Holiday 1999
Seal of Approval
Product Testing Report
Past Seal of Approval Reports | TNPC Home | TNPC Mall | Boards/Chat for Parents
The National Parenting Center and its Seal of Approval are registered United States trademarks
Nick
Click Digital Camera & CD-ROM
Mattel Media
Digital cameras have a very high "wow" quotient
these days because of their ability to capture images, view and even mail them
in an instant. It is just one of
many exciting technologies that are now a part of our lives.
Nickelodeon and Mattel have teamed up to bring this new technology to
children in an affordable fashion. A
slickly designed purple camera plugs directly into your computer so you can snap
away and see your images instantly. Want
to turn a friend into a favorite Nick Jr. character, it's simple with just a
couple of clicks. Our testers
favorite feature was the ability to make stop frame movies set to music that
flash by the screen in a dizzying multimedia display.
Recommended Age: 6 and up Price: $69.99
Mattel Media
The concept of a computerized microscope certainly has
plenty of whiz-bang appeal going for it. When
we first saw the package, an eye-catching display with a translucent blue and
green scope, there was a noticeable level of anticipation that this was
something cool. It wasn't until we
loaded the software and fired up the microscope for the first time did we get a
taste of just how cool. Vividly
magnified images burst on our monitor with remarkable brightness and clarity.
The software allows for lots of fun exploration with images including the
opportunity to make time-lapse images, superimposing pictures on other images
and the like, but the power of the microscope is what blew our testers away.
Magnifying images from 10x to 200x, the ability to share scientific
discoveries with others including the use of the QX3 in classrooms had our
testers impressed and buzzing.
Recommended Age: 6 and up Price: $99.99
Dotsafe
Filtered Internet Access
Dotsafe, Inc.
One of the realities of the Internet explosion is that
some of the millions of web pages available for anyone to view are not
appropriate for all audiences. When
it comes to children, who are growing up in an age where being on line is as
natural and commonplace as talking on the phone, parents must be on guard when
it comes to content that is objectionable.
Dotsafe is an option that does filter out many sites that are less that
desirable. There are still lots of
ways for this material to sneak through the cracks, and parents should not let
their guard down, although Dotsafe is easy to use and can be a shield that works
behind the scenes, ever present and on the job.
Recommended Age: All
Or, for more information about The Seal of Approval or The National Parenting Center call: 1-800-753-6667
Hosted by VectraNet Communications
http://www.vectranet.com
Last Update: November 12, 1999