If you've got kids, then you know exactly how scary a place the Internet can be. Managing where they go and whom they meet online is an unending struggle. Keeping your progeny from wasting their brains on addictive games and/or silly videos is a full-time occupation. It can be a privacy, security, and parenting nightmare.
I should know; I have two digitally savvy teenagers and the gray hair to prove it. So when I heard about ZeroDesktop's MiiPC—a low-cost Android computer whose motto is "Power to the Parents"—I was keenly interested.
For $129 to $149 you get a CPU smaller than a Chinese takeout box running Android 4.2.2 in 2GB or 4GB of RAM. You'll have to add your own keyboard, mouse, and display. The key selling point, though, is that the MiiPC allows you to remotely monitor what your kids do on the big bad InterWebs, as well as the amount of time they spend doing it.
It's a nice concept, and so universally appealing that ZeroDesktop CEO Young Song managed to raise $175,000 on Kickstarter—or more than three times the initial goal—to fund it. The first MiiPCs to roll off the assembly line began shipping to Kickstarter supporters earlier this fall.
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