Welcome back for more family tech news! This week, parents of teens will want to pay attention to the Instagram news specifically. It’s nice to see Instagram finally taking their younger user’s safety into consideration.
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FightCamp Adds Kickboxing Workouts
First up, FightCamp, our favorite in-home workout system, has added kickboxing workouts to their content library from legit kickboxing legends. The free-standing punching bag already comes with smart sensors that can help you train better, but the new additional workouts can really help you up your game.
Instagram Adds Better Privacy for Kids
Making new strides in privacy, Instagram is adding features to help protect kids on their platform. The company stated that starting immediately you will need to add a date of birth when signing up for an account.
This is supposed to help children younger than 13 understand that they do not belong on the platform. Of course, we know kids will still fudge their age, but this could just be the groundwork for making more teen-friendly features available to those under 18.
The company also stated that soon you will be able to block people who you are not connected with from sending you direct messages. This one is HUGE since one of the major problems I have with Instagram is that anyone can try to reach out to my daughter. She knows she’s not even allowed to look at her DM’s at the moment, but that’s not sustainable for much longer. I can’t wait to get this turned on for her account!
Vudu to Release Original Movie
Vudu will release their first original movie on December 19th titled Adventure Force 5. Although it sounds like the 5th movie in a series… can’t wait to see what happens when they DO reach sequel levels…Adventure Force 5 2! Adventure Force 5 5!… The movie looks pretty cheesy, and definitely won’t be a favorite of mine, but the kids will likely love it.
PlayStation Earns World Record
On the console’s 25th anniversary Sony was awarded the best selling console by the Guinness Book of World Records. Being a PlayStation family, we are thrilled with this news! The company is celebrating the 25th anniversary all month long but claims it won’t have any news to release about the PS5. We’ll have to wait until 2020 to find out more. Bummer!
Google Adds New Features to Santa’s Village
The elves at Google have been hard at work updating Santa’s Village with some fun new features. There are fun coding games, a new gym for the reindeer, and additional features for Google Assistant. Santa Tracker has sure evolved from its early days of just letting you know where Santa was on Christmas eve! Definitely go check out some of the fun new games and activities they have for you to try!
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