Tag: coverage

The Family Tech CES2020 Preview

Every year at CES, tens of thousands of people gather to see the latest that technology has to offer. Every tech media outlet covers CES. They’ll be talking about everything from virtual reality to massage chairs. This is your Family Tech CES2020 preview. There are a lot of interesting topics being covered at CES this year. Here are some that I think are the most interesting and some that are specifically important for families like yours.

TV Talk

Welcome to the age of the 8K television. That’s right, we’ve skipped from 4k resolution to the mind bendingly clear 8k quality. Some say that the human eye can’t even discern that kind of clarity but it sure would be fun to find our for ourselves. The 8k tvs from LG, Samsung, and Sony tout such amazing tech that you need a screen larger that 65 inches to even get the full benefit.

Voice-Enabled Digital Assistants on Everything

Voice assistants are in everything. It’s in your car, your TV remote, even your toilet and shower. That is going to continue at CES 2020. Look to find voice activated technology in more and more gadgets this year. Even our kids are being offered toys and gadgets with voice command tech built in. Voice Assistants aren’t new but seeing them integrated into everything else only proves that this concept is here to stay.

Crazy New Gadgets

There is always some crazy stuff at CES. Some is pretty unimportant but interesting. Some things are said to be the new face of technology but just seem strange to me. Foldable phones fit into that category, so do many of the robot offerings at the conference. Either way I’ll be looking for the most amusing and interesting gadgets to show you at this year’s CES.

5G Technology

5G is a bit of a buzz phrase these days but there is some actual technology behind the term. This fast, “over the air,” data connection is finally starting to spread for real. Many major cities are adding 5G to their infrastructure. It’s expensive and coverage is spotty but wherever it works, it’s lightning fast. The reason 5G is so critical is the role it will play in the roll out of self driving car technology. The connection speed that 5G offers is critical to the success of the self driving revolution.

Self Driving Car Technology

Self Driving Cars are always the bell of the ball at CES. This year will be no different with more and more companies finding ways to implement the improving technology. Not only are the cars themselves a big deal but the tech around mapping, connection speed, and entertainment inside your self driving car is becoming a major reality as well. It isn’t easy to hitch a ride in one of these vehicles at CES but I’m going to try my hardest this year.

What Parents Should Know

The future of technology is always going to include products to entice our children. Coding toys, games, gadgets, and safety tech are all being highlighted at CES2020 and I’ll be there to show you what to look out for and what to look forward to. As I look toward this year’s conference, here is a family tech preview of CES2020.

Ed-Tech

As highlighted last year, education technology is a going to be all over the show floor at CES. I’ll show your new coding games and toys as well as virtual and augmented reality classrooms. Robots will play a major role in training students for future technology jobs as well. Keep your browser open to the Family Tech Blog to see more as the conference starts up next week.

Pet-Tech

The furry members of our family have a place at CES as well. Dog toilets, cat toys that move across the ground, connected leashes, and even fenceless boundaries highlight the pet tech industry at CES. You’d be surprised how much tech can help people care for their pets and help pets care for their people. You probably wouldn’t be surprised, however, at some of the goofy pet tech that shows up at CES as well.

Smart-home/ Home Security

Everyone’s homes are becoming smarter and smarter, even if the way we use the technology isn’t so wise. Technology that can keep our home network and connected devices safe is crucial and thus, a major factor at CES. I’ll be spending quite a bit of time chatting with developers about their products intended to keep your data secure. Some even offer new parental control solutions as well.

Connected Toys

So many of our toys are connected to the internet now. Games, robots, even racetracks are finding ways to connect your tablet or smartphone. You are given an online account in order to fully play with these toys. This is introducing our kids to use of the internet earlier and earlier. What products are coming up that feature connected toys? I’ll gave updated information for you from CES next week.

Avast All-in-One Security and Safety – Omni

I’m very excited to test out one specific piece of family safety technology. Avast’s Omni device is an all-in-one way to protect your network from hackers, malware, spyware, viruses, and even set up parental controls and GPS alerts. I’m excited to have a hands on look at Omni while I visit their booth at CES. I’ll also be able to hear from their VP of Product Deliver as she shares at the Family Tech Summit on Thursday of the conference.

A Long Six Days

Hope you enjoyed this family tech CES2020 preview. This event is a lot of work and makes for long days. It is, however, some of the most useful and rewarding work I do all year. The new tech, updates on the latest trends, and marketing strategy research gives me such great information to pass along to you, parents. Thank you to those who have partnered with BecauseFamily for this trip to Las Vegas. If you would like to partner with our organization just visit our Partnership page. You can follow every detail of my adventure to CES2020 on our Facebook Page, our Instagram, and on YouTube. Thank you again, see you soon, from Vegas!

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January 1, 2020
Snapmap Featured User Sourced Videos of the Florida School Shooting

Snapchat’s “Snapmap” feature highlights news stories that are curated by their team of news editors. The team chose to feature posts from the school shooting in Parkland Florida on their map yesterday. It was comprised of Snaps from students in the school, news outlets, and passersby whom the editors thought had posted something that contributed to the viewers understanding of what was going on during the shooting. You can see that editing was done before the Snaps were put on the map because a “Warning Graphic Content” posts start the slideshow, followed by a video of what seems to be the inside of a classroom in which you can hear the gunshots from nearby. Language is bleeped out and there are no actual victims shown but you do see a couple of students who are talking about watching their friends be killed right next to them.

Snapchat hired a former CNN exec to lead their team of news editors and they say their news team is doing their best to follow the right journalism practices. They are working to remove overly sensitive content and choosing to only feature Snaps that contribute properly to the story they are covering. Snapchat’s main audience is under 18 which likely contributed to the fact that they had so much content to use to cover the shooting in a High School. This also means though that our kids who use Snapchat, and anyone else using their map in a browser, can have access to on the scene footage of what is happening during events like this. A school shooting is a national tragedy and social media is becoming one of the most common ways that people learn about what is happening or has happened. Snapchat is attempting to provide a curated look at this news, but is that what we want our kids to see when they look at their phones?

What Parents Should Know

As mentioned above, posts from Snapchat are not automatically sent to the map. These posts are curated and especially selected and edited before being added. While I’m grateful for some oversite from Snapchat when it comes to sharing this news, I have to question whether or not I would want my 13 or 14-year-old to have access to some of the images seen during the shooting on Wednesday. Just seeing something so dangerous portrayed in such a real way can be damaging and cause fear in our kids. We have to look out for this and know if this is something our child can handle or not. For some of them it may be fine but for others, they aren’t mature enough to deal with that much realism.

(Opinion warning!) I can’t tell you what’s right for your kids, I will, however, give credit to Snapchat for trying to bring some truth to the news by using information from people who are actually there. I will also keep this info from my kids for a while. There are enough things that cause fear in our lives, I wouldn’t want added influences like their social media accounts to increase that fear. Snapchat is on my uninstall list for a lot of reasons, I’m grateful they aren’t just putting every public post from one of these tragic events onto a feed that your and my kids could see but I will think long and hard before allowing my child access to this source of news.

February 15, 2018