Nothing dystopian about wanting to protect your child, especially in today's crazy world.
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These Shoes Let You Track Your Child's Location With Apple's AirTag
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Just get your kid a cellular AW. Then you can even scold them remotely with the walkie talkie (if it even works!).
This line of shoes is for children ages 4-8. You think they should be able to leave the house unsupervised?
And parents who want to monitor their kids are going to do it anyway. This just makes it easier to do it.
And not to go all "think of the children!", but technology has allowed missing people cases to drop substantially-
This is actually a product we are really excited about. Our son is autistic and an eloper. This would give us a huge peace of mind when out in public.
Completely understand - I grew up with a special needs sister and my parents would have loved something like this.
Jogging produces a force of 3-6 G, while sprinting may produce 8-11 G, which for a 50 lb kid translates into 150-300 lb or 400-550 lb of force per foot each time it lands on the ground. Of course, the force is usually more on the ball than on the heel of the foot.
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What the crap? Half a million people go missing in the United States every year? What kind of a crazy train is this world?This line of shoes is for children ages 4-8. You think they should be able to leave the house unsupervised?
And parents who want to monitor their kids are going to do it anyway. This just makes it easier to do it.
And not to go all "think of the children!", but technology has allowed missing people cases to drop substantially-
Forget kidnapping and spying, I want these because my kids spend 20 minutes every time we're trying to leave the house going "Where are my shoes!?!?!"
I left the house unsupervised (walking to school, roughly a mile) from the age of six. That was in Europe though.
What is dystopian is if that isn’t safely possible anymore.
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This kind of logic always seems so backwards to me. Kids have gotten kidnapped or lost throughout all of history. What did any of us do before penicillin, the internet, air conditioning, or any other modern technology? I'll tell you exactly: those generations lived much shorter lives on average, including many kids who died from now-preventable causes. Back then people just had more kids to make up for it.
1) Almost half a million children are reported missing annually in the USA. Sure, many of these cases are resolved very quickly (kid hiding from parents, etc.), or repeat cases of the same kid. Still, products like this certainly have a valid use case.
2) This ad never says they suggest the kid remains unaware their shoes are trackable. Sure, some parents will try to use it that way. However, a kid knowing their shoes can be tracked by their parents might be a great comfort to them, especially if they are on vacation or out in large/crowded public environments. Anyway, if they're old enough, they'd figure out where the airtag is... or, just ditch the shoes when really don't want their parents peeping. If they are too young to do either of those things, they really shouldn't have any form of location privacy anyway.
3) If the parent does try to keep it a secret from older/mature kids, the kid probably has bigger things to worry about in life.
those are cases... many repeat instances, or innocent mixups, etc. It doesn't mean half a million unique children actually go missing for any extended periods. Still, any one of these reported cases surely involves some heartache by the parents (and/or kids).
I will 100% buy these for my toddler. Remember these are not teens.
The kid would just get kidnapped. But also human trafficking and slavery is still more common than you’d like to think.
A brilliant idea. We've got three kids under 5 and our middle child (3) has an AirTag on his trainers because he's a walker. He's independent and confident and will just decide to go off and do something. While packing up a picnic in a park, we'd mentioned we were going to go to the playground afterwards and suddenly we realised he was gone. We found him in the playground as he'd gone off on his own head of us. When we were in a museum's gift shop, we turned around and he was gone. Eventually we found him at an information desk and it turned out he'd decided he wanted to see one particular car at the other end of the museum one more time before we left. We then decided to put an AirTag on his shoe, so that the next time this happens, we can find him quicker.
We also put an AirTag in his stuffed toy because he's *very* attached to this one toy yet leaves it everywhere. We have identical copies of the same toy but none of them are the same for him, unlike for our other kids and we save ourself so much drama and stress by being able to find it quickly.
Obviously we won't bother with an AirTag on his shoe when he's older and unlikely to just wander off but for now, it's invaluable. I'll be checking out these shoes for when he's due new ones in a few months time.
We also put an AirTag in his stuffed toy because he's *very* attached to this one toy yet leaves it everywhere. We have identical copies of the same toy but none of them are the same for him, unlike for our other kids and we save ourself so much drama and stress by being able to find it quickly.
Obviously we won't bother with an AirTag on his shoe when he's older and unlikely to just wander off but for now, it's invaluable. I'll be checking out these shoes for when he's due new ones in a few months time.
I used to run with an early version of the Nike+ dongle before GPS and step tracking was common in phones which had a similar width. Nike shoes came with a similar compartment under the heel. As a 200lb man running, I never had a problem with comfort nor damage to the device.
My lord are we a paranoid people these days.
This stuff would have seemed flat out dystopian a couple decades ago.
How about an implant under their skin plus a drone that follows them around filming their every move and surroundings?
(from a slight distance of course, you know... for "privacy")
This stuff would have seemed flat out dystopian a couple decades ago.
How about an implant under their skin plus a drone that follows them around filming their every move and surroundings?
(from a slight distance of course, you know... for "privacy")
No they don’t…. Kids deserve responsible parents. They deserve zero privacy. This whole “gentle parenting” thing is likely the cause of much of today’s problems.
Now, if it was the government tracking its citizens with trackers in their shoes that would be dystopian. As a parent, knowing where my kid is, if he’s in trouble could be life-saving.
But I can still put a bugdroid charm on them, right?
9to5google.com
Google now sells an Android charm for your Crocs [Gallery]
Hopping on board with the ongoing trend, Google has just started selling an Android “shoe charm” that works with Crocs....
9to5google.com
Take a razor blade and carve out a small hole in the sole inside the shoe for the AirTag. There, I just saved you a bunch of money.