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Many parents do dither about buying their children electronic toys but dress it up as an educational toy and you might just be a little bit more persuaded.
What you see on your left is the Seiko spelling bee which is being launched to coincide with the final of The Times Spelling Bee Championship next week, an event I hadn't heard of until five minutes ago.
Content has been pulled from the Collins School Dictionary and Thesaurus and is specifically for UK English speakers. Aimed at the 8+ market, there's a two inch LCD screen, colourful graphics, speaking 'tutor' and word games with beginner, advanced and master levels. It aims to help children with their basic skills, to develop their own language knowledge and not become reliant on a spell chequer (see what I did there?).
All sounds good to me but I wonder how enthused children really will be about it and whether parents might not be a little offput by the £99.99 price tag.
Only a few more sleeps Apple peeps! The iPhone 3G S is scheduled for a June 19th launch with a promise to be even more powerful than its predecessor. The camera has been given a mini-boost to 3MP, there's longer battery life and hands-free voice control (including for the iPod element) plus the choice between 16GB and 32GB models. Naturally it can still be customised with the 50,000 applications on offer through Apple's App Store.
There isn't a fixed RRP yet but needless to say, don't expect it to be cheap!
I spotted this cute little guy in Heal's. Isn't it decidedly nicer than most webcams with the beige plastic? It's 1.3megapixels which is pretty low grade but certainly no worse than your average webcam plus it has a stills camera and poseable limbs. It's compatible with Windows 98/2000/ME/XP/Vista but not Mac.
Buy it? £25 here.
It's not exactly a new topic, but there is at least some new research on the subject of children and video games. They have found, rather unsurprisingly, that parents want more control over their children's video game playing. A whopping 7.7million parents, says the research is unaware of their children's video games content whilst 5 million are also concerned over the length of time their children spend playing video games. 90% of families also reported fighting betwen siblings over 'their turn'.
It's not all bad news though. 72% of parents believed video games helped children learn new skills and 27% thought it taught children about the world.
The survey was conducted on 906 Mumsnet members between April and May 2009 in association between Mumsnet and Metaboli, a digital distributor of PC games. In response to the findings, Metaboli are launching parental control features across all its platforms which will enable parents to pre-select games by age, genre or on a case-by-case basis.
For a bedroom or homeoffice, a hot'n'cold drinks maker like this is ideal. It doesn't clutter up too much space and you have a ready access to your tea or coffee without having to head over to the kitchen. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's pretty stylish too.
Operation has been kept minimal - push a button and within three seconds, filtered and heated 220ml of water is dispensed into your cup. Press the button for more water and press again to halt it. Tefal are claiming eco credentials on this one as it only heats the water you need thus saving up to 65% of energy when compared to a normal kettle.
Want it? 79.99 at Green Stamp.
I must confess that I find this special edition TomTom rather attractive. It's been touched up with a white pearlescent design with a subtle 'swirl' pattern which should appeal to the ladies who like a fun finish but don't find any appeal in the pink tech route.
It's based on the ONE IQ routes edition and has some useful new features including 'Places to be seen' and 'Shop 'til you drop' with POIs of everything from restaurants and bars to cafes, cinemas, theatres, fashion and home furnighing stores.
Like all TomTom devices, operation is super easy with a 'plug-in and go' set-up. It comes in a silk drawstring pouch and will be out this month at Amazon for around £179.99.
