Skip to main content

Wearable tech for kids coming from LeapFrog

By
(CNN) -- The wearable technology movement is in full effect, and exercise-based activity trackers lead the way. Now, it's becoming child's play. Leapfrog, the maker of education-oriented tablets and apps for children, has unveiled LeapBand, a wearable activity tracker designed with kids in mind.
Selling for $40 and designed for children ages 4-7, the LeapBand "encourages active play and healthy habits" with 50 different games and other challenges. It will be available in August, the company said in a written release.

"We understand that helping a child reach their potential not only includes making sure they are versed on the ABCs and 123s, but they are encouraged through play to establish healthy habits and get the exercise they need every day," said Dr. Jody Sherman LeVos, director of LeapFrog's Learning Team. "LeapBand is a great way to get kids up and active and help them develop a strong foundation for healthy lifestyles."
The band fits around the user's wrist and looks a lot like a kids version of a smartwatch.

By performing actions like "walk like a crab," "spin like a helicopter" or "pop like popcorn," kids can unlock new games and a group of Pokemon-like "digital pets" on the device. The band connects to a website or app that lets parents monitor their children's activities and choose which challenges they can select, and which they can't. Unlike some adult fitness trackers, what can be done with the information that the LeapBand collects is limited, abiding by federal regulations on data-collection of children. Data can be provided to parents, but no one else (like advertisers).

The band will be available online and at retailers in the United States. It comes in pink, green and blue.
Moving past smartphones and tablets, wearable tech has become arguably the hottest digital trend in the past year or so. Google Glass and the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch are just two of the most high-profile wearables that have joined fitness trackers like FitBit, Jawbone and Nike FuelBand (which appears on its way out).
Apple has not yet entered the game, although virtually everyone in the tech world expects a long-anticipated smartwatch n the near future.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Key to Happy Relationships? It’s Not All About Communication

By
If couples were paying any attention during the past few decades, they should be able to recite the one critical ingredient for a healthy relationship — communication. But the latest study shows that other skills may be almost as important for keeping couples happy. While expressing your needs and feelings in a positive way to your significant other is a good foundation for resolving conflicts and building a healthy relationship, these skills may not be as strong a predictor of couples’ happiness as experts once thought. In an Internet-based study involving 2,201 participants referred by couples counselors, scientists decided to test, head to head, seven “relationship competencies” that previous researchers and marital therapists found to be important in promoting happiness in romantic relationships. The idea was to rank the skills in order of importance to start building data on which aspects of relationships are most important to keeping them healthy. In addition to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to discover space hogs on your hard drive

By
If you have a hard drive that is quickly approaching capacity, sorting through the files and folders for the ones taking up the most space can be a really time-consuming process. There’s an easier way to do it—it’s the subject of our latest Tech Tip. For help identifying space hogs, let’s turn to TreeSize Free, which is available for Windows 8, as well as Windows 7, Vista, and XP. Launch the program, go to scan, and select the drive you want to take a look at. The application shows you, in gigabytes, megabytes, and kilobytes, how big each folder is, ranked from most to least. One of the nice things you can do with TreeSize Free is drill down into subfolders to see what sort of space is being taken up. If I want to right click on a folder and see what the files are like or delete them, I can go ahead and do that. Note that TreeSize Free does not dynamically update, so after you delete the data you’ll have to run the scan again to get an accurate count of file...
Post a Comment
Read more

You MUST Ask Yourself These Before Ending Your Relationship

By
Are you staying for the stuff? When a relationship is fizzling out, you know it. The intense chemistry you once had with your partner has shifted, and you spend more time not talking than talking. It isn't bad but it certainly isn't good either. If you and your mate are considering parting ways, it is a serious thing for both of you. The one ingredient that I believe you must have to make it work is collaboration. Have you ever stayed in a relationship just for the stuff ? For example, do you have a great bed? One woman said she stayed in her relationship just because of a Tempur-Pedic mattress. Do you belong to a country club? Do you own a second home in another state that would no longer be yours if you left the relationship? All of this stuff can tempt you to stay in the relationship even if you know it should be over. Is your happily-ever-after starting to look a little dim?    When is it time to move on? It's important to real...
Post a Comment
Read more