Ask Slashdot: Skype Setup For Toddler's Room? 302
New submitter mmmmdave writes "My parents love to Skype with my kid. My kid loves to mash laptop buttons and drool on the screen. And because we don't want to spend forty minutes every night holding the laptop outside of baby arms' length, we're looking to build some sort of wall-mounted monitor + webcam thingy. I'm sure there's a much cheaper option than sticking an iPad on the wall; what's more, non-touchscreen is probably better, so my daughter can't hang up the calls. Any ideas?"
What Year is it, Again? (Score:2, Funny)
Did you name your kid Winston, by any chance?
Bad idea, dude, bad idea.
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hehe I thought it was funny.
Re:What Year is it, Again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Point taken, but I think the submitter just wants to enable ~40 minutes of Skype no more than once a day, not turn the kid into a crib potato watching reality TV for hours on end.
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You know, not all grandparents are within driving distance of new parents. My parents live on the opposite coast of me, a couple thousand miles away. My friends have parents who are a few hundred miles away. It's not really an option all the time to have them come over and interact directly...
Re:What Year is it, Again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, when my parents were raising me, there was no internet
When my grandparents were raising them, there were no baby monitors
When my great-grandparents were raising them, there was no electricity
It's called progress. No, it's not necessary. Yes, it's nice to have. No, the fact that it's not necessary doesn't mean the OP shouldn't try to have it.
Re:What Year is it, Again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What Year is it, Again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What Year is it, Again? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What Year is it, Again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Exposure to TV/Computers is dangerous for kids because synapses develop incorrectly: Because of the incorrect audio/video synchronisation and the lack of feedback
But they'll have the feedback here, grandma and grandpa. This isn't a TV or computer, it's a picture phone. Completely different than what was studied.
Re:What Year is it, Again? (Score:5, Interesting)
I recommend you have your parents come over to play with your kid, and give it toys/animals/people to play and interact with. Unfortunately, people are lazy and prefer to have the TV/screen babysitter.
Or they have parents who live on the other side of the planet, and who can't afford to fly half way around the globe for routine visits.
That would be our situation -- my parents are a five hour flight away. My wife's parents can't get any sort of direct flight to where we live, as they're on the opposite side of the globe; with all of the connections required I've had the trip take over 24 hours. The absolute shortest we could possibly get it down to is roughly 18 hours. If you factor in that my wife's parents a) aren't wealthy, and b) aren't particularly in good health, the opportunities for them to visit in person are on the order of once every few years at best.
Skype running on an iPad (on our end) or old PC (on their end) however means they've been able to see their only grandchild on a weekly basis. My 19mo daughter has had the benefit of hearing their voices, hearing their native language, and seeing their faces. Thanks to technology, she knows who her family is, and both sides have some connection to the other through more than an abstract concept of extended family my daughter is too young to understand otherwise. Similar with my parents (except we use Facetime instead of Skype), who have the benefit of seeing us somewhat more frequently, but still only twice a year at best.
So congratulation to you for not venturing too far from your parents home. Maybe for you seeing your parents just means crawling out of the basement, but for some of us the only way the grandparents get to participate in their grandchildren's lives is through technology.
But hey -- if you think you're up to it, why not take the condescending tone to my parents-in-law, and you can tell them how they shouldn't have been allowed to talk to their only grandchild after she took her first steps completely unassisted the other week. I'll enjoy hearing how they tear you a new one over the suggestion.
Yaz
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> What is this recent trend in equating TV problems with computers.
It starts with the United States' puritanical point of view. If it's fun or enjoyable, it's inherently bad for you and probably evil to boot. Computers are fun, so they must be bad in some way.
The easiest way to "prove" this is to relate using a computer to something that's already been demonized and is widely considered to be "bad" ... watching TV. Nobody proudly announces how many hours of TV they watch a week but, every time a disc
Plexiglass ? (Score:4, Funny)
Can't you protect the laptop/baby with plexiglass?
Re:Plexiglass ? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Plexiglass ? (Score:5, Funny)
We were thinking of getting Baby 2.0 to see if the problem has been fixed, but the delivery time is outrageous!
Instead of having one employee work on it, just assign nine, and guaranteed it'll be done nine times faster; maybe even faster with synergy. Don't they teach anything at MBA school anymore?
Re:Plexiglass ? (Score:4, Funny)
Where did you get your MBA, Bob Jones University?
The obvious answer is to rightsource the job. You can get 18 contract wombs in India for the price of just one here. So, you can have Baby 2.0 delivered within three* weeks of specification.
*Yeah, within three. Fabrication requires two weeks, but unless you're paying for teleportation technology, the fastest you'll get the baby delivered is a few days after completion of manufacturing.
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As soon as I get home tonight, this is happening.
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As soon as I get home tonight, this is happening.
Baby 2.0? Assigning 8 more women to the task? Come on man, clarify
Doomed (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Doomed (Score:5, Interesting)
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No kidding.
I swear I have seen my 13-month-old get a "challenge accepted" look on her face when I try to put something she wants out of her reach. She's basically fearless (too young to have learned fear, I guess) and a scarily-good climber, so we have to watch her quite closely when this happens, because otherwise I know we'll find her on top of the entertainment center or the dining table or trying to push the sliding door open.
Ah, parenthood.
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Same here. If it has a surface one can climb onto, he'll get there. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but by next week you forget about it, but he doesn't. So you find him places and you go "how the heck did you...". 17 months old, no broken bones yet -- none that would be externally visible, at least.
TVs with skype (Score:3, Informative)
You can try LCD/LED TVs which have Skype app integrated into TVs
Ex Panasonic, Samsung
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Funny (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Funny (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Funny (Score:5, Funny)
Ask Slashdot
Hi, slashdot, I want to hook up a mouse to my computer. I already have a mouse, it's in a box on the sofa, and my computers across the room at the desk. I don't think the cord will reach that far, and I really don't want to use it from the couch anyway (my keyboard's at the desk, so I'd be walking back and forth a lot). Any ideas?
-- AC
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Ask Slashdot
Hi, slashdot, I want to hook up a mouse to my computer. I already have a mouse, it's in a box on the sofa, and my computers across the room at the desk. I don't think the cord will reach that far, and I really don't want to use it from the couch anyway (my keyboard's at the desk, so I'd be walking back and forth a lot). Any ideas?
-- AC
Sure, just mount a webcam-enabled tablet behind some plexi-glass, near the mouse. That way the computer and keyboard can see the mouse all the time without having to move themselves, or have you move the baby^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hmouse for a visit.
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Maybe there are more trolls in the firehose than Slashdotters and they're controlling the lulz supply at the source.
Low Tech Is The Way To Go (Score:3)
webcam or Samsung Galaxy tab (Score:2)
what......? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you want to torture your kids? (Score:5, Funny)
Why do you want to torture your kids with 40 minutes of grandparent gooing on the screen?
Re:Why do you want to torture your kids? (Score:5, Informative)
My son (a little over 2 years old) LOVES to Skype with his grandparents. In fact when I am on the laptop and he's in the room he's usually begging me to see "Nana and Pop-pop".
To answer the OP; we generally do it while he's eating in his high chair. I can keep the laptop on the table, out of his reach and since he's locked in place he can't reach the keys.
While ripping keys off the keyboard was a problem in the past, he's to the point at two+ that he can listen to instruction and know consequences (time out). He basically just talks to them, shows them his latest favorite toy, and/or tells them whatever it is that's going through his mind at the time.
They're happy. he's happy and my MacBook is safe. That said, if he's not in his chair I don't leave him alone with it and/or use it as a babysitter. In between his ramblings I chat with them until he comes back to say hi again.
I think that you need to find what works best for your family and your child. While I don't think putting it on the wall or leaving the kid unattended with Skype open is a good idea, perhaps it's best for you.
YMMV.
Popo and Nana (Score:3)
In fact when I am on the laptop and he's in the room he's usually begging me to see "Nana and Pop-pop".
Do you put on Ice Climber [ssbwiki.com] on an emulator?
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Why do you want to torture your kids with 40 minutes of grandparent gooing on the screen?
Because Grandpa is more entertaining than the teletubbies.
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For appropriate values of "Grandpa", Grandpa has always been more entertaining than the teletubbies. This speaks well of the entertainment value of certain Grandpas, and poorly (but accurately) of the entertainment value of preschoolers' edutainment television programming.
lame (Score:5, Insightful)
this must be the lamest ask /. I've ever seen.
If only you could buy a box, that when plugged into a computer and peripherals, was just like a laptop, except it didn't use batteries and wasn't portable and was cheap. Why, I bet you could place a technological marvel like that on a desk, instead of on a lap like a laptop. I'm sure marketing can come up with a good name like the ideskbook or the desk-ster or the e-mini-desk or the deskr or maybe the socialdesk or something like that. Hmm like a laptop but instead of sitting on a lap it sits on a desk... what could that be called... Naw I got nothin' Sorry. Good luck dude!
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How About the "Autocompumodualstation" ACMS for short.
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How bout AutoComputerMultimediaExtension? ACME? like the roadrunner cartoons?
No, the more I think about it, the "laptop that sits on a desk instead of a lap" should probably just be called "laptop 2.0" You know, for new trendy social media apps rather than the old laptop 1.0 paradigm. I'm thinking I could become a "laptop 2.0" social media consultant and help companies integrate this new hardware technology to replace their legacy tablet computing infrastructures. I know this was initially a solution fo
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I agree, it's totally lame. But to geek-ify it a little, try to do something like this: Portal-style videoconference [zdnet.com.au].
And then slave this [slashdot.org] to the webcam, under the control of the grandparents for "corrective" actions.
Well.... (Score:2)
PB&J sandwich in the VCR at the top of an 8' book case. I'm not saying how I did it.
Plexiglass case + tablet is your best bet.
E*TRADE (Score:5, Funny)
whatever you do, don't install E*TRADE on said laptop
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yeah that's what happened to JP Morgan. Oh no wait you're talking about that old commercial. Same difference.
Ipad (Score:2)
A "smart TV" may be the answer. (Score:2)
There are a number of TV's and Blue-Ray players that have Skype clients [skype.com].
The Tely-HD [skype.com] is a stand alone solution that does the same thing.
It's easy to find wall mount units for a TV, I suggest using Monoprice [monoprice.com].
Setting the grand parents up with one of these units so they can sit in their living room and use the TV, along with some sort of unit in the kids room is the way to go. The TV can always be easily repurposed later. If you already have a TV adding a Blue-Ray with the capability is a nice way to get Skyp
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Blu ray is a horrible way to show movies to kids. Do you realise that a 2 year old has the attention span of a gnat on speed? They want a movie NOW. Any time spent between asking for the movie and the damn thing playing is time spent hearing a kid lose their mind. Or dad losing his mind due to the kid freaking out because they want the movie. Media destruction take a distant second place to the reason that I rip content.
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During the last hurricane induced power outage (a few months before katrina) we had no power for 8 days. Had a 3 year old... imagine her whining "daddy, i want to watch finding nemo"... cute huh? Now imagine daddy sighing and saying "i want you to watch finding nemo too sweetie....". Depressing huh?
No generators to be had. A few weeks later, second long term power outage due to another 'cane. Daddy went and got a 400w inverter from a car audio place (still no generators to be found no matter the money)
Skype enabled TV (Score:4, Informative)
Get a TV Then go here.
http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/on-your-tv/ [skype.com]
Look it's 2012!
The answer is in your question. (Score:5, Insightful)
wall-mounted monitor + webcam
Mount a LCD monitor on the wall or put it out of arms reach of the kid on a dresser with a webcam and some cheap PC speakers. Put the computer farther away using a 10ft VGA/HDMI cable.
Why make it so complex, does your toddler really need to touch the screen?
Also, nothing like exposing your kids to the benefits of watching TV when they're still in the crib. Instead of TV being the "new babysitter", it'll be skype.
Errr... (Score:5, Insightful)
we're looking to build some sort of wall-mounted monitor + webcam thingy
So, um, grab a monitor and a webcam, and mount them to the wall...
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we're looking to build some sort of wall-mounted monitor + webcam thingy
So, um, grab a monitor and a webcam, and mount them to the wall...
Better still, a monitor with a webcam built in.
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we're looking to build some sort of wall-mounted monitor + webcam thingy
So, um, grab a monitor and a webcam, and mount them to the wall...
Better still, a monitor with a webcam built in.
Oh, and with speaker + microphone if possible. Sorry for responding to my own post.
Ceiling (Score:2)
Toddlers grow fast, better mount it on the ceiling.
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Why would you mount the toddler to the ceiling?
Disable the keyboard (Score:2)
get a program to disable the keyboard.
For example:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/11570/disable-the-keyboard-with-a-keyboard-shortcut-in-windows/
It won't solve problem of her hitting the power button - but depending on the model, you may be able to disable the functionality of the power button in a separate program.
So as long as she is just mashing keys, not popping keys off the keyboard, that should solve your problem.
If you really want a separate machine, so you can read a recipe for dinner on your laptop
First World Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
The Truman Show (Score:2)
even better (Score:2)
http://e-gadgetsinfo.blogspot.com/2012/04/future-is-almost-here-oled-wallpaper.html [blogspot.com]
Skype and Grandparents (Score:5, Insightful)
There are a lot of 1984/Truman Show/No Real Parent posts on this thread. Folks, understand that for some families, grandma and grandpa are a time zone away at best, and a grandkid is lucky to see her grandparents in person once a year, if that. Skype/videophone is a fantastic way to help bridge that gap. My parents can read our daughter stories. My wife's parents can sing songs with our daughter. They can see each other and interact in ways that you just can't do over the phone or with text.
Our kid is lucky--she gets to see each set of grandparents in person about twice a year. For the stretches between those times, though, she can still visit with them over Skype. It's far from perfect, but it's a huge leap ahead of a phone call, and helps all sides of the family feel closer.
You wouldn't mock people for calling their parents to let their kid talk to grandma and grandpa over the phone. Why the special hate for the extra level of closeness?
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What is wrong with a technical solution to a social problem? Skype works great for people who can't move _and_ view grandparents are important. Next you are going to tell me to stop spending nights in my backyard with a telescope because "if stars and planets are supposed to be such an important part of your life: move".
See how stupid it sounds?
Stop telling people how to live their lives based on your own priorities.
Re:Skype and Grandparents (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes I would, if they do it for 40 minutes each day. If the grandparents are supposed to be such an important part in their lives: move. If you say that it is not possible, it is because you have other priorities and being near the grandparents is a lower priority.
What you are looking at is a technical solution for a social problem.
One set of grandparents live in Washington State. Another set of grandparents live in Iowa. Even if we were able to pack up and move, we can't live in two states at once.
I agree with you very earnestly on one point: there are all sorts of things that responsible adults need to balance in their lives, and living close to family is one of those things. My wife and I have other priorities in life that we work to balance against, with one in particular being of note: my wife just spent seven years working her fingers off to earn a Ph.D. in biochemical, molecular and cellular biology. As wonderful as it would be to live close to either set of grandparents, neither set lives in an area with a strong presence in the biological sciences. Thus, to move closer to one set of grandparents, my wife would need to essentially abandon a decade's worth of highly specialized, extremely valuable learning. This would be an enormous waste of time, money, work, and talent, and it isn't something we're eager to do. Even if we did decide to abandon her career, though, we'd still be stuck half a continent from the other set of grandparents.
So yes, we Skype as a family with grandma and grandpa for long periods, several times a week. It's a suboptimal solution to a problem with no optimal solution; no matter what we do, we're not going to be able to avoid having to Skype with the grandparents. You are, of course, free to judge us for the decisions we've made, as is your right. For my part, I'll probably continue to call you out as a sanctimonious, simple-minded ass who would rather denigrate the lives and choices of others than grant other grown adults the benefit of the doubt and start from the premise that they're not whiny, spoiled idiots.
As is my right.
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You wouldn't mock people for calling their parents to let their kid talk to grandma and grandpa over the phone. Why the special hate for the extra level of closeness?
Actually, the more comments I read here, the more I think they might do just that.
Jesus.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Is this what passes for Ask Slashdot submissions these days?
Buy a cheapo TFT new or second hand and mount it on the wall if you want. Buy a $10 webcam, do likewise. If you can't manage that, what the hell are you even doing here?
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Is this what passes for Ask Slashdot submissions these days?
Buy a cheapo TFT new or second hand and mount it on the wall if you want. Buy a $10 webcam, do likewise. If you can't manage that, what the hell are you even doing here?
bragging that he has a wife and a baby?
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bragging that he has a wife and a baby?
Screen shot or it didn't happen.
Go baby monitor, internet enabled (Score:2)
You get what you pay for. Costs $88, connects via a wireless USB dongle to a PC. PC sends it to the internet if you want.
Google it or similar 'wireless baby monitor internet'.
CR? Rickroll? (Score:3)
no chatroulette jokes? no rickroll jokes? /. going downhill.
Buy a DropCam (Score:2)
Just buy a dropcam; WiFi, 2 way audio, powered via supplied microUSB cable and wall wart, and even lets you use it as a security camera and such the rest of the time. I don't work for them, etc but I own a couple and they work.
Impact damage (Score:2)
Smartphone as webcam (Score:2)
What we did (Score:2)
Bonus: The laptop
Ignore all the douche-slingers posting here... (Score:2)
Take the good suggestions and put them to use.
Skype is marvelous for my 3yr old to talk to not just her grandparents, but to mom and dad as well. She enjoys the face to face interaction more than the phone calls.
Skype is not a substitute for parenting and I don't believe you are hoping that it will be. Personally, ay always on camera in my house is a no-go.
cheap netbook + linux = Skype device (Score:2)
I expect they are even cheaper now (under $100?), but I found a cheap netbook a couple of years ago in the $150 range that I put Ubuntu and Skype on for traveling. It's pretty sturdy and has good battery life, and it has been since used by many people as a Skype appliance, including some who don't yet have much coordination. If I lost it traveling or it took a hard fall to the floor from kid use, it wouldn't break my heart and I didn't spend much time sorting it out.
permanent webcam in the kids room? (Score:2)
I wont even let my 9yr old daughter have webcam access unsupervised, and I'd never leave the webcam in the room unattended. With the vast proliferation of malware, trojans, and ever other botnet tool out there, you'd have to be pretty naive to think there aren't ones that activate webcams in the hope of spying on children/adults undressing. I would do what other members have suggested and run your cam in the living/family room off your Xbox/PS3 so that at least there's less chance you one day discover you
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Re:I'd start with a TV (Score:5, Funny)
Why didn't my ask slashdot submission get accepted? I'm looking for a good way to copy my files from the computer in my living room to the computer in my bedroom without using wireless internet. Any ideas?
Noobs. Us old timers know everything. Use the unix "split" command to make a bunch of little 2 kilobyte files, turn each into 40-L QR code each of which holds about 2900 bytes, print those bastards, hand carry or armed courier or military gunship escorted transport chopper, whatever is needed in your situation to approach the bedroom, then feed the QR codes thru ye olde sheet feeder scanner and use unix "cat" command to merge the binaries together. If you're really leet you'd use PAR files but I can be arsed to figure out the options to split down to 2 K. Bonus, it uses linux. This is also a pretty good backup scheme. The bad news is I assume you're transferring blueray dvd pr0n rips downloaded from u****t so thats gonna be about seven million pages at one QR per page. Well, if you wanna be 'leet you gotta pay the price.
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You bast-ed.
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There's a fireproof safe bolted to the floor with my GPG keyring on it using something extremely close to this method.
My lazy ass solution was uuencode and uudecode because thats very easy to split at line breaks and I used somewhat smaller QR blocks since each line is short. Its no great achievement to put a GPG key on a couple sheets of paper... after all I can put darn near 4800 bytes of english text characters on each sheet so... if I was less lazy about packing the QR codes in...
A previous version in
Re:Parenting? (Score:5, Insightful)
You must not be a parent. The parents *are* there. The OP mentions holding the laptop. You try holding a laptop in front of a child and see what happens. I bet they spend more time hitting buttons than interacting with the people on the screen. Because this is what my kid does too. This is the problem the OP is trying to solve. A parent saying "don't touch that" and restraining hands isn't much fun for the kid. A setup that has the hardware transparent to the kid will be fun.
I'd go with a TV displaying from the laptop and webcam mounted on top of the TV. I have been meaning to set this up for my kid, but have stalled (it's the in-laws that skype, not my family :P) Maybe get an older HD CRT that is safer for the kid to touch. (Our kid manhandles our CRT TV all the time, and it's fine.) I don't know if you'll want a 20' display cable (HDMI or VGA), or something wireless. I'd try VGA because I have that option and it's cheaper. The cable itself won't be too interesting across the floor, so I imagine you don't need to route it all fancy. At least, that is what I have been planning to do.
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Then maybe, I dunno, explain to your parents that there's no a lot of value in sitting there while your child bashes at the laptop for 40 minutes a night. I mean, Jesus, seriously? NOTHING a two year old does is that interesting.
Re:Parenting? (Score:4, Insightful)
Put the laptop on a table, out of arms reach and hold the child on your lap. There. Problem solved. No need for restraining of hands, you just hold the child on your lap as you would any other time.
But from the summary, thats not what the parent wants - he wants to stop several very easily prevented actions, such as touching, ending the call accidentally, drooling on the devices etc. All of those things would not happen if they were there supervising the child during the conversation.
Again, spoken like a non-parent. I have yet to see a child that wants to be held on a lap. Children naturally move about and interact. Supervising (parenting) involves watching the child, not preventing them from interacting. You actually *want* your child to move and interact, just like a real person. But, you want to steer them away from interacting with the parts that'll spoil the interaction.
In practice it's a challenge to prevent actions without treating the child like an object. You can either try telling them 40 times "don't touch that, look at grandma", or you can move "that' out of the way so the only interesting interaction for the child is the appropriate one. I still agree the OP has a good question, though the solutions are probably simple trial-and-error hardware approaches.
Re:Parenting? (Score:5, Insightful)
Put the laptop on a table, out of arms reach and hold the child on your lap. There. Problem solved. No need for restraining of hands, you just hold the child on your lap
Something tells me you've never actually tried this with a live toddler. That, or you were using a different model of toddler to the ones I've encountered...
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Really, its not that hard to hold a toddler a fraction of your weight and ability in your lap - especially if the intention is to keep him occupied by something on the tv or on a screen. Just keep the items in question out of their reach - a laptop two metres away is not going to get touched, drooled on or pushed off the work surface. Its called supervision - something modern parents seem to be lacking in the ability to carry out it would seem.
Oh, and thankyou for engaging in this discussion without resor
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Re:Parenting? (Score:4, Funny)
Put the laptop on a table, out of arms reach and hold the child on your lap. There. Problem solved. No need for restraining of hands, you just hold the child on your lap as you would any other time.
But from the summary, thats not what the parent wants - he wants to stop several very easily prevented actions, such as touching, ending the call accidentally, drooling on the devices etc. All of those things would not happen if they were there supervising the child during the conversation.
iF i hads athgsd toddler on 2 yasdr lap aright noas the s is aatht you'sda he reading.
No, seriously. And it's not like my kid is especially wiggly, either.
Re:Parenting? (Score:4, Interesting)
OP does not include information about whether this is also assisting parents who find it difficult to travel (to visit in person which would be preferred) and/or expect limited time to interact with the child.
If/when you have a child, you can do it your way. When my son was born, my wife's parents lived in the next town (still do); my father was already dead and my mother lived far away (and has since died). Maybe with modern tech the relationship could have been closer. I certainly wouldn't begrudge OP the attempt.
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He might not be anti-apple just pro-cheap. In that case I suggest an hptouchpad from ebay, a cheap android tablet with a front facing camer, an ipad2 or a used laptop.
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A tablet is easier to make baby drool proof. a tablet can be slit behind a piece of plexiglass and the kid can drool all they want or even rub snot on it. 20 minutes with plexi, pieces of wood and some glue and you can easily make a holder for in the crib.
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...and a laptop can't because...?
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Re:crib mount ipad. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are anti apple, ...
Then he needs to get a grip. The same to the anti Microsoft people and everyone else who's "anti" whatever. It's just so ... adolescent.
Yeah, people with any sort of idealism should just give it up and go with the flow. Idealism is for adolescents. You have a philosophical problem with Apple? Just get a grip, Apple is not going to go away. You're against religion in schools? Just get a grip, religion in schools is here and is not going away. You think there's not enough religion in schools? Just get a grip, there's never going to be religion in schools and that's not going to change. If you're not satisfied with the status-quo, well, just get a grip because it's never going to change.
Imagine how much better things would be if no one had adolescent idealism and just accepted things as they are even if it goes against their personal beliefs, especially if their idealism is different than my own.
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Three-year-olds shouldn't be using Skype at all, and most certainly not unattended. If you're tired of holding the laptop for her, then don't use Skype. It is okay to say "no." Help her get an actual social life. She'll benefit far more than by talking to the moving pictures on the laptop. In fact, I'd guess she may not even know the difference between the stimulus provided by the laptop and the television.
I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but you're really talking out of your ass, here.
Did you even read this submission? Also, I'd think anyone using Slashdot would know what Skype was, but it doesn't seem like you do. It's sort of a videophone thing. Like a phone, but with video. People use it to talk to each other, except they can also make faces and show off new toys and clothes.
And finally, do you actually have any first-hand experience raising children? Particularly with grandparents living out of town?
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I found something useful: the IP Webcam android app (Free from google play.) If skype from your phone wasnt already an option (such as, if you dont have a FFC) you can set Skype up to read the feed from the webcam. Then, plug your laptop into your wall mounted TV and mount/hang the phone near the TV somehow. Presto, a wall mounted video chat setup that doesnt have a touchscreen (per the spec in the submission) and if you have an old android phone lying around (what self respecting geek doesnt) you probab
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http://tk.ms11.net/ [ms11.net]
ToddlerKeys. Great free app. Locks the keyboard, power buttons, drive eject buttons, whatever you want.