your abdomen contract over and over, which causes the cramps and stomach sickness. Basically, there is no way for your child to fake salmonella poisoning to get out of going back to school. If your child is sick, you’ll know it and so will they. If they aren’t old enough to be forced to drink, the emergency room is in your immediate future as you don’t want dehydration to set in. Here’s the rub though, and the smart ones might figure this out: If you cook infected eggs you will kill the bacteria. Cooking eggs to the temperature of 72°Celsius/160°Fahrenheit is all you need to kill the bacteria. Of course, you still run a risk if you under cook the eggs. So really, if you have a two dollar carton of eggs in the fridge you have two choices, cook them anyway and save yourself two bucks, or throw them out. Well, three choices, you can draw targets on the fence and you and the kids can have target practice. Just sayin’. So what came first? The Chicken or the egg? The egg. Because dinosaurs laid eggs. And dinosaurs came before chickens. So there. How do I know if my eggs are bad? That’s the easy part: Check out this handy list to see if your carton number is on there. Have the kids do a little number comparison and see if they can find a pattern. Of course, the article gives away the range, but perhaps there is something deeper in the numbers. If you can figure it out, leave it in the comments. Of course, I might just be making it up – but I’m sure you’ll come up with something. You awesome geeks always do. Image credit: Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID, NIH (public domain) via Wikipedia Follow on Twitter @cebsilver and @wiredgeekdad Read the rest of this entry »
Review: Developmental Value in The Land of Me
Regular GeekDad readers will probably know that I’m interested in how the games children play and engage with support their development and help them, in some small way, to develop the skills and knowledge to create a better future world. Recently, I’ve been engaging in a new digital experience with my kids. Created by the UK-based Made in Me , I assumed their digital book/game/activity center called The Land of Me would be a bit young for my children. But, this is a carefully constructed adventure that is presented in a way that even drew in my eight-year-old. The activities and games were probably a little easy for him, but the old-school picture book style of images, the soft and whimsical audio and friendly voiceovers really piqued his interest. This is an activity for parents and children to do together. And, I like that. While sometimes you just need to put your iPhone in your child’s hand while you finish off that report, or get the dinner done – other times we need to make room to share the digital experience with our children. The Land of Me is a perfect and affordable place to hang out and support your child’s learning and development. The fact Made in Me promote their links with early childhood development and have obviously thought about it during development, I thought a chat with James Huggins, the driving force behind the project was in order. So, I asked James where the inspiration came from … and of course, I found he has children of his own. After a career in the visual effects industry, he was a little disappointed at what was out there for his kids. James: Included in the many challenges of parenthood was my struggle to find interactive children’s media that was beautiful, enchanting and as much fun for me as it was for the kids. So I thought maybe we should have a go. What really excited me was the prospect that we could use the computer as a start point for all kinds of creative activities that could stretch a child’s imagination and language. Most importantly, these should be the kinds of activities that you do together. GeekDad: What can technology bring to the learning and development of young children? James: I know it seems pretty obvious but one of the most important activities for a child’s early development is talking. Talking with adults and other children. One of the major bench tests in beta-testing with The Land of Me was how much were users talking to each other. It seems strange I know, to use a computer to create more, not less, conversation but if the content is right it really works. We found that when some parents experience The Land of Me for the first time they are surprised by the fact that it is clearly not a computer game in the traditional sense. There is no explicit objective and more like a toy than a video game it has vast creative possibilities. GD: How important is media literacy in children’s development? James: I don’t really see it as any more or less important than them learning to tie their own shoelaces or write their names. They’ve never known a world without these things so simply do not see technology in the same way we do. It’s not a discrete category for them, it’s just every day life. GD: What aspects of early childhood development does The Land of Me focus on? James: From a pedagogy perspective there is a lot at work in The Land of Me , especially with symbol manipulation and language. The core principles of creativity, communication and collaboration are present throughout but there are six chapters in total, each with a different theme: Shape, Size & Color, The World Outside, Making Things, Rhythm & Dance, Songs & Rhymes and Story Time. Each one also contains a raft of printable off-screen activities so that the creative journey can continue even when the computer is off. Recently a Mum emailed us to say that she was worried that the software wasn’t engaging enough because every time she played it with her son they had fun for only 10-15 minutes and then ended up on the kitchen floor drawing monsters. We were happy to tell her that’s exactly what we’re after! Ultimately we don’t want young children in front of the computer for extended periods and if 10 minutes is all it takes to inspire them to create their own visions of The Land of Me then all the better. GD: How do you respond to people who say young children shouldn’t spend time in front of screens? James: I know there’s some controversy about young children and technology, particularly screen-based media, but I think that it mostly comes down to common sense. I don’t agree that anyone can singularly dismiss an entire format in this way without taking into account what the content is and how it is used. It would be the same as saying all food is bad for you, regardless of ingredients and consumption. Technology is woven into the fabric of our lives and as such is no more or less important than clothing or buildings. It’s just there. However I have no doubt that it presents some very exciting potential benefits for learning and development, if used in the right way. GD: How does The Land of Me support parents’ engagement with children? James: The Land of Me is as much for parents as it is for the children. I think that’s why I’m confident that all the geek dads out there will love it. There’s something nostalgic and old fashioned about it. Lots of people have mentioned that it seems at once comforting and familiar. If we can get adults feeling like children again then we’re home and dry. The fact that you feel like you’re exploring a curious new place together really places the emphasis on shared discovery rather than some form of didactic instruction. There is so much to talk about on-screen and so much to question that it can’t fail to get your creative juices going. Read the rest of this entry »
Why India’s $35 Tablet May Be Just a Dream
A prototype tablet from India that looks similar to the iPad but costs a few hundred dollars less than the magical device is on its way, according to the country’s government officials who showed the device at an event Thursday. The Linux-based tablet from India is priced at $35 with the potential to drop it to either $20 or $10. The device will support video conferencing, wireless, have open source software on it including Open Office and will include a media player. It will also have a solar power option. Details about the tablet’s processing power, memory or storage have not been disclosed. It is not clear if the device will have a touchscreen or a pen-based input. The tablet is expected to go into production in 2011. The success of Apple’s iPad and the demand among consumers for a slick media consumption tablet has spurred the quest for a low cost device that has the looks of an iPad and the functionality of a laptop. The One Laptop Per Child Project in the U.S. recently announced that it is planning to create a $75 OLPC tablet. But the first version of that tablet is unlikely to be available before the end of next year. OLPC’s current low cost laptop sells for $200. In March, chip maker Marvell showed a prototype that will offer web access and high-definition content for just $100. The tablet called Moby will be targeted at students, says Marvell, and it will run Marvell’s ARMADA 600 series of application processors. So far, Marvell’s $100 tablets have yet to go beyond a reference design. Current estimates on the cost of components show that getting the cost of a device below $100 isn’t easy. The cheapest version of Apple’s iPad costs $500. A teardown of the iPad shows the bill of materials alone for it is $230. A six-inch black-and-white screen on a Kindle 2 alone costs $60, according to iSuppli. To create its $35 tablet, the Indian government says it partnered with some of the country’s best technical universities including the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). Students involved in the project created their own motherboard and PCBs for the device, say officials. Interestingly, the government also says private companies in the country showed little interest in the idea. The bill of materials of a prototype tablet came to $47. But officials didn’t explain how they think that cost can shrink to $35 and lower. “It could be seen that by customizing the device to the needs of learners across the country, and by utilizing the processor capabilities of the processors suitable for the purpose, it was possible to substantially reduce the prices of such access-cum-computing devices,” a press release from the country’s Press Information Bureau said. Deciphering that is not easy. Even more puzzling is that the announcement of the tablet did not mention who will be manufacturing the product or how it will be distributed. It is also not clear if the $35 price tag includes a small profit margin or if the product will be sold entirely at cost. Despite the introduction of the latest tablet with much fanfare, India doesn’t have a history of delivering on its much-hyped promises about electronic devices. For instance, Indian start-up Notion Ink has been promising a tablet for months called Adam that is yet to hit the market. In February 2009, Indian government officials announced a $10 laptop that ultimately proved to be vaporware. The $35 tablet could go the same way. See Also: Marvell Teases with $100 Tablet for Students Why 2010 Will Be the Year of the Tablet Gallery: 8 Tablets That Aren’t Made by Apple Hands-On With the Apple iPad Gallery: E-Readers Push Boundaries of Books Photo: Trak.in Read the rest of this entry »
Sweet Child O’ Mine (Apple Iphone guitar)
Download avi: www.megaupload.com Sweet Child O’ Mine Song played whit (Iphone guitarist) ——————- Sweet Child O’ Mine tocada con el Iphone
Related Posts:How-to: Create a Chapterized Audio File of Your Kids’ Audiobooks (or Your Own Mixed CDs)
I’ve only recently discovered the wonder that is classic children’s stories, read by famous voices, on CD audiobooks. They can keep your child spellbound and entertained for hours and you don’t have to get a sore throat reading them yourself. My little girl got the Roald Dahl’s Phizz-whizzing Audio Collection for her birthday this year, containing 3 of his most famous stories, spread over 8 CDs. She also got an iPod speaker dock (amazing sound quality from such a funny looking thing) to use with her Mum’s old iPod Mini. You’ve spotted the problem there haven’t you? Of course, it’s as easy problem to get around, just rip the CDs onto the iPod and boom, you’re done. Except that there’s nothing more annoying than a single chapter of an audiobook coming up during a random assortment of the Muppets Greatest Hits. Fine you say, use the ‘Join CD Tracks’ option in iTunes to make them all one file. Except that they’re on 2 or 3 CDs each and you also can’t easily move between the chapters or know what each one is called. So here’s a great way to rip your Audiobooks (and DJ mix or classical CDs) into a single AAC file, that will remember where you last got to and have chapter markers named correctly for each track so you can still skip directly to each one if you want to. First, I need to apologize to all the PC users out there because, as far as I’m aware, this trick will only work on a Mac as it relies on having either GarageBand or Apple’s podcast ChapterTool (which seems to have now disappeared from the interweb) installed, as well as some Applescripts from Doug Adam’s (no, not THAT one) excellent and ever useful Applescript archive – Doug’s Scripts . If anyone knows a way to do it on a PC, please let us know in the comments. So before we begin, we need to get hold of those few handy tools. Join Together – an excellent AppleScript Studio app that will do the bulk of the work for us. Join Together also requires the QuickTime 7 Player , so if you’ve upgraded to Snow Leopard you might need to download it from Apple or check your install discs. This Tag, That Tag Scripts – this collection of scripts is used to swap some of the ID3 Tag information around and is used for the mixed CDs version. Once you’ve got them all downloaded and installed (each one includes info on how to install them so I haven’t repeated it here), pick your CD and load it up into iTunes and wait for the good old CDDB to do it’s thing. Step 1 As this audiobook spans three CDs, we need to get all the tracks into the computer first, so it’s best to rip them all as AIFFs so we don’t lose the downsample them right at the beginning. In the menubar got to iTunes > Preferences > General > Import Settings and flip the Import Using dropdown to AIFF Encoder . Import the disc and put the files into a new playlist. Repeat this for the other discs and add them to the same playlist. If you’re only using a single disc, you don’t need to import it first, you can run it directly from the CD. If you’re ripping a DJ mixed CD, you might want to follow this extra step, if not skip down to Step 3 below. Read the rest of this entry »
Social Connection
