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CNN Sunday Morning
Gadgets for Kids
Aired August 19, 2001 - 08:35 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, it's back to school. Education aside, what matters more than looking cool, right?
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, that matters the most. Believe me. We have the man with this year's cool tools for back to school. Steve Kruschen is known as Mr. Gadget. He investigates, tests and reports on every kind of gadget and electronic product and everything you could think of that would boggle the mind.
STEVE KRUSCHEN, MR. GADGET: Stuff!
SAVIDGE: Yes and lots of it.
PHILLIPS: All kinds of stuff.
KRUSCHEN: All kinds of stuff. Speaking of stuff, students going back to school, especially college kids, got to have a laptop. I've tested them, and this is my pick for the absolute best.
This is Apple's brand new iBook. It comes with a tough polycarbonate plastic enclosure, so it's built for the rigors of students. It has up to a five-hour battery life, so between recharges they can take it from class to class and don't have to worry about plugging in, which is very important.
Also, it has optical drive options, you know, the sort of CD thing, optical drive options that include a DVD Rom and CD-RW combo, so they can actually watch movies on this and burn their own music CDs, because it comes with iTunes software so they can burn their tunes right here on the iBook.
PHILLIPS: And you can edit on this too.
KRUSCHEN: That's right.
SAVIDGE: Well, I was just going to say, in case the lecture gets a little boring in the classroom.
KRUSCHEN: That's right.
PHILLIPS: They can whip out their laptop.
KRUSCHEN: Yeah, they can do video editing, because it's got built in FireWire. PHILLIPS: OK.
KRUSCHEN: And it's also got built in integrated antennas for those campuses that now have wireless networks, like I even have at home. You can roam around without being plugged in at all at fast speeds. It's a fantastic way to go. Prices start at $1,299 all the way up to, I'm using that sort of tongue in cheek, all the way up to only $1,799 for the top of the line.
PHILLIPS: Only.
KRUSCHEN: Yeah. It's a great way to go.
Now, for the little kids, let me swing this around and show you something, this is fun.
PHILLIPS: OK.
KRUSCHEN: For the little kids, we've got some software that's called Jump Start Languages. Now, this is for 3- to 6-year-olds to learn how to communicate...
PHILLIPS: How many languages?
KRUSCHEN: OK. We've got English, French, Spanish and Japanese. Now, let's pop into, let's see, the Japanese...
PHILLIPS: Can you image a three-year-old learning Japanese?
KRUSCHEN: Check this out. You pop into the Japanese pavilion through stories and songs and activities with lots of clickables in here. And it will teach them, you know, these words and phrases, and it's a lot of phone. It's about $19.95. Highly recommended. Jump Start has a whole line of wonderful software.
SAVIDGE: My kids use Jump Start. It really is...
KRUSCHEN: Yeah, it's a great way to go. So, now we'll turn off the sound here. Now, what is it sitting on, though? Well, the iBook is sitting on the Lap Station Pro. Now this is a fold up, back- packable -- look at this thing. Feel this, it weighs next to nothing.
PHILLIPS: Wow.
KRUSCHEN: You put it in the backpack along with the iBook and it's a great thing for students to be able to actually use their laptop portably, especially, oddly enough, you know, you want to use the laptop in bed, and it's really inconvenient, or on a couch or something like that. It's a wonderful thing to put it on. It's only $80. That's the Lap Station Pro.
PHILLIPS: OK.
KRUSCHEN: Now, we go from there to some fun. And this is from Sony. This is the KV-M1314. This is their Wega TV that has the flat face, Trinitron FD -- FD Trinitron tube, so it's a... PHILLIPS: A Trinitron tube?
KRUSCHEN: Trinitron tube. Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
KRUSCHEN: That's right.
PHILLIPS: I'm not really smart with this stuff; what's so good about that?
KRUSCHEN: That's OK. Well, look at the picture, first of all.
PHILLIPS: OK.
KRUSCHEN: This is their best, flat faced, great picture, which is Sony's hallmark, you know, that is the standard. And, also, it has front and rear hookups, right behind this little panel, here, there are front...
PHILLIPS: Oh, yeah, there is it. It's on.
SAVIDGE: Easy access.
KRUSCHEN: That's right. Front hookups for your video games. Rear hookups for like what I'm doing, I plugged a DVD into it or a VCR. Only $250. It'll look great in any dorm. Comes in black, blue and white.
SAVIDGE: Well, let's move on just to some of the low-tech stuff before we run out of time.
KRUSCHEN: All right. Moving on, well, this is still pretty high-tech. This is a great way for students to get organized, and I've chosen the Handspring Visor Deluxe for them because of the fact that it's a great way for them to stay organized for their classes, for their studies, for their homework, and for their social activities. It has a module in the back, a little plug in port, where they can plug in an MP3 player, a digital camera, cordless phone or a cell phone, and it uses the address book in the device to do the dialing.
SAVIDGE: So, the keyword, versatility.
KRUSCHEN: Versatility and, of course, easy connections to Macs and PCs for synchronizing data with USB.
Now, who is the artist around here?
PHILLIPS: Marty.
KRUSCHEN: I heard it was Marty. Now, this is Colorific Products, coloring products for kids. I'm going to put you to work, Marty, here you go. You start drawing, and then we're going to see what it looks like. We've got gel markers. We've got scented markers that are washable.
PHILLIPS: Here you go, show Rocky. See what he's drawing, here we go.
KRUSCHEN: OK. And, you see, it looks great, even on colored paper. They flow very smoothly. So, we've got gel markers, scented washable markers that smell really good, we've got super strong crayons. We have scented erasers.
PHILLIPS: I noticed that smells like blueberry.
KRUSCHEN: Yeah. Scented colored pencils. And...
(CROSSTALK)
KRUSCHEN: That's right. And we have something called Glitz Sticks, which looks like a mechanical pencil but it writes like a crayon. You can play with that too, Marty.
PHILLIPS: Oh, boy. There you, Marty.
KRUSCHEN: And, you're going to like this one. This is Gel Sticks. This is a liquidy smooth metallic kind of sheen. I'm not going to even attempt to draw. I'm going to let Marty do this.
SAVIDGE: Oh, I'm not a drawer, please.
(CROSSTALK)
KRUSCHEN: I thought he was going to write help instead of hello.
PHILLIPS: Exactly, help me. Can you the erasers?
KRUSCHEN: No, but they sure do smell good. Here, check this out.
PHILLIPS: Wow.
KRUSCHEN: This flows very smoothly. This is Colorific. Fun products for kids.
SAVIDGE: Oh, yeah.
PHILLIPS: Those are neat. I like the gel pens.
SAVIDGE: Yeah.
KRUSCHEN: And, I don't know if I mentioned it, but the washable markers don't dry out, even if you leave them uncapped for up to three days. And I don't know if I mentioned, also, I found that the Handspring Visor, I found that at Best Buy.
SAVIDGE: Oh. So, did they tell you I was a courtroom artist?
KRUSCHEN: No.
PHILLIPS: Look at this.
KRUSCHEN: And we wouldn't have believed it if you had. PHILLIPS: For the next trial, Marty is going to be doing the artwork.
KRUSCHEN: And they've got information about all of these products, of course, on my Web site.
PHILLIPS: On our Web site.
KRUSCHEN: At MrGadget.com. Just click on the cool tools for back to school and the information on these products and many more is right there.
PHILLIPS: Mr. Gadget.
SAVIDGE: Well, we thank you very much for coming by this morning.
KRUSCHEN: Thank you.
SAVIDGE: Great to see you.
PHILLIPS: Can I keep the blueberry eraser?
KRUSCHEN: Sure, if you must.
PHILLIPS: OK. We'll see you again. All right, thanks, Steve.
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