Natal uses "you" as an input device.

You’ve probably heard about Project Natal by now. It’s Microsoft’s “secret” project that lets you use your body as the input device for the Xbox Live. No controllers, no wires, no headgear or gloves. If you liked using Nintendo Wii’s controller to play games you’ll love the freedom and increased capability of using your body.

I recently got to experience Project Natal first hand. Timely because today sources report that we’ll find out all at the E3 Conference this June. A few observations:

First: This IS going to be a really cool step forward in gaming/entertainment and the future of humans as input devices.

Second: Don’t even think about using your tennis lessons. On a cold New York evening a few weeks ago, my colleagues were invited by Microsoft to come over to a nearby loft and play a game called Ricochet. It’s sort of a cross between table tennis and soccer. As balls are heaved at you on the screen (often multiple balls at once) you could swat, kick, or head butt them back at the screen. Natal–which was an add-on peripheral to an Xbox when we saw it demo’ed–tracks your movements and the balls respond to your thwacks. Ricochet showed my body as a shadow silhouetted on the screen (thankfully not true to real body proportions–everyone looks identical). It turns out that Natal was much better at responding when I faced the screen and moved my arms and legs to the side.

While it appears to know about backhands and tennis’ side stance, playing it sideways is not likely to win you as many points. Another game speculated for release includes an interactive story about a boy, Milo, and his camera.

Third: Clear the Area

Reyne Rice, a toy trends expert, got more points than me during our demo session (she faced forward) but she had other, arguably more serious, problems. Rice’s shoe (no laces) flew off her foot in a serious kick and came inches from smashing the screen. While Natal is said to be less dangerous than Wii, which suffers from occasional flying controllers (even with a wristband), it’s best to dress appropriately. No flying clothing.

Fourth: Beyond Blue Screen

Those who’ve followed gaming, animation, and filmmaking know about bluescreen technology where background images are projected onto a blue screen and the actor or weatherman interacts with the graphic. There were many early attempts to use bluescreen technology involving a player interacting with a game image on the computer screen. Natal is much more nuanced, recognizing all sorts of gestures, and reportedly it will recognize voice inputs as well.

Observation Five What the Tech!

As any good geek would, I asked the Microsoft PR folks a few tech questions and got very little in the way of satisfying answers. The Natal unit is currently shown as an add-on peripheral. It’s a horizontal box smaller than a DVD player. Clearly, the box holds a combination of digital camera and motion sensors. As best I could tell, there was a green camera light and a red one in the unit, which suggests two cameras that do some sort of 3D magic. Intrigued, I discovered that the cameras probably work together, one to capture the image and the second to give it depth.

Once a 3D picture is compiled, software magic takes over. Basically, Natal knows about various skeletal systems (height and body type) and knows about the kind of movements its games cause people to make. At PixelSumo, geeks can get a more in-depth explanation. And, at PopSci, you’ll get a good sense of the amount of processing power it takes for you to thwack a ball with your head. Staggering.

This year’s show feels a little recession strapped in that the toy manufacturers are packing volumes of value into their packages and not designing big expensive toys.

There was a time when plush animals costing thousands were plentiful on the floor.  Today’s show was a bit more austere but amazingly creative, which goes to show you that having less can sometimes be more.

Here are a few of the highlights:

Lego: Lego introduced a new breed of  board games at Toy Fair. Your job is to build the game out of Legos (and decide the rules of engagement) before you play.  It’s a brilliant idea–a twist on the family board game, capturing the love of Legos. What a mashup!  The digerati are awaiting Lego Universe, the company’s huge online world. Most of the games, like Pyramid (pictured here), are priced between $10 and $20.  At the high end, Creationary costs $24.

Mattel: Mattel’s star of the show was a dog collar aptly named Puppy Tweets. Once the collar is placed on the pup, he can send a tweet (or is it a woof directly to Twitter).  The USB collar uses Bluetooth to communicate with Twitter so proximity is important. For $30 it’s pure unadulterated fun–a mashup of pets/gadgets and social media. You can follow your dog and have them make other doggie friends on Twitter. 

E-readers: I wondered when the first e-readers for kids would appear and they have. Systems like Leapfrog’s Tag Reader have been serving the function of e-readers for a long time. Fisher Price announced a super-duper 5-in-1 product called the iXL. It’s a 3- to 6-year-old’s rendering of My First iPod, combining a photo album, e-reader, notebook, game machine, and music player into one crash-proof device.  Price: $80.

TRAKR: One much buzzed about fave on the show floor was Wild Planet’s new Sky Video TRAKR.  At the upper end of the price range ($129), this packed-with-technology gizmo is a toy that looks like a tank/robot.  You control it with a gameplayer-like remote control that has a small LCD VGA-quality screen, joystick, and buttons.  Using simple downloadable programs or even creating your own programs, the TRAKR transmits color video and audio and data.  It can memorize a path to your kitchen or be trained to scare the pants of your mom when she enters your room.  It’ll even have night vision just to make things interesting.

Talkatoo: Of course some of the coolest products are found in the recesses of the Javits Center, usually start-up companies with some very passionate owners.  For instance, there’s talkatoo–a small, colorful pendant that allows for a 30-second voice recording.   For $16 bucks, you can carry your kids’ voices everywhere with you.

TV Hat: Now here’s one that’ll have you laughing and shaking your head in amazement. But no one will be able to see you because you’ll be under the TV Hat.  This sub-$30 hat (or visor) has a tiny pouch for you to insert your iPhone or other video player. Underneath the hood, a prism brings the image into focus and built-in earphones create your own private studio.  As long as you’re comfortable looking like a cross between a Klu-Klux Klan’er and a HAZMAT worker, you will fall in love with the TV Hat–a poor man’s solution to TV glasses.  (Imagine each kid in your car wearing these in the back seat! You might get pulled over for kidnapping!)  Of course it made the worst of show list over at http.bored.com, but it’ll either be the next pet rock or not.

Geocaching: For the family that likes finding its way together, GeoMates Jr. from Apisshere is an entry-level $70 GPS.  It’s filled with 25,000 geocache locations from all over the country. Geocaches are markers or hidden boxes or anything you want that you place somewhere and mark its coordinates on a GPS map.

My Ami: Finally there’s My Ami–created by a mom after giving her kid an iPod and watching it tossed from the shopping cart one too many times. My Ami is a bear that conveniently holds the iPod or iTouch securely and out of harm’s way.  There’s the suction cup version for strollers or car seats and the clamp-on for shopping carts. Advocates of less screen-time for little ones will go apoplectic over this one, but hey, for many moms, it’s whatever it takes to get you through the day.

She’s Computer Engineer Barbie and she sprang to life via the popular vote of consumers all over the world. They voted on what Barbie’s next career should be for the “I Can” Barbie Series.

Never mind that’s career  #125 on the Barbie chart.  But, to add to Barbie’s cred, Mattel worked with the Society of Woman Engineers and the National Academy of Engineers to make sure their creation was emblematic. (Easy to imagine a bunch of female engineers dressing up Barbie isn’t it?)

I’ve never been much of a Barbie lover–even as a kid I was more into decapitation and mutilation than dressing up my Barbies.  And I could make a ton of jokes about Binary Barbie the engineer.

But I won’t. Because if Computer Engineer Barbie could convince one young girl that it’s cool, OK, and even great, then Barbie earned her keep.  Mattel is providing girls with a code to get onto the Barbie website for online game content.  Hopefully, Barbie will be doing more than picking out the office furniture.

By the way, the next runner up? The #126 Barbie is a news anchor.  Both are being unveiled at this week’s Toy Fair in New York City and will be available this winter.

Barbie, all you’re missing is a pocket protector, a cup of Java, and some really unhealthy snacks.

You go girl!

Soon after, when it expanded to include high school students, it dropped the .edu address requirement. It wasn’t too hard for me to backdate my life and get myself a high school account. Today, everyone over 13 can have a Facebook account.

But, as the constituency grew, so did the capabilities and complexities.

Here’s an original Facebook page from 2004.  Notice the pervasive college feel.

Here’s my Facebook page from 2006. Clearly a database of my personal interests. 
Now, here’s today’s latest welcome to my page.

What you should notice: My new page has more icons per square inch than a Japanese schoolkid’s backpack.

First are the three icons on the upper left corner that call out: friend requests, messages, and notifications.  The shades of difference between a notification and a message are lost on me.  I was perfectly happy to check the right side of my screen for the occasional new friend and avoid this icon corner completely.

Number two. The left nav bar can now go on for miles.  It includes the new hallmark of Facebook: apps and marketplace. Not only can I have my own list of apps, I can see which apps my friends use. 

The marketplace is populated by ads and offerings from my friends, friends of friends, and people I’ve never heard of.  I get it. Facebook wants to be the CMU (Center of My Universe) but personally I’d rather see Facebook classic.

Finally, number three: some pretty good privacy. Once you get beyond brainteasers like this one from the privacy setting page: Story on your profile is now controlled by the privacy of the content itself, rather than an additional setting. For example, only people who can see both your Wall, and the Wall to which you posted would be able to see a story about you writing on a friend’s Wall. You cannot completely turn off recent activity stories anymore.   You’re offered a fabulously nuanced degree of control, but the exercise gives reading for meaning a new meaning.

Bottom line:  Like any six-year-old, Facebook is expanding its world, and starting to see things from the other person’s point of view (hence all the customization).  That’s great.  OTH, I miss the pristine neatness of my Facebook of yore.

Back to the Genius Bar. I made my maiden voyage with some trepidation, after upgrading my iPod Touch to Version 3.0 and encountering troubles. I brought my shhh…HP Pavilion along to show that I buy my music, most often from iTunes, and that while my podcasts, movies, and photos all made the upgrade, my music was still stuck in my PC’s library.

Quick Observations On the Bar

If I were a single woman looking to meet really smart, gangly, slightly geeky men, I would keep trouncing my Macs and heading back to the store. My visit gave Apple lust a new meaning.

Second, I felt as if I’d walked into some Lake Wobegone where all the shoppers were above average. The crowd was the same crowd that I see at NPR fundraisers and indie movies (with a strong pinch of foreign visitors tossed in for good measure). These were happy people and really smart looking–two things usually in short supply in any store in NYC.

Third, I had no idea you had to BOOK an appointment with a Genius. I thought it was spontaneous sort of thing, like the deli counter where you take a ticket number. So, I watched the LCD display behind the Bar for a few moments. It showed people’s rank on the waiting list, interspersed with did-ya-knows for Genius-wannabes. Finally, a competent young woman spotted me to ask if I needed anything.

“Help,” I said meekly.

“Did you make your appointment online,” she asked.

“Sorry,” I said, “I thought they ran it like a bar, not a doctor’s office.”

Sizing me up as a virgin, she somehow worked some magic and got me in as the last appointment of the Genius Bar’s day.

I stood, waited, and watched. (Stood because the two small benches in the Bar area barely held five size 6 bodies apiece.) I pulled out a hard copy of my New Yorker to read (definitely the only piece of hard copy in the store).

One guy was turned away from help because he’d bought his phone from an ASAP (Apple Authorized Service Provider), hence that needed to be his first stop. I’d be pissed. He was Hakuna matata.

Another guy did get a little testy when he explained he drove in from Brooklyn, paid for parking, and had to get his girlfriend’s Mac fixed. They gave him a place without an appointment, too.

Despite the fact that the woman estimated a 15-minute wait for my turn and I waited something more like 45 minutes, I, too, was happy (well, I would have been happier with a Starbuck’s franchise in the store).

Then came my turn. Displaying my Touch was no problem; maybe it was my paranoia, but I saw a bunch of raised eyeballs when I pulled out my HP Pavilion to show the synch stats. My Genius was clearly uncomfortable and uninterested. (Not helped by the fact that my battery was nearly dead, I had a few dozen Windows open as the machine awoke, and Vista was even slower than usual.) I was living confirmation of everything wrong with PCs even though it was my Touch that was not working.

First, he turned the cover of my HP notebook so that it faced the back of the Bar. Then he told me I should drive the PC. (Not my job, man.) The old Mars/Venus thing reared its ugly head and I know he was thinking that if I’d had a Mac I wouldn’t need a genius. And that I’d never be a genius because I didn’t have the sense to buy a Mac.

Ultimately, he did not fix the problem, but gave me enough information so that I could do a tedious restore and then manual synch myself.

I sent out a quick Facebook note asking others to share their Genius Bar war stories with me. I know a lot of people who like to complain. But all of them reported visiting the Genius Bar was more like visiting the spa than the dentist and were thankful for the help they received. As one friend so aptly nailed it, “I wonder what the lines would be like if the PC mfrs offered a Genius Bar for Windows products?”

Of course, if they browse without some structure or keep their IM and Facebook accounts open while working, the web can be a disaster. But if you help them hone in on the problem, the homework helpers on the web are pretty darn good.

Young kids need to reinforce what they learned (or daydreamed through in school). In the traditional classroom if you don’t “get it” when the teacher presents it, you’re bound to suffer as problems get complex.

I like Discovery Education because it’s engaging and fun. Its homework help site provides skill-building sessions in math, science, English, social studies, and others; many of the lessons use smart, engaging videos. Click on “Whole Number Multiplication,” for example, and you’ll get a video that walks you step-by-step through the problem using a marathon race and gym as examples. For English, you can learn nouns by taking a pictorial video tour of the desert.

OK, he’s got an unfortunate name, but one of the best stops for older kids (junior high and above) on the homework help circuit is BJPincheck’s Homework Helper. BJ started organizing websites that can help with various subjects when he was just nine years old. Today he’s in college and he’s still at it. He picks good references and indicates the targeted age.

Of course, every parent wants to know whether it’s OK or not to use Wikipedia when the kids are doing homework. Remember that Wikipedia is a collection of articles written by anyone who feels they have expertise in the subject. For the most part, Wikipedia is terrific, but there are biased and mistaken articles. Many teachers ask that kids use only one Wikipedia source, if any, in their research. In general, Wikipedia is more accurate with historical articles than recent current events. Recent articles are subject to more personal interpretation and less vetted by time.

Not sure of when the War of 1812 took place? If you want the facts–facts on every science from geology to weather and every period in history–try FactMonster for a quick dose of reality.

Now, the greatest guilty pleasure of the school-aged set…YouTube. Kids will watch fart movies or fornicating kitty cats for hours, but when tamed, YouTube can be a homework helper. For older students and lifelong learners, the YouTube Education site has lectures and talks from the great universities and professors worldwide. For kids, all you need to do is filter out the crap and leave the benign. Special web software like Vidzui or Kideos weed out inappropriate materials. Both are fun and carefully arranged from ages pre-K through grade 9.

If all else fails and you parents haven’t a clue as to what the gerund in the sentence is, you might consider an online tutor like the ones at Tutor.com. You register at the site and specify the problematic subject and your grade level. Just like a good date, you’re matched with the perfect tutor for a one-to-one session. There is a charge, but there are lots of ways to pay–for a single use, a monthly fee, or a number of sessions.

Next favorite stop is DealNews . The editor’s favorite here is the Dell Inspiron Mini, with the Atom processor and a 10 inch screen for $229. As a matter of fact, you can bet that there will be a sub $300 notebook just about everywhere you go, and for day-to-day computing tasks like email and web-surfing, they won’t be too shabby.
Not in the PC market?  Over at Cheap, Cheap, Cheap they’re reporting they’re highlighting exclusive deals from NewEgg including a $99.99 LG Blu-Ray player and $20 unlocked Motorola phones. If you’re will to wake up at 4AM and go stand online you’re eligble for what’s known as the doorbuster sales (yes, the one where trampling is always a possibility). At Sears the Doorbuster sales include the
Garmin Nuvi 205 for just  $89.99. This year’s most featured doorbuster seems to be the TomTom with deals at a number of stores.
Auction nuts are going to love ebay’s new iPhone app that lets you   Music lovers should visit Amazon with 500 albums listed at $5 each.
A couple of my personal favs.  Not the world’s best deal, but those skinflints at T-Mobile are offering  (11/27 - 11/29) a $50 savings on the Motorola CLIQ with MOTOBLUR, the BlackBerry Bold 9700 with Wi-Fi Calling and/or the Samsung.   
Because they’re a newcomer into the All-in-One PC marketplace, MSI’s All-in-One PC , the WindTop, is a total family friendly system for just $749.  It’s one of the first Windows 7 multi-touch PC. It uses the   Intel Core 2 Duo/Pentium Dual Core processor and  NVIDIA ION graphics. 

Finally, for book lovers of the digital kind, BooksOnBoard,  a new online bookstore with thousands of titles, has a very cool reading program for Black Friday. To promote reading digitally they are offering the Sony PRS-300 eBook Reader for Only $99 (when you buy a gift certificate on the site of $400. If you buy the Astak EZReader you’ll get 50% back after you buy 10 ebooks.  Maybe it’s not the best deal but it is convenient.
Black Friday can be a blast if you enjoy the mayhem and you don’t worry too much if you find out that next week the price is even lower.  However there are some real gotchas to look out for.  Here are my rules to live by for those brave enough to meet Black Friday head on.

Episode One uses an American Idol-like competition that spawns a flurry of bullying messages to Nermal, an unsuspecting entrant. Nermal learns how to deal with cyberbullies who tell him that he stinks and more. Kids watch the animated episode and then get to practice what they’ve learned. Take a look and learn. http://www.infinitelearninglab.org/

So why did Disney decide to offer a full refund to families who bought its Baby Einstein DVDs because they were supposed to make baby smarter? It’s because Baby Einstein DVDs and Disney were accused of making false claims in their marketing materials. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) faulted Baby Einstein for stating that the software would improve infants’ thinking skills, thus paving the way for future Einsteins. According to news reports, the feud between Baby Einstein and CCFC has gone on for years.

I’m no lover of false or overinflated product claims, especially when it comes to kids, but the question of infants and screen time has never been more important. In fact, we should be steeling ourselves for an explosion of apps made to engage infants and toddlers.

YouTube is filled with videos like this one showing a one-year-old competently touching his way through an iPod. Sweet little applications like Old McDonald from Duck Duck Moose and Giggle Computer Fun Time for Babies are being used and enjoyed by kids barely old enough to touch and point.

To date, the authority of screen time and kids has been the American Academy of Pediatrics. Its position is that kids younger than two-years-old should have NO screen time. But that rule was a world ago, before interactivity and the ability to explore virtual worlds was an everyday reality. The main argument against screen time was that it didn’t engage all of a child’s modalities. Now that the world of touch has been added, the game may change.

Personally, I’ve admired Baby Einstein’s founder, Julie Clark, as an early pioneer in the stay-at-home-mom-turns-entrepreneur movement. I never thought leaving a baby in a crib to stare at a screen for hours on end was a very good idea, but most parents I knew used Baby Einstein as a way to participate: singing, pointing, and sharing with their children. It’s all in how you use the tools.

Baby Einstein and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood have both expressed their points of view. What’s yours?

Disclosure: My company, Living in Digital Times, is in talks with Baby Einstein about participation in an upcoming event.

There are many new solutions that provide younger folks with a proving ground for experiencing the Internet and social networking. One of the newest is FaceChipz. FaceChipz is interesting for two reasons. First, it has a physical component. You buy a pack of five FaceChipz at retail. Second, you are limited to having a one-to-one relationship with your FaceChipz friends. Think of it as a sort of permanent BFF relationship. FaceChipz is about you and your friend (not plural) having an online relationship.

Here’s how it works. You purchase a five-pack of FaceChipz at places like Toys”R”Us. A chip looks very much like a colorful poker chip. Each chip has a unique ID number on it. You enter the website using the unique ID found on the chip.

Here comes the unique part. Once you’ve registered your chip you can hand it over  to your BF (Best Friend). They enter the same code from the chip into their PC.  When they do you and your friend are connected on the FaceChipz site. If you don’t  physically exchanged chipz your profile remains hidden. In addition, parents need to sign up their children to be a part of the site, which increases the safety aspect.

Once you’re signed up and have a friend, you can use FaceChipz similarly to how you use Facebook. You create a profile,  post pictures, and share electronic trinkets with friends. The FaceChipz sell in packs of five for $5 and there’s a one-time $1 fee for processing the parent’s application.

Parents are enamored of this newcomer because it provides a low risk, controlled taste of social networking. I was a bit put off by the fact that  creating a group of  friends requires a convulted sharing of chips. If I invite you and you invite a friend, I need to get a chip from the new friend in order to become a group.  I tested it with some 10-year-old kids  (as well as some adults) and they had a similar reaction.  They’d prefer a site where they could have multiple friends  created  with less work.  Still, if you’re looking for a training wheels approach to internet safety consider Facechipz.