Yes, I think That Speers is such a horrid person that I had to learn how to say so in Klingon from our intern Don. It just baffles me that Speers actually sounds genuinely proud of his personal pseudo-academic project:

I was interested in the question of whether my son, going through his first language acquisition process, would acquire it like any human language. He was definitely starting to learn it.”

It’s great that he wanted to see how languages are picked up, but did he not think that there’s potential that he hindered his son’s social development by keeping focus away from a real language? I’m all for teaching foreign languages early on, but lets make it ones that are spoken on this planet, please. [Citypages viaGeekologie]

Photo by Star Wars Blog, probably not d’Armond Speers.

If I ever have kids, odds are that they’ll turn out to be gadget-obsessed bookworms. But even if they don’t, we’d probably spend a few afternoons flipping through these interactive iPhone-powered books together, giggling in delight at the stories.

Dubbed Phonebooks, these neat little books combine with your iPhone to create a fun experience at every page turn. And while I rail against using iPhone apps for parenting purposes, this is an extraordinarily cute and age-appropriate way for your lil’ one to play around with an iPhone. [Japan Trends via Dvice]

In a Skittles array of colours, the Big Shot’s actually designed to be put together and taken apart again, unlike real cameras, and it’s aimed squarely at kids, developed by Columbia University’s Computer Vision Lab. It’s actually a fairly sophisticated kit in some ways — the really unique component of the Big Shot, the lens wheel, contains three different lenses and viewfinder stencils — and it has a crank for manual, battery-less power.

It’s not for sale yet because it’s still in final testing, but I’m really excited to see what this thing can do — for digital lomography, it could be more popular with hipsters than kids. [Big Shot via Make]

The point of the Autofetch Motion Pet Ball is to stick some pet treats inside, activate the internal gyro-drive, and let the ball spin around to entertain and reward your pet. Well, at least I think you’re supposed to use it for your pet, because one of the two “frequently asked questions” listed on the product page is a bit odd:

Can I use this motion ball with my pet Rabbit or Pig or Iguana?

Yes, it can be used with any pet, child, or adult human.

I really want to give whoever wrote that the benefit of the doubt and assume that the intent is to say that it’s safe for kids to use the toy to play with their pets and that they’re not encouraging shoving Halloween candy in there and watching a kid chase after the ball. Although maybe that could be fun to watch. [China Vision Red Ferret via Wired]

The entire reader is browser based and the books feature animated illustrations and authentic character voices. Amazon, a colour Kindle Kiddie would be so cool! In the meantime the Disney Netpal netbook will have to do for viewing the interactive children’s ebooks, but a kid can dream. [Disney Digital Books]

Software sold under the Sentry and FamilySafe brands can read private chats conducted through Yahoo, MSN, AOL and other services, and send back data on what kids are saying about such things as movies, music or video games. The information is then offered to businesses seeking ways to tailor their marketing messages to kids.

“This scares me more than anything I have seen using monitoring technology,” said Parry Aftab, a child-safety advocate. “You don’t put children’s personal information at risk…”

EchoMetrix, formerly known as SearchHelp, said companies that have tested the chat data using Pulse include News Corp.’s Fox Broadcasting and Dreamworks SKG Inc. Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures recently signed on.

Well, that’s about as scummy as you can possibly get. Selling IM transcripts of children? This feels like it’s got to be illegal, doesn’t it? In any case, it’s another reason to personally monitor your kid’s internet usage rather than leaving it in the hands of some questionable software. [AP via Boing Boing]

No kidding. Babies’ eyes are not good targets for intense lights at close range. Heck, I’m not a good target either. [College Humor—Thanks Blakeley]

Well, at least I am assuming that this is a kid’s bedroom in a house. Please, for the sake of humanity’s survival rate, please let this be a kids’ bedroom, and not something inhabited by a bachelor who dresses as Gold 5 before going to bed. [House for sale via Lovely Listing via The Force.net]

The entire situation is made even worse by the complete lack of transparency on Microsoft’s behalf. After hitting them with a barrage of questions about the restrictions, they came back to Kotaku with this carefully worded comment:

* Microsoft has taken an initiative in New Zealand to ensure people under the age of 18 cannot access mature content.
* We are working to limit access to content to the appropriate age group in New Zealand. This will take some time due to technical reasons.
* We are working to remove the ability for people under the age of 18 to add points until we can resolve this issue.
* People affected by this issue can be refunded via our customer call centre, which can be contacted through www.xbox.com/en-nz/support or on 0508 555 592.

Maybe it’s just me, but there doesn’t seem to be too much “initiative” involved in completely blacklisting every person with a child account on Xbox Live in an attempt to restrict mature content. In fact, it seems like a downright lazy attempt considering they’re not just blocking mature content, but family-friendly content as well.

Head on over to Kotaku to read a full account of the issue and Microsoft’s response. It’s a pretty atrocious way to treat your customers, even if they are Kiwis…

[Kotaku]