Cuddly 'Social Robots' For Child Online Safety

The revolutionary robos are aimed at 7 to 10-year-olds.

Small, cute and furry interactive "social robots" called Petimos may soon be your best bet to keeping your child safe online. They are designed by scientists to help protect children when they make friends on social networks.

Petimos, which work in conjunction with an online social network called Petimo-World in which they are represented by avatars, are due to be launched later this year.

Social Networking Sites Accused of Distracting Kids from Studies
Popular social networking websites such as Facebook are having a distracting effect on school children and their studies, according to a survey.

The revolutionary robos are aimed at 7 to 10-year-olds.

Children will only be able to accept new online "friends" if their Petimos are brought into physical contact first, to guard against cyberbullies and paedophiles masquerading as children, reports New Scientist.

"Internet and text-based communication is only a small part of human communication that we have evolved with," says the device's inventor, Adrian David Cheok at the National University of Singapore. "I want to use new media to help develop more natural human forms of communication. Petimo is one step in this direction."

Social Networking Moving With Smartphones
As the techno-hip South By South West (SXSW) used location-based services on smartphones to track down everything from panels to parties, mobile social networking ruled on Saturday.

Source-ANI
TAN

"Panic Buttons" Must be Added on Facebook
The head of British Child Exploitation and Online Protection (Ceop) centre has urged the social networking site Facebook to add panic buttons to its pages.

One-Third Brits Prefer 'Face'book To Face-to-Face Interactions With Relatives
The traditional way of catching up with relatives face to face has become passi, as an increasing number of people keep tabs on loved ones via Facebook or witter, a recent survey has revealed.