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Tag: kids

  • Sandra Bullock Confirms Adoption of Three-Year-Old Laila

    After weeks of rumors and speculation, Sandra Bullock has confirmed that she’s adopted a daughter.

    The actress revealed the People that her new daughter is three and a half, and named Laila. According to the magazine, Laila had been in foster care in Louisiana.

    This is Sandra Bullock’s second adopted child. She adopted her son, Louis, in 2010.

    “I can tell you absolutely, the exact right children came to me at the exact right time,” she said.

    Sandra Bullock is a mom again! Meet her adorable daughter, Laila. ❤️

    A photo posted by People Magazine (@peoplemag) on

    Rumors about another adoption began months ago, and Bullock even responded to them in late October.

    “There’s only one adopted child in my household and his name is Louis. If I had an adopted child — if I had a second adopted child — everyone would be hearing about it. I would be loud and clear and say, ‘Yes, I have officially adopted a second child.’ Right now, Louis must be it,” Bullock said.

    Bullock says Louis played an integral role in helping bring Laila home and making her transition go smoothly.

    Bullock recently made headlines for speaking out on Hollywood sexism.

  • Salma Hayek Praises Daughter for Generous Spirit

    Salma Hayek has reason to be very proud of her daughter Valentina, as she is thinking about others in need this holiday season.

    Valentina is currently growing out her locks – in order to cut them off and donate them to children with cancer.

    “My daughter valentina is growing her beautiful mane so she can cut it and donate it to make a wig for children with cancer. Now that is the spirit of christmas,” the actress wrote on Instagram.

    Check it out:

    Hayek recently gave some advice to young girls at the Variety Power of Women event.

    “The most important thing to say to the girls is to not try to be like the other girls. Not to try to fit in, but to try to really be profound thinkers that are excited about their differences and explore what they are and who they are and what can come out of the new,” she said.

    “I think the voice of women can change the world, but we don’t know our voice,” she said. “We’ve never really investigated. We’ve been too busy for many, many decades and generations, trying to operate within systems that were designed by men … I don’t think we really have tapped into our potential or our own creativity.”

  • Lauren Bush Lauren Gives Birth to First Child

    Lauren Bush Lauren is a new mommy!

    Her son, James Richard Lauren, was born on Saturday.

    This is the first child for Lauren Bush Lauren, the granddaughter of former President George H.W. Bush and niece of former President George W. Bush.

    “Welcome to the world sweet baby James, born yesterday morning on November 21st at 8:19am! @davidlauren and I are beyond thrilled and in love!” said Lauren in an Instagram post.

    “Our son James Richard Lauren was born Yesterday. He and his new mommy @laurenblauren are doing great and we feel very blessed and in love!” David Lauren said on Instagram.

    Congratulations on the bundle of joy!

  • Ginnifer Goodwin, Josh Dallas Expecting Second Child

    Ginnifer Goodwin is pregnant!

    Goodwin and husband Josh Dallas are expecting their second child, according to the couple’s rep.

    Goodwin and Dallas already have one baby at home – 17-month old Oliver. Goodwin and Dallas married in April of last year, and little Oliver arrived a month later.

    Goodwin and Dallas both star on ABC’s hit show Once Upon a Time.

    It appears Goodwin and Dallas are wasting no time in starting a big family. Will it grow? It sounds like it. Goodwin told E! earlier this year that they will “have as many as the universe will grant [them].”

    Congratulations to the couple!

  • Megan Fox Shares Adorable Photo of Son Bodhi in a Nirvana Shirt

    Megan Fox doesn’t always shares pictures of her kids with the world, but when she does they’re adorable.

    Fox recently shared a photo of her youngest son Bodhi on Instagram, saying,

    “Bodhi: Stunner. Clown. Unicorn.”

    And you have to admit, that’s a pretty damn cute kid. Plus, you have to dig that Nirvana shirt.

    Bodhi: Stunner. Clown. Unicorn.

    A photo posted by Megan Fox (@the_native_tiger) on

    Fox isn’t as social media obsessed as some mega stars, but she does keep a presence.

    A few weeks ago she ended a short social media hiatus with a black and white selfie captioned “Hi. I’m still here, I just continue to have an angsty relationship with social media. But what better way to express my apprehension than with a selfie. This time in black n white!”

    That selfie came shortly after news that Fox and husband Brian Austin Green were splitting up. Fox filed for divorce on August 21st.

    Despite the end of the relationship, the two have remained amicable. They’ve been spotted out with their kids, Bodhi and five-year-old Noah, at the playground and the movies.

    Fox recently appeared on the hit show New Girl and next year you can see her in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2.

  • YouTube Kids App Gets Better For Parents And Kids Alike

    YouTube Kids App Gets Better For Parents And Kids Alike

    Back in February, Google launched YouTube Kids – a new YouTube app designed specifically with children in mind to keep them entertained and safe from the more adult-oriented side of YouTube. It’s not always perfect, but it has been a pretty big hit for the company.

    The app has been downloaded 8 million times since launch, and is frequently ranked in the top 5 kids apps in the App Store. It has a 4+ rating on Google Play.

    On Thursday, the company announced some new features including new ways to discover and watch videos and some new features just for parents.

    For one, the app now supports a variety of devices for watching content on TVs including Chromecast, Apple TV, game consoles and smart TVs. There are also new guest-curated playlists from sources like National Geographic Kids, Kid President, and Geena Davis. More are coming from others like Vsauce and Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls.

    Google says new videos are being produced and uploaded to YouTube Kids every day, including original shows and series from HooplaKidz, TuTiTu, SciShow Kids, DreamWorksTV, and others.

    Google is also trying to better educate parents on how the app works.

    “We also want to make it easier to get started using the app,” says YouTube Kids product manager Shimrit Ben-Yair. “When parents open YouTube Kids, we’ll explain upfront how our systems choose and recommend content and how to flag videos. We’ll also prompt you to make a choice about how broadly you want your child to explore—turn search on to access millions of family-friendly videos, or turn search off to restrict your child’s experience to a more limited set. Either way, parents decide the right experience for their family from the get-go. This will roll out on the app in the coming weeks.”

    “We’ve also heard some parents prefer a personal passcode, rather than a spelled-out code, so we’ve added this option to access parental controls,” Ben-Yair adds.

    Ben-Yair reminds parents that the app is not perfect. It strives to make sure everything is family-friendly, but every know and then something might slip through the system. This is worth keeping in mind, but also remember it gives you a means to flag inappropriate content, which should still be few and far between.

    Images via Google

  • Sesame Street Heads to HBO in Five-Year Deal

    Sesame Street Heads to HBO in Five-Year Deal

    The iconic Sesame Street, which has aired on PBS for 45 years, is moving to HBO.

    Don’t worry – you won’t have to subscribe to HBO to watch Sesame Street. But HBO will be the first place it airs, and the broadcasting company gets a nine-month window.

    HBO and Sesame Workshop have just announced a five-year deal that will give HBO first-run rights to Sesame Street – meaning the show will appear on HBO and its streaming platforms (HBO GO and HBO NOW) well before it hits PBS.

    “We are absolutely thrilled to help secure the future of Sesame Street and Sesame Workshop’s mission for the nation’s kids and families,” said Richard Plepler, Chairman and CEO of HBO, and Michael Lombardo, President, HBO Programming. “Home Box Office is committed to bringing the most groundbreaking and creative shows to its audience. Sesame Street is the most important preschool education program in the history of television. We are delighted to be a home for this extraordinary show, helping Sesame Street expand and build its franchise.”

    The new episodes will hit HBO as early at late fall of this year, says the company.

    The deal also gives HBO over 150 library episodes of Sesame Street, as well as past episodes of other Sesame Workshop shows like Pinky Dinky Doo and The Electric Company.

    For Sesame Workshop, the deal allows for a giant boost in production. The partnership lets it produce 35 new episodes of Sesame Street a year – up from 18. And “for the first time ever, make the show available free of charge to PBS and its member stations.”

    “Our new partnership with HBO represents a true winning public-private partnership model,” said Jeffrey D. Dunn, Sesame Workshop’s CEO. “It provides Sesame Workshop with the critical funding it needs to be able to continue production of Sesame Street and secure its nonprofit mission of helping kids grow smarter, stronger and kinder; it gives HBO exclusive pay cable and SVOD access to the nation’s most important and historic educational programming; and it allows Sesame Street to continue to air on PBS and reach all children, as it has for the past 45 years.”

  • Google’s YouTube Kids App Isn’t That Kid-Friendly According to Consumer Groups

    Google’s YouTube Kids App Isn’t That Kid-Friendly According to Consumer Groups

    In April, a group of consumer advocate groups including The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood (CCFC), American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Center for Science in the
    Public Interest, Children Now, Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Watchdog, and Public Citizen called on the Federal Trade Commission to open up an investigation against Google’s YouTube Kids app. The main point of that complaint involved the intermixing of “commercial and other content in ways that are deceptive and unfair to children and would not be permitted to be shown on broadcast or cable television.”

    Basically, these groups alleged that the YouTube Kids app was showing ads to kids.

    Now, CCFC and CDD are reporting that an additional review has surfaced even more disturbing things about the YouTube Kids app – pervasive adult content.

    According to the groups, they were able to find Explicit sexual language presented amidst cartoon animation; Videos that model unsafe behaviors such as playing with lit matches, shooting a nail gun, juggling knives, tasting battery acid, and making a noose; A profanity-laced parody of the film Casino featuring Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street; Graphic adult discussions about family violence, pornography, and child suicide; Jokes about pedophilia and drug use; and Advertising for alcohol products.

    To drive the point home, the CCFC and CDD made a video:

    Is YouTube Kids A Safe Place for Young Children to Explore? from CCFC on Vimeo.

    They’ve sent a letter to the FTC to update their complaint.

    Google claims that YouTube Kids was “built from the ground up with little ones in mind” and is “packed full of age-appropriate videos.” The app includes a search function that is voice-enabled for easy use for preschool children. Google says it uses “a mix of automated analysis, manual sampling, and input from our users to categorize and screen out videos and topics that may make parents nervous.” Google also assures parents that they “can rest a little easier knowing that videos in the YouTube Kids app are narrowed down to content appropriate for kids.”

    Google does not, in fact, “screen out the videos that make parents nervous” and its representations of YouTube Kids as a safe, child-friendly version of YouTube are deceptive. Parents who download the app are likely to expose their children to the very content they believed they would avoid by using the preschool version of YouTube. In addition to the unfair and deceptive marketing practices we identified in our initial request for an investigation, it is clear that Google is deceiving parents about the effectiveness of their screening processes and the content on YouTube Kids.

    A YouTube spokesperson has issued a statement, reiterating that parents can turn off search inside the app.

    “We work to make the videos in YouTube Kids as family-friendly as possible and take feedback very seriously. Anyone can flag a video and these videos are manually reviewed 24/7 and any videos that don’t belong in the app are removed. For parents who want a more restricted experience, we recommend that they turn off search,” says YouTube.

    While it’s true that parents can disable the app’s search function, it is enabled by default.

    And as YouTube’s statement reiterates – much of the content moderation is done by fielding manual reports, at which point Google then yanks offending videos from the app.

    From the get-go, Google admitted that some stuff could slip through the cracks.

    “When your child browses the app’s home screen, they’ll find a vast selection of kid-appropriate channels and playlists. When families search in the app, we use a mix of input from our users and automated analysis to categorize and screen out the videos that make parents nervous. And for added peace of mind, parents can quickly notify YouTube if they see anything questionable directly from the app,” said Google back in February, upon launch of the app.

    Google said this new YouTube Kids app is just a first step – the “first building block in tech for tykes.” We’ve heard for a while that Google is getting more serious about building products and services for kids. If this is the goal, content filtering is going to have to get better.

    Sure, Google presents YouTube Kids as a way for parents to feel safer about their kids watching YouTube.And it’s clear that Google has failed to prevent some adult-themed content from appearing inside the app. But parents can turn off the search function (maybe Google should have it switched off by default?) and in the end, parents should know that no content moderation system is 100% foolproof.

  • Caroll Spinney: Big Bird Shares Heartbreaking Story During Reddit AMA

    Caroll Spinney: Big Bird Shares Heartbreaking Story During Reddit AMA

    Caroll Spinney, a man who’s played a big part of many kids’ lives, recently shared one of the most heartbreaking stories you’ll read on the internet.

    For the last 46 years, Spinney has made Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch come alive on Sesame Street. He sat down this week for a reddit AMA, in which a users asked him what has been his most meaningful interaction with a child.

    Grab your tissues:

    Okay, here’s one.

    This is a very sad story, but it’s real.

    I got a letter from a fan who said his little boy, who was 5 years old, his name was Joey, he was dying of cancer.

    And he was so ill, the little boy knew he was dying.

    So the man, in his letter, asked if I would call the little boy. He said the only thing that cheered him at all in his fading state was to see Big Bird on television.

    So once in a while, he wouldn’t see Big Bird on some days, because he wasn’t necessarily in every show. So he asked could I telephone him, and talk to the boy, tell him what a good boy he’s been.

    So I took a while to look up a phone, because this was before cell phones. And they got a long cord to bring a phone to the boy.

    And I had Big Bird say “Hello! Hello Joey! It’s me, Big Bird!”

    So he said “Is it really you, Big Bird?”

    “Yes, it is.”

    I chatted a while with him, about ten minutes, and he said “I’m glad you’re my friend Big Bird.”

    And I said “I’d better let you go now.”

    He said “Thank you for calling me Big Bird. You’re my friend. You make me happy.”

    And it turns out that his father and mother were sitting with him when the phone call came. And he was very, very ill that day.

    And they called the parents in, because they weren’t sure how long he’d last.

    And so his father wrote to me right away, and said “Thank you, thank you” – he hadn’t seen him smile since October, and this was in March – and when the phone was hung up, he said “Big Bird called me! He’s my friend.”

    And he closed his eyes. And he passed away.

    And I could see that what I say to children can be very important.

    And he said “We haven’t seen our little boy smile in MONTHS. He smiled, as he passed away. It was a gift to us. Thank you.”

    Spinney also shared his thoughts on Big Bird’s “controversial” appearance on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

    Well, see – other people make arguments in favor of us being totally honest, that does not fit with my feeling of the joy of being a little child. I’ve seen a child discover me – we thought we were alone in a park, filming a scene outdoors on some great stretches of rock, we had to do a shot for a China film – and a little boy came along, and he saw me take Big Bird off! And he screamed, and cried, and I said “Quick!” – he looked so funny with his little legs, running away, crying and crying – and I chased after him, with the costume back on- and I said “Little boy, I’m okay” and he said “I thought that man was hurting you, Big Bird.”

    When children see that Big Bird – Mr. Rogers wanted me to lift the puppet which is so big I have to get inside, off – it’s a series of hoops that create the shape of Big Bird, and then there’s netting and feathers, they’re all real feathers so he looks nice and real – we found out that children would NOT have liked seeing Big Bird take it off on Mr. Rogers. I said “I’m sorry, I can’t do that!” Jim Henson didn’t want me to do it either.

    So we made a compromise with Mr. Rogers.

    And that was that I would just go to the Make-Believe Land, and say “OK, this is Make-Believe” and have some other puppeteers – a good friend of mine, Bob Brown, would show how HIS puppets worked – little marionettes on strings – they don’t look so real anyway, like Big Bird did to little kids.

    We’re not trying to fool them, we’re just trying to entertain them, and let them know that their friend Big Bird is not just a man in a giant suit.

    Check out the whole AMA here. It’s worth your time.

    Image via Neil Grabowsky, Wikimedia Commons

  • These Kids Have Some Logical Reactions to the Apple Watch

    TheFineBros‘ YouTube series of kids reacting to stuff has a new entry – and this time they’re taking a look at the Apple Watch! Or the iWatch. Or that “small iPod nano.”

    While the kids can agree that it “looks cool” and is probably “from the future”, the device’s necessity is debatable.

    Also, you have to have an iPhone with you for the Watch to work? “That’s kind of disappointing.”

    “It’s not as good as a normal phone.”

    “Why do this when you could just take out your phone”

    You’ve got a new generation to convince, Apple

  • Netflix Is Adapting ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ into 13-episode Series

    Netflix Is Adapting ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ into 13-episode Series

    Green Eggs and Ham is pretty neat, but 13 episodes? Well that’s a treat!

    Dr. Seuss is coming to Netflix – rather, one of his most famous works is. Netflix has ordered 13 episodes of a children’s series based on the classic story Green Eggs and Ham.

    Here’s the plot, if you are wondering how they’re going to stretch Green Eggs and Ham into a 13-episode series. Netflix had some fun with the announcement, as you can see:

    In this richly animated production,
    a 13-episode introduction,
    standoffish inventor (Guy, by name)
    and Sam-I-Am of worldwide fame,
    embark on a cross-country trip
    that tests the limits of their friendship.
    As they learn to try new things,
    they find out what adventure brings.
    Of course they also get to eat
    that famous green and tasty treat!

    Cute.

    Ellen DeGeneres is signed on to executive produce the show, as are Jeff Kleeman, Mike Karz, David Dobkin and Warner Bros. Animation. It’ll be written by Jared Stern, who co-wrote Wreck-It-Ralph and is currently working on the story of The Lego Movie sequel.

    According to Deadline, Netflix’s Green Eggs and Ham adaptation will be the “highest-end, most expensive animated program ever produced for television.”

    “We think this will be a hit, Green Eggs and Ham is a perfect fit
    for our growing slate of amazing stories, available exclusively in all Netflix territories.
    You can stream it on a phone. You can stream it on your own.
    You can stream it on TV. You can stream it globally,” said Netflix VP of content Cindy Holland. Ok, we can stop now you guys.

    Expect Green Eggs and Ham in 2018.

    Image via Kate Ter Haar, Flickr Creative Commons

  • Google Hosts 10-Year-Old CEO For Business Talk

    As you may know, Google frequently hosts interesting people at its “Talks at Google” events, and uploads them on YouTube for all to say. One of the most recent ones features Mikaila Ulmer, the ten-year-old founder and CEO of Bee Sweet Lemonade, which is based in Austin, Texas.

    Ulmer talks about how she went from selling her product at a lemonade stand to getting it in Whole Foods.

    You may recognize Ulmer from Shark Tank, where she recently competed.

    She did it! Mikaila got a Shark Tank ABC deal from Daymond John! Victory never tasted so sweet!Thanks to everyone who…

    Posted by BeeSweet Lemonade on Friday, March 20, 2015

    The Google talk was recorded on February 23.

  • Teens Tweet Group Sex Video, Get Hit with Child Porn Charges

    Teens Tweet Group Sex Video, Get Hit with Child Porn Charges

    Four Joliet, Illinois teens could spend the next few years in a juvenile facility after posting a group sex video on Twitter.

    Three boys, aged 14, 15, and 16, and one girl, aged 15, were arrested after the girl’s mother notified police of the footage, which was circulating around Twitter. All four teens have been charged with distributing child pornography.

    Of course, it’s more complicated than that. Did the teens technically distribute child porn? Yes, it was a group sex video involving minors. But they were the minors in the video. Can teens really be charged with child porn if it’s their own body in said “porn”?

    Yes they can, and have. Over the past few years, with the rise of sexting, smartphone cameras, and social media, states have been scrambling to figure out how to deal with teens’ technological expressions of sexuality.

    Teen sexting laws vary from state to state – with some having already penned new laws to address the practice. Other states, however, can only consider the act of disseminating your own naked photos and videos as child porn.

    Illinois authorities have chosen the latter route in this case.

    “The child pornography offense that was charged is in place for a reason, because we don’t want to accept that type of behavior as a society. It’s making a strong statement, and I think it’s important to do so, to send a message to others that kids shouldn’t be involved in this type of behavior, and hopefully this will serve as a deterrent,” said Joliet Police Chief Brian Benton.

    Did you catch that? There’s a huge problem with this logic, and Benton’s statement reads like the laws are in place to legislate morality, as opposed to really protecting children. Don’t like what teens are up to? Threaten them with lifelong sex offender designation. That oughta do it.

    “It’s an incident you may not recover from,” said Benton.

    Exactly. Are we really going to put teens on sexual offender databases for the rest of their lives for being kids and making arguably dumb decisions? I’m sure we can all agree that posting a sex tape on Twitter is ill-advised – especially for a 15-year-old. But is it really a sex crime?

    Image via Thinkstock

  • Facebook Now Lets You Tag Your Kids, Organize Their Photos in a Scrapbook

    Accepting that its site is now at least 50 percent photos of kids, Facebook is finally letting you tag your kids in said photos.

    If you’re a parent, you’re likely well-aware of the protocol. You post a photo of your cute little guy, and you tag your partner or spouse in the photo. That way, the photo is tied to both you and your partner and friends of both will likely see the photo in their feeds. Today, Facebook is changing that protocol.

    Starting now, you can create a special tag for your child. It’s not a profile (those under 13 are technically forbidden to have profiles), but the tag will point people toward your kid’s new Scrapbook page. This is completely optional. If you want, you can keep tagging how you’ve always tagged. But if you’ve always wanted your kid to have its own Facebook presence, here’s your chance.

    Here’s how it will work. If you want to create a Scrapbook for your kid, head to your profile, click “About” and look at your “Family and Relationships” section. There, you’ll have a choice to add a new Scrapbook. You can enter in your kid’s real name, initials, a nickname – whatever. If you wanted to create a scrapbook for your pets, I guess you could do that as well (update: pets confirmed).

    Your next step is to choose whether or not you’re going to let someone else (presumably, your partner) have access to your kid’s Scrapbook too.

    “Only you and [your partner] can tag [your child]. Tagging [your child] in a photo is just like tagging yourself and [your partner]. Your friends and [your partner]’s friends will be able to see it,” says Facebook.

    More from Facebook on the Scrapbook privacy (there is none, just on each individual photo):

    “You can tag your child in your photos or in other people’s photos. When you tag your child, anyone in the audience of the photo can see the tag just like any other tag. Tagging your child in a photo is just like tagging yourself, and will add your friends to the audience of the photo. If you’ve added a partner to your child’s scrapbook, your partner and their friends will also be added to audience of the photo.

    “Your child’s scrapbook doesn’t have its own privacy setting, but the individual photos do. When people visit a scrapbook, they’ll only see a photo if they’re included in that photo’s audience. The profile and cover photo of your child’s scrapbook are visible to anyone who can see at least one photo in the scrapbook.”

    Your friends will soon be able to follow your Scrapbook so they don’t miss any pics you post of aforementioned cute little dude.

    Long story short, Facebook is giving parents a cleaner way to compile all of their kids’ photos on the site. It’s also forcing parents to declare they are parents and to whom – but what Facebook feature isn’t about gathering more data? This should be rolling out today on desktop, iOS, and Android.

  • Amazon Now Has a Store Focusing on STEM Toys

    Amazon Now Has a Store Focusing on STEM Toys

    Amazon wants your kids to grow up knowing more about the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math. The online retailer has just launched a dedicated marketplace for STEM toys for kids of all ages.

    “STEM toys encourage kids to develop skills in the core disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and math,” says Amazon on its new page. “We chose these toys because they have clear goals and encourage kids to learn STEM skill while having fun.”

    Some featured products include LEGO sets, Roominate systems, modular robotics kits, light circuit kits, LightUp Edison kits, a Solar System planetarium, and remote control machines. On the page, you can filter toys by age (Preschool, 5-7 year, 8-11 years, and 12+ years) or by Amazon’s own editor picks.

    Of course, promoting STEM values is a noble cause, but Amazon isn’t just doing this for the sake of young minds. According to TechCrunch, “the retailer notes that not only are STEM toys a ‘hot trend’ in education, but they were also the second-most visited section and the second highest in terms of sales volume on Amazon’s 2014 Holiday.”

    STEM is hot right now, in other words.

    In other Amazon-specific storefront news, the company just launched a dedicated destination for Shark Tank stuff and other “up-and-coming products” called Amazon Exclusives.

  • Waze Adds AMBER Alerts

    Waze Adds AMBER Alerts

    Thanks to a partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Google-owned Waze traffic app will now feature AMBER alerts.

    “As of this writing, AMBER alerts have helped safely recover 728 children. We are proud to help expand the AMBER alerts program’s reach and eager to see the benefit Wazers can provide in making communities safer places,” says Waze in a blog post.

    Waze’s AMBER alerts will only be shown to Waze users in the appropriate geographic area, and only if their car has been stopped for at least 10 seconds. Each AMBER alert will only appear once per week. Also, alerts will disappear when Waze users tap the map or once their vehicle starts moving.

    Waze will look for new AMBER alerts every 10 minutes.

    “Waze has always been about sharing information for the common good. In this spirit we hope the addition of AMBER alerts to Waze will make a significant contribution to safety and awareness for children and parents across communities everywhere.”

    As you may recall, Waze has been in the news the past few months for drawing the ire of many a law enforcement group. Some groups have claimed that a feature of Waze that allows users to pinpoint the location of police officers on a map endangers lives. The same organizations then admitted that their anger was kind of about declining speeding ticket revenues, and some police forces have been flooding Waze with fake info in the hopes of rendering it useless.

    As far as AMBER alerts go, they’re making their way into more and more of your favorite apps and social media sites. Facebook just put them in your News Feeds earlier this year.

    Image via Waze

  • Inspector Gadget, Danger Mouse Reboots Coming to Netflix

    Inspector Gadget, Danger Mouse Reboots Coming to Netflix

    If you watched cartoons in the 80s and early 90s, Netflix is targeting you (and your kids) with its newest acquisition.

    Netflix is bringing both an Inspector Gadget and a Danger Mouse reboot to the US.

    USA Today has the scoop on Inspector Gadget:

    Netflix has picked up the rights to an updated Inspector Gadget, the 1980s cartoon about the bumbling bionic private eye. Produced by Canadian television company DHX Media, the new series has already aired on broadcast television in Europe, but will premiere exclusively in the USA on Netflix in March. Netflix will debut the series at a later date in such foreign territories as the U.K., Latin America and France.

    “It’s one of those shows where we’re able to hit a few different audiences,” said Erik Barmack, VP of global independent content at Netflix. “We think that kids are going to love the show … but it’s also going to get some co-viewing because there is a generation of parents who grew up on the original.”

    As far as British series Danger Mouse is concerned, a reboot is coming. It’ll be produced by the BBC and air exclusively on Netflix sometime in the spring of 2016.

    Earlier this week, we learned that Pee-wee Herman’s new movie, Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, is also coming to Netflix. Filming on that will kick off in about three weeks.

  • YouTube Kids Launches as Google’s ‘First Building Block in Tech for Tykes’

    YouTube Kids Launches as Google’s ‘First Building Block in Tech for Tykes’

    YouTube is one of the biggest resources on the planet for content that can entertain, educate, and in the best cases, entertain and educate your kids. Of course, YouTube is also filled with a lot of stuff you probably don’t want your four-year-old watching – at least enough of it to make any parent wary of handing their kid an iPad and letting them run wild in YouTube land.

    Google is attempting to help with this problem. Today, Google has unveiled the new YouTube Kids app, a lite version of YouTube that it says is tailored to kids’ needs – mainly easy navigation and content control. We’ve known Google was working on building a YouTube Kids app, from the ground up, for some time now.

    The YouTube Kids app does exactly what you’d expect it to do. It attempts to filter out non-kid-friendly content, gives parents better control over the experience, and makes it easier to navigate.

    “For years, families have come to YouTube, watching countless hours of videos on all kinds of topics. Now, parents can rest a little easier knowing that videos in the YouTube Kids app are narrowed down to content appropriate for kids,” says YouTube Kids Group Product Manager Shimrit Ben-Yair.

    So Google is curating content for the Kids app. The app experience has been whittled down to four main categories of browsing – Shows, Music, Learning and Explore – but there is a search feature on the app.

    Google admits that some stuff might slip through the cracks –

    “When your child browses the app’s home screen, they’ll find a vast selection of kid-appropriate channels and playlists. When families search in the app, we use a mix of input from our users and automated analysis to categorize and screen out the videos that make parents nervous. And for added peace of mind, parents can quickly notify YouTube if they see anything questionable directly from the app,” says Google.

    But even with that slim chance of something adult-oriented slipping through, it’s clearly a much safer prospect than just handing your kid a phone and a browser open to YouTube proper.

    The app also has a handful of parental controls, like a timer feature that will shut down your kids’ watch time when it’s up and a quiet mode where you can disable all sounds while still allowing your kids to watch the videos.

    And most importantly, parents can turn off the search function altogether.

    Google says this new YouTube Kids app is just its first step – the “first building block in tech for tykes.” Reports have indicated that Google is getting more serious about building products and services for the sub-13 crowd. As tech becomes a more integral part of our daily lives and parents become more comfortable with letting tech help raise their children, products and services geared toward kids will continue to become more and more important.

    Take for instance Vine, Twitter’s video app, which just launched a standalone app for kids. Or look at StumbleUpon’s 5by. Despite the app’s fast growth, one drawback is the lack of a “kid-mode”. CEO Greg Isenberg recently told WebProNews that kid-friendly features are “likely something we’ll explore in the long term.”

    YouTube Kids is now available on iOS and Android.

  • Vine, a Decidedly Non-Kid Friendly App, Launches Separate Kid Friendly App

    Giving them access to millions and millions of 6-second video clips seems like a pretty smart way to keep your kid occupied – you know, short attention spans and whatnot. But handing three-year-old Timmy your iPhone and cutting him loose on Vine proper is a decidedly bad idea.

    Vine started blocking outright porn just weeks after its launch, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t R-rated content all over the app (and even the occasional x-rated stuff that just slips by).

    With that in mind, Vine has just released a standalone app called Vine Kids. Basically, it’s a Vine-viewer app that lets kids swipe between curated Vine videos that are appropriate for their young, impressionable minds. The UI has been updated to make it more kid-friendly – quirky sounds play when you tap the screen and swipe between videos, for instance. According to Vine, it’s been designed for kids five and under.

    Apparently, there’s a demand for this – at least inside the Vine office.

    “The idea came about during an office conversation in early January. One of my colleagues was talking about how much his two-year-old daughter loves Vine –– he said he wished there was a separate app she could use to more easily watch posts that are appropriate for kids. That week happened to be Hack Week, a time when we get to work on projects outside of our day-to-day work. So two folks teamed up and built exactly that,” says Vine’s Communications and Marketing Head Carolyn Penner.

    Vine Kids is only available on iOS for now, and you can download it today at the App Store.

  • Facebook Smartly Adds Warnings to Graphic Videos

    When it comes to dealing with violent and/or potentially offensive content, Facebook has made a lot of missteps. Now, the biggest social network in the world is looking to find a satisfactory medium between a completely hands-off approach and stifling gatekeeping that would (and has in the past) elicited cries of censorship.

    Facebook is beginning to show warnings on top of content flagged as graphic, forcing users to agree to continue before watching or viewing said content. The company is also looking to restrict all such content among its younger user base (13-17).

    The past couple of years have seen Facebook flip and flop around when it comes to how the company wants to deal with graphic content on the site. In 2013, Facebook bowed to public outrage, online petitions, and harsh criticism from family groups and made the decision to ban a graphic beheading video that had been circulating around the site.

    Fast forward a few months, and Facebook was singing a different tune. The company reversed the ban on the video, and in doing so instituted a new policy to govern similar content.

    Soon after, Facebook made an official change to its community standards. Here’s Facebook’s current stance on graphic content:

    Facebook has long been a place where people turn to share their experiences and raise awareness about issues important to them. Sometimes, those experiences and issues involve graphic content that is of public interest or concern, such as human rights abuses or acts of terrorism. In many instances, when people share this type of content, it is to condemn it. However, graphic images shared for sadistic effect or to celebrate or glorify violence have no place on our site.

    When people share any content, we expect that they will share in a responsible manner. That includes choosing carefully the audience for the content. For graphic videos, people should warn their audience about the nature of the content in the video so that their audience can make an informed choice about whether to watch it.

    But here’s the thing – expecting people to share content in a responsible manner and hoping that they’ll warn people that they’re about to see someone’s head being chopped off is naive at best. Facebook isn’t naive about these sorts of things – not really. That’s why the company laid the groundwork for this latest move way back in 2013.

    “First, when we review content that is reported to us, we will take a more holistic look at the context surrounding a violent image or video, and will remove content that celebrates violence. Second, we will consider whether the person posting the content is sharing it responsibly, such as accompanying the video or image with a warning and sharing it with an age-appropriate audience,” said Facebook at the time. And the company did experiment with warnings for graphic content – but they never went wide.

    Now, it appears they are. A new warning is reportedly appearing for some on top of a video of the death of policeman Ahmed Merabet, who was killed in Paris by a terrorist involved in the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

    “Why am I seeing a warning before I can view a photo of video?” asks a recently-posted question on Facebook’s help page.

    “People come to Facebook to share their experiences and raise awareness about issues that are important to them. To help people share responsibly, we may limit the visibility of photos and videos that contain graphic content. A photo or video containing graphic content may appear with a warning to let people know about the content before they view it, and may only be visible to people older than 18,” says Facebook.

    A Facebook spokesperson told the BBC that “the firm’s engineers were still looking to further improve the scheme” which could “include adding warnings to relevant YouTube videos.”

    Apparently, Facebook was pressured both externally and internally – from its safety advisory board – to do something more to protect users (especially kids) from graphic content.

    Of course, there’s a whole other group of people that Facebook is worried about protecting.

    Video is a-boomin’ on Facebook. Facebook serves, on average, over a billion video views per day – almost one per user – and in the past year, the number of video posts per person has increased 75% globally and 94% in the US. And this is important to advertisers. What’s also important to advertisers? That their smoothie ads aren’t running up against beheading videos.

    Adding warnings to graphic content in a smart move. Not only does it allow Facebook to allow the content on the site and thus dodge the “free speech!” cries, but it lets advertisers feel more safe about advertising on the site. It also puts the onus on users – hey, we told you it was bad but you clicked anyway … your choice!

    Remember, Facebook isn’t a haven for free speech. It never will be. Facebook doesn’t owe you free expression. The company can do whatever it wants and censor as much content as it pleases. Considering that, a little warning before graphic content is better than no content at all, right?

    Image via Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook

  • Netflix Original ‘Puss In Boots’ Series Gets Release Date

    Netflix Original ‘Puss In Boots’ Series Gets Release Date

    Netflix announced the release date for its next original Dreamworks Animation series, “The Adventures of Puss in Boots”. It will premiere on January 16, exclusively on the streaming service.

    Netflix announced three new DreamWorks Animation originals back in May, to follow up its previously released series Turbo FAST. These were All Hail King Julien, Puss in Boots, and Veggie Tales in the House. King Julien recently made its debut as well.

    Here’s the Puss in Boots description per Netflix:

    The Adventures of Puss in Boots finds the world’s most famous feline fortune-hunter in the hidden city of San Lorenzo, a mythical land that is invisible to the outside world thanks to a magical spell that protects its quirky inhabitants – not to mention its wondrous treasure. When Puss in Boots accidentally breaks the spell, he must do more than fight off an endless legion of invaders and marauders … he must become a legend.

    With a sweeping, epic visual flair and extraordinary quests in each episode, The Adventures of Puss in Boots combines adventure and comedy with the quick-witted, nimble-footed style that is as synonymous with its hero as his namesake boots.

    It does not appear that Antonio Banderas is involved. Danny Trejo is, however.

    The first five 22-minute episodes will be available to Netflix members in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, UK, Ireland, the Nordics, Benelux and France on Friday, the sixteenth. Additional episodes will debut throughout the year.

    Image via Facebook