Mattel's IM-Me offers up lame-o messaging, guards against predators

Brand new toys sure have been popping up everywhere of late, and now Mattel's hitting us up with another gizmo being showcased at the International Toy Fair. Presumably designed to latch onto the hard-earned dollars of paranoid mums who watch entirely too many of those "internet predator" spots, the Girl Tech IM-Me is a very restrictive wireless instant messaging system that relies on parental okays in order to operate. Aside from only allowing texts to be sent and received from parent-approved usernames, the gal can only use her purple and pink IM machine within range (read: in the house) of the USB dongle, which must be plugged into an internet connected PC. So while we still prefer PictoChat, we imagine this $64.99 device will sell like hotcakes when it lands this summer -- only to never be used by any halfway sane (and understandably rebellious) teenage daughter.

[Via Gadgets-Weblog]

[andrew @ Feb 16th 2007 5:56PM]

Pretty sure that Motorola made this exact thing a few years ago. I'm betting it works on the 900mHz frequency like that one did too.

[Phoenixfury @ Feb 16th 2007 8:17PM]

Yeah, this looks to me to be a copy cat of Motorola's failed IMFree. I bought one of them because I wanted to be able to IM anywhere in the house. The keyboard was awful and the only instant messenger it worked with was AOL. It really was a great idea done really wrong from the get go. Ultimately I just wound up getting a laptop pc.

[Kelly @ Feb 16th 2007 9:12PM]

Stupid as it may be, when I was a 10 year old girl I would have BEGGED my parents for one of these. I only had a handful of folks I sent IMs to, and the allure of IMing without being stuck at the computer away from anything fun (like the TV) would have been great.

Of course, at the time AOL was $20 for 5 hours per month.

[Chuckles McGee @ Feb 17th 2007 12:21PM]

Oh wow, I've always wanted to be able to send IMs to people away from my PC. Oh wait...there are these things that everyone has called CELLPHONES, many with QWERTY keypad at least a decent at that one's and better resolution screens and work essentially everywhere. Yeah yeah, only $70, I know, but who doesn't have a cell phone these days? Parents should just drop 70 more for their kid's cell phone and get one with a QWERTY keypad instead of that.

[gemini18 @ Nov 23rd 2007 11:14AM]

So, does that mean that you cant use it at all if the USB device isn't connected to the computer?

[gemini18 @ Nov 23rd 2007 12:25PM]

Correction:

So. does that mean that it cant be used if it the USB device isnt plugged into the computer??
OR does it mean that if it isnt plugged into the computer the child can still use it and the parent cant control what/who the child talks to?

What if the girl isnt in range of the device, can she still use it?