He asked the kids what they wanted for Christmas but seemed surprised by their expensive and high-tech tastes, including iPods, cell phones and video games.

"Whatever happened to, like, asking for a bike?" POTUS asked. "Everbody has a bike," one informed him and others agreed.

From the mouths of babes: Gadgetry beats lo-fi, analog "bi-cycles" any day. [Gawker, image source]

I read your story on falling TVs yesterday, and I wanted to show you this picture of me, age four. That's when a TV tried to kill me.

I was simply trying to put the remote back on top of our 27" wood console Magnavox television, when I slipped while climbing onto the TV cabinet.

Instead of just falling to the ground, I grabbed the top edge of the Magnavox as I tumbled down to the ground. I hit the ground first, then the TV followed with one of the corners squarely landing on my forehead. The television slid off my head, taking about a quarter of my scalp with it.

The babysitter—my parents were at the movies—described it as "if someone had opened my scalp like they would open a banana peel." I ran around the house screaming in shock, but the babysitter—who later became my mother's best friend—did everything right, kept her calm, and called 911.

One hundred and forty-four stitches later, and enough hospital ice cream to please any 4-year-old boy, I was on my way to a steady recovery. I had some temporary nerve and muscle damage that affected things like my eyebrows, but I was lucky enough to have no long-lasting damage that I'm aware of. I'm obviously incredibly lucky that I've been left unscathed short of a very large scar across my forehead. As you know, there are many other people that haven't been as lucky.

I would love it if you could post my story and my picture in Gizmodo. It would be great if my story can help make other people aware of the significant dangers of untethered CRTs or flat screen TVs.

Thanks Russell. Hopefully, this will make more people aware of this problem.

Sergio, my youngest brother, bumped against the piece of furniture that supported the TV. The heavy CRT fell onto us, in slow motion. I tried to hold it, but it was too heavy for a little kid like me. Fortunately for all of us, my uncle Antolín was there: He jumped from the sofa to hold it himself, struggling to put the cathodic beast back on top of the stand. One second later could have resulted in both my brother and I crushed under that monster.

Many other kids were not that lucky. Three hundred in the United States alone died from 1990 to 2007. According to Gary Smith—director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio, and co-author of a recent study on 100 emergency rooms nationwide, published in the Clinical Pediatrics journal—there were 14,700 furniture-related accidents. Of those, half were due to TVs:

Every day, in this country, about 40 young children are rushed to emergency departments with injuries after a heavy piece of furniture has fallen on them. This is not a small problem; it's a common problem, and it's increasing.

A study by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission—spanning from 2000 to 2006—supported his paper: 42,700 injuries and 180 deaths related to appliances and furniture were registered, 87 of those directly related to televisions. Both the Clinical Pediatrics paper and the government study showed dramatic increases over the last few years: 18.8 per 100,000 people in 1990 vs 22.9 per 100,000 people in 2007.

The reason for that increase? Apparently, we have to blame flat TVs. They are not the actual killers, however: The real killers are the CRTs that the flat TVs are replacing. As parents buy new TVs, they move the old CRT giants into kids playrooms. Those are the ones falling, killing or injuring children.

So, if you have kids or know someone who is doing this, make sure that the TVs are fully secured against kids bumping against them. That, or have an superhero uncle available in the room at all times. [NYT]

Dubbed Phonebooks, these neat little books combine with your iPhone to create a fun experience at every page turn. And while I rail against using iPhone apps for parenting purposes, this is an extraordinarily cute and age-appropriate way for your lil' one to play around with an iPhone. [Japan Trends via Dvice]

This direct mail campaign is incredibly effective in how it brings forth childhood memories for many while emphasizing the reality of those who may never have one: Child soldiers in places such as Africa. The campaign may be aiming to find corporate sponsorships, but they've earned a check from me, too. [Direct Daily]

The three hospitals to receive an Ultimate Gameroom through Microsoft's partnership with the Children's Miracle Network are chosen by a very public popular vote. Not a random raffle, not a secret vote, but a public popular vote with results regularly updating on the CMN's website.

As I'm writing this, there is an eight-way tie for last place, with each hospital having one measly vote. The hospitals currently in the top three have a lead of several thousand votes over the rest, but that can and probably will change quickly. How will those kids feel when they miss out on the gamerooms after thinking they could win? How do the kids at the hospitals with barely any votes feel? While I'm sure that all the kids at the winning hospitals (or at least those who enjoy Xbox-based games) will be as giddy as can be, charity isn't about making 167 hospitals full of kids feel like losers in the process.

Looking at the premise of the giveaway, it's like Christmas gone oh-so-very wrong: They'll give some Children's hospitals about ten thousand dollars worth of equipment which could include several 42" Plasma TVs, a pair of Xbox consoles, some Zunes, four computers, oodles of games, and associated furniture. Microsoft is even throwing in delivery, installation, and "reasonable labor," while the hospitals cover any construction costs. Pretty fair. Except that the world is voting on where Saint Microsoft will bring Xboxes.

I truly hope this is just a one-time bad decision, especially since Microsoft is normally rather good about charities, this one included. They've helped raise $1.3 million of the incredible $3.2 billion total which the Children's Miracle Network has raised for Children's hospitals around the world. Microsoft has also contributed an Xbox kiosk to each of the 170 hospitals in the Network and been an all-around great partner to the CMN. It's truly sad that they've chucked away any milligram of character with the Ultimate Gameroom Giveaway. This vile competition is on the level of tearing a teddy bear out of a child's arms and then ripping it apart into a pile of fuzzy remains on the spot.

It's almost sad the mess probably started with good intentions. Perhaps someone truly struggled to find a way to cajole his or her boss into approving giving away $30,000 in equipment. Maybe turning it into a marketing scheme was the only way to cover or justify the expense, but if that's the case then I'm even more disappointed. Microsoft has spent hundreds of millions on individual ad campaigns, some of which barely made sense and were ridiculed, while this act of charity had the potential for a lot of positive publicity. And even if Microsoft went as far as outfitting each of the 170 hospitals with the same Ultimate Gameroom, it would've cost them a measly $1.7 million total. That's a lot to you and I, but to Microsoft that's .6%, point freakin' six percent, of the cost of a single ad campaign.

That perspective aside, no one is demanding that Microsoft give away $1.7 million. Charity is charity, and it is wonderful that they're giving as much as they are. But they're toying with the hopes of children at 170 hospitals and frankly, I would really love to find whoever decided on this messed up vote-based competition approach and tear any Birthday, Christmas, Hanukkah, Easter, Summer Solstice, and un-freakin'-Birthday gift right out of his or her cruel, little claws. If you're going to contribute to a charity, especially a children's charity, you shouldn't turn it into a game with winners and losers.

Even without spending more than $30,000, this situation could've been handled differently. I understand that some sort of public announcement is needed in order to justify the spending, so I don't really expect Microsoft to just quietly pick a few hospitals for these donations. But the money could've been used for a smaller campaign encouraging others to give. Or if someone's really stuck on having a public vote then choose the hospitals without a spectacle and keep the rankings hidden. Those kids have enough sadness in their lives and really don't need to be yanked back and forth while watching a ranking of just how much the public cares about them or their particular hospitals.

The Abridged Version for Those Strapped for Time:
I like charity. I personally donate both time and money to various causes and I encourage others to do the same. I applaud Microsoft for everything they've done in the past and continue to do. Hell, I'm even secretly a Microsoft-fangirl (but lets not go there, because this isn't about the company). What this rant is complaining about is the game-like approach taken with this particular donation.

Whether you agree or disagree with any or all of the points, or have thoughts on a better approach: The comments are here for a reason, so please let your opinions be known. If a few good ideas, a constructive discussion, or maybe a few extra donations come out of things then all the better. [Children's Miracle Network via TeamXBox]

My 18 month old niece Rysa (with the help of her mother Katharyn Wheeler) put the Tag Junior through the paces. Their collaboration:

Tag Junior 'book pal'
Let's just say that the Tag Junior looks a bit like an alien, a happy alien, but an alien nonetheless. It was actually difficult to keep the reviewer interested in the book because the Tag Junior book pal was so interesting in comparison.

By touching the pal to pictures throughout the pages, everything from animal sounds to the specific names of colors play back on the pal's speaker. The audio quality is pretty decent for such a small device, and all voices are clearly audible.

The biggest problem with the book pal is that the power button is available to the child. The second biggest problem is that the power button makes noise when it is turned on and off. Subsequently, the reviewer was far more interested in turning the button on and off than touching the Tag Junior to the page.

The third biggest problem is that the pal is set to read through a whole passage when touched to any word on a page. This feature is great in the entry-level Curious George Color Fun book where there is one word a page, but proves detrimental in more advanced books that hold up to four lines of text on each page.

Beyond the one bundled book you get with the Tag Junior, each additional book requires you to update the Tag's software via a PC/Mac and USB. This is a simple process, but it requires some preplanning. The reviewer that was so excited seeing the Curious George book was disappointed in having to wait to look at it with the book pal since it wasn't preinstalled. Luckily, once all these books are installed to the pal, the reviewer was able to switch between books at will—every book is loaded at once.

LeapFrog makes use of PC syncing in one other notable way: Once the book pal has been connected it uploads information onto LeapFrog's site to help you monitor your child's activity. The site shows the amount of time spent with the Tag, which books were read, and which skills accomplished. These tools are far beyond what any other toy/learning tool manufacturer is doing right now.

And by far the cutest function is that you can personalize the book pal so that it uses the name of the child each time it powers on (and for names not available you can set a nickname such as "little monkey").

Overall, the reviewer liked the book pal and loved the books themselves. She cried when they were taken away from her.

Formfactor Fits Perfectly In Little Hands

Online Progress Monitoring Is Excellent

The Books Themselves Are Entertaining

You Need to Sync Every Book to PC

Power Button Too Prominent/Enticing

Children Might Cry When Pal Is Taken Away

A toddler, the epitome of innocence, rides around in a wrinkly, one-veiny-eyed monster head. She sits in his exposed brain because, hey, it's a plush cushion and daddy put her there.

But more striking than the juxtaposition of the car's gore and the girl's tabula rasa is the mass amount of love put into the vehicle's detailing and construction. Its fabrication is pro-level (an observation we make based upon our admittedly limited experience with lobotomized cyclopsmobiles) proving that this girl is loved, even if it takes bipedcranial locomotion for her parents to express it.

(The source link for this mutant cyclops head car is just an image—if you know a better/original source, please say so in the comments.) [imgur via Newlaunches]

UPDATE: Michael McWhertor from Kotaku pointed us the way to the source. You can find the photo (and many more) in Elmer Preslee's Flickr stream.

There's a lot to think about here. What are the mechanics of a baby race? Are people betting on this? Or, most directly: What the hell, Lithuania? But I'll leave those thoughts to someone else, because I see something beautiful here: This is the story of a tiny little human who has, at least for now, become the Usain Bolt of babies, all because he loves technology, even—or perhaps, especially—in the form of his dad's janky Dell laptop. It's almost enough to bring a tear to my eye. [Lrtas—Thanks, Linus]

According to a new 800-participant joint study by Children's Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School, before the age of three, DVDs like "BabyGenius," "Brainy Baby" and "Baby Einstein" are of no cognitive benefit to children.

Unbelievable, we know. But it gets worse.

Another study published recently in Pediatrics points out that not only is this video content not beneficial—it could even hinder the development of your child. Children who watched such DVDs were found to have smaller vocabularies than those who didn't.

A Boston researcher from the Pediatrics-published study explained:

At the very best, they steal time from much more productive cognitive developmental activities. Ultimately, what it's about is to make parents not feel guilty about an electronic baby sitter.

And things don't get any better if you hit the link and read the whole story. [CNN]

To look at the stat differently, 35% of 8-year-olds have a mobile phone (obviously this stat is not applicable to the entire world, as we see in this heartbreakingly adorable shot).

So is this finding crazy?

I don't know. I'm not a parent with an 8-year-old, so I don't see what's the norm at grade schools. But with the falling price of cellphones/plans (especially if you add a line for emergencies only), it seems like a no-brainer. The peace of mind I'd get knowing that my child can call 911 from anywhere in the world would far outweigh a couple extra bucks a month to toss them some minutes. But what do you think? [Telegraph]

The only thing Samsung got wrong with this advertisement for the S8300 Ultra Touch was that they went for humorous instead of cute. Cute always trumps funny in the ad world. Just examine this little chart I assembled that explores the relationship of funny pets and kids to cute pets and kids.
I don't mean to be a dick about it, but someone from Samsung's ad firm should really get fired for missing a golden opportunity here. [Thanks Jamie!]

What's so wonderful about Engine Oh G12 is that it's literally ballooned the genre beyond parody. The show has upped the ante of the giant vehicle-assembled robot television so immensely that it's beyond the scope of humorous exaggeration, its components refined to such a point where every individual element is, in itself, too pure to be tainted by sophomoric prop humor.

To fully appreciate this the clip, look beyond the obvious and examine the subtleties of presentation. For instance, two vehicles are there only to serve as covers for the robot's shoes.

Needless you say? Not at all. For the robot's foot alone ascends to Godzillic proportions, constructing a logic in which there is nothing that mechanized god cannot kick over (other than, quite possibly, its own left foot).

I like to think that if Michelangelo had a few hundred more years to work on David, he might resemble the robot in Engine Oh G12. But maybe I'm giving Michelangelo far too much credit. [via Tokyo Mango]

The LeapFrog Text & Learn puts a BlackBerry-esque device into the hands of babes three and up. Preschoolers can enjoy texting Scout (a quasi-imaginary friend) while browsing the "web." Intended to teach spelling, basic computer skills, and the layout of a QWERTY keypad, we just hope that "Scout" is every bit as asexual as his/her name implies. Because my child's first booty call will not, and I repeat, not, be from some crappy pretend friend on some crappy pretend smartphone for kids. I want a better childhood for them than I had.

No word on pricing or availability just yet.

In response to Japan's aging population and Japanese couples' propensity to have too few children to maintain the country's population, Canon called off the traditional 12-hour workday twice a week, encouraging their employees to go home early and make mini Canon employees of their own.

Should you be interested to see thousands of of engineers jogging in spite of bulbous erection, you might set up camp outside Canon at, say, 5:29. Oh how the ground must shake as the air fills with the nose-tingling musk of concentrated geek pheromone. [CNN via CrunchGear and Getty Images]

Yes, in my xenophobic view, all Canon employees double as sumo wrestlers.

It sounds almost too terrible to be true, but research is starting to show that a large crop of humanity's future is becoming so addicted to TV time and video games that their basic communication skills are not materializing. Instead, UK kids are apparently Dr. Who savants with wicked hand-eye coordination. That's great for Halo online multiplayer, but not great for the kids, as the epidemic is purportedly more prevalent than dyslexia or autism, experts said.

The problem has spurred Tory MP John Bercow to propose an ambitious nation-wide screening program to ID these developmentally challenged youths and treat them accordingly. The screening tests would be conducted during routine annual checkups just like an eye or hearing test test.

And a brief aside to close things out: Video games at two years old? I think I was trying to put square blocks into circular holes, but whatever. I'm not jealous just as sure as I am that my name is... [The Telegraph]

It's not that I think all kids are bad. Nor is it about avoiding breeding spoiled brats. Buying high end gadgets for kids is not quite like buying new driver a sportscar. Not exactly. But a kid driving a beater that is slow, handles poorly and needs mechanical love once in awhile can teach an early driver a lot more about how to coax the maximum performance and life out of a car when learning on a piece of junk. Likewise with tech. Giving them great gadgets can deny kids the unavoidable toil poorly designed or rough-around the edges technology offers that can be so educational. I don't have kids, and I won't presume to actually propose parenting advice to anyone, but I can draw on my own childhood, where I learned tech by taking the harder way.

My dad wisely refused to buy me a complete toy remote controlled car, but instead had me work on a Tamiya kit car, which required me to learn how to solder at age 7. The kid across the street from me eventually had to ask me how to build his own car. He was 16. In another instance, one of many, I couldn't get Ultima to run on my dad's old 386 until I got the autoexec batch file set up right. It was a pain but getting that game to run right taught me a nugget of knowledge. I had plenty of experience like this, and they all added to my collective experience with machines.

One famous geek dad I put this theory to said he didn't think high end gear in itself was the problem.

Because computers suck so much, every high-end gadget requires learning all sort of tricky OS stuff like managing several devices, understand DRM, password and username management, updating firmware, rebooting when things go wrong, etc. Compared to a games console, practically everything involving a computer is a mini lesson in IT.

I can agree with that, but I think it strengthens my point. What's funny is that the types of devices I use manage most of these problems he mentions very elegantly. Today, most of the gear I use is from a certain manufacturer that prides itself on making things very easy to use and consumer oriented. And I appreciate it, but I can't help but feel like I'm becoming dependent on technology so polished, its no harder to use than biting into an...Apple.

Then again, other tech parents I talked to believe what I'm saying is nothing new. One creative family in particular thought the philosophy here could be applied to all mediums. For example, Instead of having their kid listen to pop music, they give her weekly music lessons. And although their daughter has total access to all the gadgets her father and mother do, they're using it to ramp her up to more difficult and advanced ways to interface with and control tech. That is, she's getting programming lessons soon. Knowing the girl, I think she'll enjoy them, even thought she's been raised on easy to use tech. But perhaps the difference here is how that energy is diverted — instead of using a tinkering mentality to get the baseline OS working, she might use it to write programs.

Another parent says this is all theoretical. I heard on some NPR show awhile ago that there's not much you can do to encourage or discourage the spirit of a young person. I guess what I'm saying is that giving junior geeks personal tech problems from a young age can be can be good basic training, so what benefit do we get by buying them stuff that works out of the box?

Named Niu Niu and Man Man, after Chinese gadget company Newsmy's mascots, the dolls are mp3 players and "interactive learning devices." Besides loading the toys with your child's favorite songs, you can also record your voice, to be played back whenever your spawn is feeling your absence.

The controls for all the dolls' features are on their hands and feet. The data and battery boxes are shoved deep into their stuffed insides so you don't have to worry about electrocution. The dolls hold 2GB, play MP3 and WMA formats, go up to 75dB and use 3 AA batteries. And if the photoshop jobs are to be believed... they can alsohover! [imp3]