When life gives you snow, don’t just make a snowman. Make a giant luge track in your backyard for the whole family! A Dad in Minnesota does that every year to have some fun with winter and the track is pretty impressive with great slopes, windy turns and expertly designed snowbanks. Just look at his whole family slide down. How fun!
     |
The family that sleeps in a giant sleeping bag together… is just weird. Regardless, this sleeping bag is big enough to fit your family inside. It’s great for unexpected emergency situations like if you’ve lost your house or something, but otherwise you are just going to drive each other crazy, hitting each other with your elbows and whatnot.
This sleeping bag is made from 100% Polyester and you can unzip the bag from the bottom up to allow increased airflow. Speaking of airflow, just a little warning. Do not use this thing as a family on taco night.
After you spend some time trapped in a nightmare cocoon with your them, you won’t even want to be a part of the family anymore. So enjoy it while it lasts.
[via This Is Why I’m Broke]
Family photos can happen any time, but all-clan snaps seem like an imperative around the holidays. Does your family still do them? Is it a last-minute smartphone camera affair or do you have an aunt who busts out a DSLR?
| |
Everyone has an over-zealous uncle, grandparent, cousin, or parent on Facebook, but it goes beyond just that platform. Where does your family share photos, make announcements and keep everyone in the loop?
| |
Samsung today confirmed its plans to launch a version of its Galaxy Tab designed for kids with the announcement of the Galaxy Tab 3 Kids tablet. The tablet will come pre-loaded with kid-friendly apps and games, a Kid’s Store, and parental control features that include whitelisting capabilities, time management features, password protected access, and more. Samsung will also offer an easy-to-grip Kids Case and, for drawing, a C Pen, which ships with the case.
The company says the tablet will first arrive in Korea next month, before rolling out to China, Europe, the U.S., Africa, South America and Southeast Asia. The tablet includes a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, a seven-inch 1024 x 600 display, front- and rear-facing cameras, and 8GB of internal storage, which is expandable via a microSD slot up to 32GB. The tablet runs the Jelly Bean (4.1) version of Android.
The market for kid-specific tablets is still relatively niche. Some companies, like Leapfrog, make tablets that are more like electronic, educational toys than they are mom or dad’s iPad. They run apps and games, but they’re not about being able to browse the ever-expanding mobile app store for the latest and greatest from the child’s favorite characters and big-name kids’ brands. You get a curated selection of apps, but not some of the better learning apps designed specifically for Apple’s iPad.
The same holds true for Android. Across the Android platform, there are plenty of others hoping to compete in the kid tablet space, like Nabi or Toys R Us’ own Tabeo tablet, as well as a slew of low-end Android tablet offerings. Amazon’s own Kindle Fire makes for a decent “kid” tablet, as well, without the limitation of being only a kid’s toy. Instead, it ships with software that lets parents put the tablet into a kid mode, which includes parental controls and time-limiting features, as well as pre-approved apps. When the kids finish playing, parents can then use the tablet for themselves, making it more of a family computer.
With kids-only tablets, price point is key. Tablets need to stay under $200, generally speaking. For something mom and dad can’t share, and kids will soon outgrow, $150ish is even more palatable for what feels more like a stocking-stuffer purchase than a real technology investment. Anything too expensive leads parents to consider paying just a few dollars more for a low-end iPad Mini ($329).
Samsung, however, has not yet announced pricing, so it’s hard to evaluate where this new tablet will fit in.
More details are on Samsung’s site here.
If you’re running out of ideas for fun stuff to do with your family, then you might want to look to Feelday for some help. It’s touted as a “discovery guide for playful families” that provides suggestions for a variety of activities that every member of your family will enjoy.
Families can discover new activities “on the fly” and filter their finds according to their moods, schedules, ages, weather, and price. When you first visit the site, you’re prompted to key in your family’s mood, the date when you’d want to go on your next family outing, and your zip code. Feelday will then provide you with some activities scheduled near your area.
Our mission is simple: We help families find great local activities that are right for them. We help families get off of the couch and into the real world.
Feelday is currently available for families living in New York City, Seattle, the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, and Houston, and has a fairly limited number of activities in its database. If you live within these areas, give the service a try and let us know what your experience was like.
[via SwissMiss via Laughing Squid]
Today was a historic day for equality, as the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the misleadingly named Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Futurist thinkers have been imagining this day for years, and back in 1990 Newsweek gave hints about what marriage might look like in the world of tomorrow.
| |
It’s nice to be a grandparent because you can enjoy spending time with your grandkids without worrying about the minutia of parenting. Plus, it’s your second go around with little rascals so you get to have fun with it. Like Steve and Jeri Wakefield, two grandparents who are having so much fun at being awesome grandparents that they built their grandkids this amazing tree house mansion. I don’t think kids have ever dreamt of tree houses this nice. More »
DeAGOSTINI Japan, a publisher that issues a weekly magazine specializing in collectable items, launched “Robi”, the friendly robot that wants to be part of the family.
He can understand more than 200 words so he listens to you and talks to you and makes related gestures. He also can sit, stand, walk, dance, turn on the TV and change channels, and wink at you. Ask him to time your pasta. And should you take an umbrella with you today?
The robot looks like it will be fun for …
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
