Want Harry Potter magic? Try touchatag! Innovation with unlimited applications!

Sure, Harry Potter can create magic (just check out the box office expected for this weekend!), but you can too. It’s easy, fun and we can’t wait to see what young people will do with this new technology.

touchatag™ is an Alcatel-Lucent Venture that provides a contactless application service for consumers, application developers and businesses. This service enables the creation of applications that can be launched by touching or scanning identification technologies such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Near Field Communication (NFC) and 2D barcodes. Items tagged with an RFID chip can give users one-touch, fast and easy access to, among other things, information, registration, ticketing and payment.

Here are just a few cool applications (and they aren’t just for teens!):

Create your own music player
The music player cube is the most complex app available and it also takes up six tags to use. But in return you get a cube that can do about anything iTunes can do. You can assign play controls (like play, stop, next track), music files (that you can stream over the internet) and web radio stations to touchatag. Since a cube has 6 sides there are 6 things your cube can tell iTunes to do by just touching the touchatag reader. The idea is that you stick the 6 tags on the sides of a cube (like an old Rubik's cube, a photo frame cube or a foam toy die).

Build a kid-friendly auto-emailer
The email application sends an email from the touchatag Application Correlation Server. Just enter the recipients’ addresses and the message once, and then use it for any specific event. For example, now with a single touch, the kids can notify you by e-mail when they get home each day.

Set up a toddler-safe program marathon
It plays a video every time you put a tag on your reader! This application lets you browse through YouTube videos and add them as different links to your video wheel. touchatag have road tested this with toddlers who like this very, very much. You can have a Mickey Mouse, Lazy Town or Winnie the Pooh marathon without having to look for another video every 2 minutes!

You can buy touchatag at their online store. Check out the starter kit. Try it and then hand it to your teenagers and see what they do with it! If they come up with something cool, let us know!

Quinn Speaks Out: Sharing Personal (Tween) Information and Parent Involvement

We had a chance to catch up with our tween, Quinn, to see what she’s been up to. We asked her about social media. Quinn is just 12 years old and is technically “not allowed” to participate in a number of sites that aren’t for “under 13s”. Yet, with her parents’ support and guideance, she is able to access and participate on a number of social media sites. You can see Quinn's other blogs here.

Quinn – do you blog?

I do blog. I have had a lot of blogs (most of which I forgot). One of my blogs speaks against animal cruelty. I am most proud of that blog. I’ve also I blog about funny things. Sometimes I blog about my day. Most of my blogs are private so know one can see them

When I blog I use a site like Blogger. I blog to speak my mind and share what I think. I think that is a very important thing about blogs and it gives people my age a chance to share their feelings with others and important information (like ways to stop animal cruelty).

What about photo sharing - do you use those sites?

I am not allowed to post photos of myself so I can’t do much of that. If I post a photo it will be something other than me.

Have you ever posted something to YouTube? Was it fun or did it go wrong?

I did post something on YouTube. It’s private though. It was funny to make and watch. I was holding a video camera in my hand and my mother was looking for me. So I hid and videotaped me jumping out and scaring my mom. I think it was a very, very funny video.

I also love to watch YouTube. I love to watch Fred videos. They are hilarious. When I get older I will put many videos on my account. I would make most of them with my friends. I also will make a dog YouTube when I get my new puppy!

Do you think there's a relationship between the Internet and your television?

I think there is. My TV has the Wii connected on it. It’s where my brother plays video games. It connects to the Internet. So I watch YouTube on my TV. It’s cool how the TV and Internet works together.

Also, I can watch TV on my computer. I mostly can watch them on iTunes, but more and more shows are being posted on other sites. Some I am allowed to watch, others I’m not. I don’t have a TV in my room but I can watch things on our laptop.

I think cell phones also relate to the Internet and the TV. I just got a new cell phone (Palm Centro in turquoise) and I can watch live shows and go on the Internet. I don’t do that too much but every once and awhile I can do it. So there definitely is a relationship and I think it will grow.

Do you have questions for Quinn? Let us know and we’ll ask her!

Tweens Like More Than Miley Cyrus: They are Connected and Online

Tweens – the under-13 crowd who can influence parent purchases and master more technology in your home than you though possible – are worth watching. As technology use creeps downward (to younger and younger kids), this is a group that is getting a lot of attention.

US Tweens Are Mobile
Nearly half - 46% - of US “tweens” (those age 8-12) use a cell phone, and safety is the primary reason that parents cite for giving their children a mobile phone, according to Nielsen. The survey also estimates, US tweens - a population segment of 20 million - get their own cell phone between age 10 and 11, on average. Some 55% of tweens who own a cell phone send text messages and 21% download ringtones, according to the study. I guess I don’t feel so bad about my nine year old having a Virgin phone.

Kids, tweens, are motivated by mobiles – enough to actually learn!
A marketing campaign by SmartyCard online games offers kids a way to “earn” a mobile phone for their learning efforts. “Kids don’t have access to PayPal, they don’t have credit cards—at least I hope they don’t,” said Aaron Burcell, vice president of marketing for SmartyCard. “They have limited means of getting things they want. This provides them with a safe means of earning and getting a phone on their own.”

Virtual worlds attract youngsters more than their parents
Virtual worlds may grow to 638 million registrants by 2016, says Strategy Analytics. Worlds aimed at younger users like Habbo Hotel have caught on. In 2009 there were 125 million teens and tweens registered in these worlds and 50 million 5-to-9-year-olds. Strategy Analytics is expecting a cumulative annual growth rate of 23% in membership for the category.

Okay – and one last entry – not to totally freak you out – but here it is…

Firefly: the phone aimed at four year olds!
The Firefly handset has just five buttons including two that can be assigned to parents. The mobile phone looks a lot like a toy and you can find out more about it here.

Want to know more about tweens? In our next blog, we’ll feature an interview with our tween, Quinn, who tells us first hand about her experiences using social media sites and creating and posting content!