By Andrew Liszewski

Now you can teach your kids about the birds and the bees – well at least the birds part – without all that awkwardness. (Human babies hatch from eggs right?) This nest box comes with an IR camera pre-installed inside that transmits a video image, night and day, to a base station that can be connected to any display with an RCA input, revealing the secrets of the circle of life. The transmitter’s got a range of about 328ft and 4 different broadcast channels in case you get interference from another device, but you’ll need to run a power feed out to wherever the nest box gets mounted since even the optional 9V battery pack is really only good for about 2 hours.

You can order the kit from Pro-Idee for about $211, which isn’t cheap, but do you really want your kids learning where birds come from on the internet or on the street? I didn’t think so.

[ Nest Box with IR Camera ]

By Evan Ackerman

The PeeWee Pivot Tablet Laptop, as you may have guessed from the name, is designed for kids ages 3-10. As such, it comes with “age appropriate software,” a Disney Theme for Windows XP, and a security suite designed to keep your preschoolers from downloading hardcore pornography.

Once you get past the kiddie stuff, though, this is actually a pretty decent machine. It’s essentially a netbook, with all of the features you’ve come to know and love and be bored by, including an Atom processor, Windows XP, 1-2 gigs of RAM, a 60 gig HD, USB, card reader, WiFi, 6 cell battery for 5+ hours of on-time, blah blah blah. But it’s also a convertible touchscreen tablet that comes with a stylus. And a webcam that rotates 180 degrees. And a spill-resistant keyboard. And drop-resistant shell. You know, stuff that’s nice to have in a computer that you carry around a lot.

You’ll pay more for all of these features, of course: the PeeWee PC costs $600. That’s a premium of about $150 or so from a similarly outfitted MSI Wind (the netbook standard, IMO). But that’s not really that much for the additional durability and touchscreen… As long as you can handle using a laptop that probably says “PeeWee” on it in a few places.

[ PeeWee PC ] VIA [ Engadget ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I’ve often wondered if I’d be able to land an airplane should the need ever arise. I mean back in the day I spent a lot of time playing MS Flight Simulator, what more training could I possibly need right? Well reading through this wikiHow article entitled “How to Land an Airplane in an Emergency” does make me second-guess my actual knowledge of the whole procedure. While the wiki is a bit vague at times, there’s still some pretty good information there, at least enough to keep you in the air until you get in touch with air traffic control. And it doesn’t hurt to bookmark the site on your laptop or phone, just in case you ever happen to need to reference it again.

[ wikiHow - How to Land an Airplane in an Emergency ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Ugh, I guess this is another sign of the times. Instead of kids blowing up test tubes with strips of magnesium, they have to settle for making square shaped or smoke filled bubbles with this Bubble Experiment Lab from ‘Mad Science’. I’ll give them credit though, when fully assembled the lab does look like a crazy contraption cooked up by a Disney Imagineer, but I’m afraid the accolades end there. While it comes with bubble solution and a smoke elixir (sounds delicious) according to one of the reviewers on Amazon “the smoke was less visible than the steam coming off a cup of warm coffee.”

So if you live for the look of disappointment on your kid’s faces, you can order the Bubble Experiment Lab from Amazon for $42.99. Otherwise, just spend like 50 cents and buy them a bottle of bubble solution. It’s a far cheaper way to confirm the scientific hypothesis that bubbles are lame.

[ Mad Science Bubble Experiment Lab ] VIA [ Gadget Grid ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Designed to accompany your Roland HD-1 V-Drums Lite set (pictured above) the DT-HD1 Drum Tutor software might not be as fun as Rock Band, but it looks like a better learning tool if you have drumming aspirations beyond just getting a new high score.

With the HD-1 drum kit connected to your PC via an included USB-MIDI interface, the Drum Tutor software provides an easy to follow notation screen complete with a bouncing ball, timing check and indicators for what your left and right hands should be doing. And if you’ve found that Rock Band makes practicing for hours on end a little more enjoyable, the Drum Tutor software even has a Tetris clone game where you learn proper drumming techniques while trying to rack up a high score.

The DT-HD1 Drum Tutor software will be available come March for about $75, while the HD-1 V-Drums Lite are available now, and can be found at sites like Amazon for around $800.

[ Roland DT-HD1 Drum Tutor ]

By Andrew Liszewski

If I had to make a list of companies that haven’t exactly kept up with the times, Encyclopedia Britannica would be right up there near the top. Even though they have finally embraced that internet thing all the kids are talking about, they still sell printed copies of their encyclopedia set. And while this electronic version of their encyclopedia is considerably more portable and affordable, it still looks like one of those old-school Sharp organizers from 15 years ago.

The Electronic Encyclopedia Britannica includes all 25,000 entries from their concise encyclopedia, as well as a copy of the 240,000 word Concise Oxford Dictionary, the Concise Oxford Thesaurus (which contains over 4 million synonym links) and the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. It also includes a 130,000 word spellchecker, a 10,000-entry abbreviation dictionary as well as a crossword solver, phrase finder, calculator and currency converter. With a price tag of about $184 from Expert Verdict it’s still kind of a hard sell if you’ve already got a half-decent internet connected smartphone, but at least they’re trying right?

[ Seiko Electronic Encyclopedia Britannica ] VIA [ The Red Ferret Journal ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Here’s a 21st century take on those pop-up books that fascinated us as kids. Instead of using intricately designed and engineered origami contraptions to make a 3D world pop out of a book as you turn the pages, a company called Metaio uses a run-of-the-mill webcam (I’m sure it has a minimum resolution requirement) and a custom piece of camera recognition software to make a 3D world appear on your computer’s screen. The company’s Augmented Reality technology was recently shown off at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany with an upcoming interactive 3D book called Aliens & UFOs which superimposes planets and alien spacecraft on the page when the book is held up to the webcam.

What’s particularly neat about Metaio’s Augmented Reality technology is that it doesn’t require any special tracking markers to appear on the page. Instead, the exact dimensions and layout of the page is what the software uses to track its position in 3D space and perfectly superimpose the objects in real-time. So in other words, the book’s layout has to be 100% complete before the software portion can be written. But imagine how cool it would be to get an Augmented Reality IKEA catalog in the mail that allows you to see a 3D layout of the room and furniture on your PC?

[ Metaio ] VIA [ Wired Gadget Lab ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Cripes! We’ve all seen these ‘electronic dictionary pen’ devices before, and while I’m sure they’re useful to some people, I think this Quicktionary TS model goes a bit overboard. When it comes to features I have no complaints, since the 400 dpi scanner built into the tip of the pen allows you to scan single words or full lines of text which are then displayed on the high-resolution LCD screen complete with detailed definitions.

It also allows you to hear the words spoken back so you can familiarize yourself with the correct pronunciations, and the LCD display is even a touch-screen allowing you to access the dictionary functions by manually typing in words or phrases via an on-screen keyboard. But assuming that hand model has a relatively normal-sized human adult hand, I think the Quicktionary TS is way bigger than it needs to be. Shrink that scanner down, make it connect to my laptop via USB or my cellphone via bluetooth and we’ll talk.

But if you’re happy with lugging around a mini-cricket bat, the Quicktionary TS is available from the Wizcom Technologies online store for $189.95.

[ Quicktionary TS ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with trying to teach kids the value of a buck or encouraging them to save a few dollars, but I don’t think the age group this bank is targeting are that concerned with having a healthy retirement fund one day. Every time they insert a coin into the bank an interactive fish named Gill (I don’t get it) will reward your kid with a “cool animation.” The money they deposit is automatically counted and their total savings is displayed on the LCD screen. Your kids will also be responsible for feeding Gill on a daily basis and keeping his tank clean, though I don’t know what the consequences are if they forget. (Terrible interest rates?) Of course if your kid is actually trying to save money for something, they’ll want to make sure they factor in an additional $52 (£29.99) to cover the cost of the bank itself.

[ I Save Money Bank ] VIA [ Toyology ]