The first product that caught my eye was a prototype of the Vinci tablet being produced by Rullingnet Corporation. The tablet was not yet ready for market but it's got a lot of good ideas that I hope they can pull off. As you can see from the photo they have protected the device with a "medical grade" rubber handle that has been drop tested from over one meter. The rep was harping that the key design motive is safety, and to bolster that they are going to replace normal tablet screen glass with tempered glass like the shatter proof stuff they put in cars windshields. It's going to be an Android device with no internet connection, so parents can be sure to be safe from excessive Smurf Berry purchases.
I really liked the idea of this device. One of my key worries about kids usage of Apple and other great mobile products is their durability, which i wrote about a little last year. A device with features like this is a great solution for introducing your kids to technology. Apps will continue to improve, especially for Android devices, if products like this can find a market. Rullingnet is looking at a $479 price point which seems steep, but supposedly they are looking at a smaller or lower end device to lower the price point.
The software package that i saw demonstrated was pretty weak, with mostly demo products on display. I think it may be hard for a device maker to produce both a quality device and software so they may need to pick one side of the fence or another if they want to make a go of it. Their time would be best spent perfecting the device and manufacturing process to get the cost down vs. trying to build kids oriented software when that is being done by developers for both iOS and Android. Expected release date is unknown but their rep at the CES booth told me the target was 2011 so I hope to see something soon.
The second device I saw that caught my eye was the Sifteo cubes. Sifteo has developed an alternative platform and device that is not really a tablet, but from a toddler's viewpoint, it accomplishes many of the same things.
The Sifteo cubes are 1.5 inch little devices that have color screens and motion sensors that enable a more tactile type of game play. The cubes connect to each other to create a seamless experience for story books, games, or any other experience a developer can dream up. I actually couldn't figure out how to use it in my limited time but the concept was cool and given your limited actions I don't think it would take to long to figure out.
What caught my eye here was the size. The cubes are tiny, imminently portable, and fun to play around with. I can totally see keeping these in my back pack and breaking them out on a plane or on vacation with the kids. The biggest downside I envision is the lack of applications due to small developer community and the reliance on PC to be the main conduit for loading games onto the devices. While a similar issues exists for the Vinci, since it doesn't have any Wi-Fi, you can at least load it up with a ton of applications. Still, as a possible technical/creative outlet for kids, i think this device has a lot of potential and will be interested to see if it finds a market.
3D TV's
On a side note.... 3D television was a big push from the CE manufacturers. From the Gabbaphone perspective, as in a parent reviewing technology for children, I cannot envision a world where i would be handing glasses to any child under 13 to watch a TV show. Given the demonstration content they were definitely not targeting parents, who are used to putting up with a very broad array of content that includes Baby Einstein to Dora to Barney.
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