If your kids are like mine, they are fascinated with my digital camera. Rather than risking my expensive toy, I would rather they play around with their a-bit-less-expensive toy. So here something that sounds like a winner: the VTech Kidizoom Digital Camera. It’s colorful and fun, great for a 3 to 6 years old. It takes both pictures and mini-movies which can be seen in the built-in LCD or on TV or on the computer. 

Some of the interesting extras inlcude a binocular lens, controls via a joystick and three built-in games that kids can play on the camera’s LCD - great for a car trips! I particularily like the ability to tweak and modify the photos on the camera by adding funny elements like a hat or a moustache..

The VTech Kidizoom Digital Camera has decent specs: 3 megapixels, 1.8 inch screen, 16 MB of internal mempty, additional memory can be added in the form of SD cards, changeable faceplates, software for Windows PCs. It retails for $49.99.

See VTech Kidizoom at Amazon

via Popgadget

You have heard of Second Life, no doubt, the largest virtual world on the web, where you can create an avatar and do virtually… well pretty much the same things you would do in real life like hanging out, paying rent, getting bored, etc.

Earlier this year, Mattel launched BarbieGirls.com a virtual world where our daughters equiped with customizable dolls can connect online and have a virtual experience as their treasured dolls.

But what is really amazing is that Barbie Girls has more than 3 millions members and is expected by the end of they year to surpass Second Life and World of Warcraft as the largest virtual world.

Also available for the Barbie Girls fan is an MP3 players that works in conjunction with the virtual world. It’s a simple device (512MB of memory + miniSD) but it’s mostly a key that gives you access to members-only content like video trailers or music downloads.

Looks like a winner for this Xmas season.

via TechCrunch

That sounds like a positive step, but it trickles down to a backlog that will affect what will be on the shelves in two months, and might create a shopping madness.

So what is going to be under your Christmas tree? Toys with lead… or no toys?

via News.com.au

Disney has introduced a line of camcorders that are both inexpensive and simple enough to be fun for teens and pre-teens. It’s got a nice looking LCD panel, connect to a PC via USB and VGA as well as Video-Out to show off your movies on the family room TV immediately.

It also comes with a kids-friendly piece of software called Disney Director which is for PC-based movie editing. It’s quite complete with storyboards and special effects. The software is themed around Disney’s popular “High School Music” TV show.

The specifications are quite good: VGA (640×480) resolution for movies, 1.3 megapixles for stills, 64-MB of built-in memory (accepts additional memory in SD format).

It is available at Amazon  and most large distribution stores for approx. $89.00.

See the Disney Flix Video Camera at Amazon.com