It’s quite the year for moms! Especially the techie moms. According to the National Retail Federation, plans call for spending on average $126 per mom (up $3 from last year).  They project $908 million will be spent on consmer electronics for Mom. Sign of mom’s importance to the tech scene are everywhere.  This year, you’ll see [...]

I feel like the Grinch mentioning this around the holidays, but it’s a fact. Kids get homework even as the holidays approach. The rule of thumb is that kids get 20 minutes of homework per grade. So by junior high school you’re looking at between 2-3 hours of homework each evening–and that’s after a long [...]

In my last post, we looked at Intel’s study on mobile etiquette. Now we can see what one company with a wicked sense of  humor is doing about it. At last, perfect gift for obnoxious cellphone abusers. It’s called Cell-R-Derm.  Modelled on the transdermal patches you’d use to stop smoking, these patches (once you get [...]

At a small gathering at the Russian Tea Room in New York City, Intel released the findings of a Harris Poll called the Intel Holiday Mobile Etiquette study. Turns out that mobile etiquette over the holidays is much like non-mobile etiquette—there are unspoken rules and it’s the adults that make the rules.

This holiday season is shaping up to be a practical, penny-pinching one for digital toymakers. While digital toys continue to be a growing part of the toy market, this year’s advances will be incremental, not revolutionary. And toymakers seem to be focused on the “little grownup” strategy, giving kids a scaled down version of mommy [...]

PCs and relaxation are not two words that I often use in the same breath. The whole notion of relaxation software seems a bit oxymoronic. But when you think about it, it makes perfect sense that digital tools can provide the necessary feedback to help you manage stress. With the holidays around the corner, these [...]

If the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, then the way to a man’s cerebrum is through his tech. Father’s Day may be another one of those consumer-fabricated holidays, but it’s easy to please the dad in your life with one of the ideas I wrote about in this issue of Discover [...]