Firefly for British Kids

A new mobile designed for kids, the Firefly phone, is set to launch in Britain later this year, but the four year-old target audience already has adults in uproar.

The Firefly phone, a tiny handset for toddlers which packs just five buttons including “Mum” and “Dad” keys, and extensive parental controls, has been a hit in Ireland, and it set to go on sale in the UK later this year.

But the phone has caused concern amongst parental groups, with Aine Lynch, chief executive of the National Parents Council going so far as to question “where parental responsibility is going”.
“Why would kids need to be contacted by mobile phone? Why are they not in the care of their parents, teachers or supervisors?”, she said.

Indeed. Still it could be amusing to see nursery lessons interrupted by the Nokia ringtone, and we’ve seen tweens rocking iPhones before so perhaps a controlled environment is better than nothing at all. And certainly more appropriate than the Penis phone. We’ll let you know if the Firefly phone leads to the downfall of civilization or not.


Surprisingly this phone was announced couple of years back, I cant see why its taking so long.

The French have already said no to such phones but we Britishers are much more tolerant (in all aspects ;) so you may find children using them soon.

Tim Dowling from the Guardian argues against it:

There can be no earthly reason why a child of four would need a mobile phone, but there must be dozens of reasons why it shouldn't have a Firefly. Here are just a few:

• It is not possible to conduct a fruitful phone conversation with a four year old, as you will know if you have ever tried.
• Four-year-olds rarely, if ever, have information to impart of such significance that it cannot wait until they are five.
• A Firefly costs £60. Without a sim card.
• Your child should always be in the company of a responsible adult who has a phone you didn't have to pay for.
• A four-year-old with its own phone will spend all day attempting to contact Pocoyo.
• Four-year-olds never hang up.
• 52% of children between the ages of five and nine already own a mobile. Chances are you will have to buy the child a phone next year anyway, and they won't want a pink toy that doesn't do YouTube.
• If you don't know where your four-year-old is, there's no point in ringing him. He doesn't know where he is either.
• For much less money you can get tiny T-shirts with your phone number and the word REWARD printed on them.
• Four-year-olds are enough trouble as it is. The last thing we want to do is give them is the means to organise.

Mobiles for French children: Non, Merci

New laws cracking down on children's use of mobile phones are to be introduced in France amid growing fears that they may cause cancer and other diseases.

All advertising of the devices to children under 12 is to be prohibited under the legislation – announced by the Environment Minister, Jean-Louis Borloo, last week – and he will also take powers to ban the sale of any phone designed to be used by those under six.

The French government will also introduce new limits for radiation from the phones and make it compulsory for handsets to be sold with earphones, so that users can avoid irradiating their heads and brains. And one of the country's largest cities last month started an advertising campaign to discourage the use of the phones by children.

The clampdown represents the most comprehensive action yet taken by any government worldwide. It contrasts sharply with the stance of British ministers, who have largely ignored the recommendations of an official report nine years ago that people aged under 16 should be discouraged from using mobiles, and that the industry should be stopped from promoting them to children. Since then their use by the young has almost doubled, so that nine out of 10 of the country's 16-year-olds own a handset.

Swedish research indicates that children and teenagers are five times more likely to get brain cancer if they use the phones, causing some experts to predict an "epidemic" of the disease among today's young people in later life. But consideration of the threat to them has been specifically excluded from Britain's official £3.1m investigation into the risk of cancer from mobiles.

The French ministry warned that "mobile phone use is increasing at a rapid pace among youths", and warns that the young may be "more sensitive because their bodies are still developing". Children's heads are smaller and their skulls thinner.

Lyon, France's second city, launched an advertising campaign before Christmas aimed at dissuading people from buying mobiles for children as presents, with the slogan "Let's keep them healthy, away from mobile phones!"

A year ago France's official Agency for Environmental and Occupational Health Safety said that parents should not give small children mobiles. And France's Health Ministry urged using them in moderation.

The French legislation is the latest evidence of growing official alarm at the hazards of the radiation caused by mobile phone use. In September, the European Parliament voted 522 to 16 to urge ministers across Europe to bring in stricter radiation limits, and the European Environment Agency has also issued a warning.

Toronto's Department of Public Health has advised that children under eight should only use mobiles in emergencies and teenagers should limit calls to less than 10 minutes. The Russian Ministry of Health says that young people under 18 should not use the devices, and Israel's Health Ministry has also advised caution.

NTT DoCoMo's F801i Kids Phone

TOKYO, JAPAN, December 10, 2007 --- NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries announced today that the FOMA™ F801i, a new child-friendly 3G mobile phone loaded with special features for the safety and convenience of children, will go on sale December 20.

Building on the popular FOMA SA800i model that DoCoMo released in March 2006, the F801i offers many new or improved child-friendly features for security, theft/loss prevention, ease of use and more.

In an emergency, the child can quickly switch on the phone's 100-decibel alarm, which produces two types of noise alternately. When the alarm is activated, the phone also emits a bright light (high-intensity LED) that is easily visible to people in the surrounding area.

The phone can be set to automatically notify loved ones when the alarm is activated, and provide the handset's current location as well. Computer-generated phone calls can be placed to up to three registered numbers and messages can be sent to registered individuals who subscribe to the i-mode™ location service called imadoco search™.

In addition, the child can discreetly message their location to a registered imadoco search user by simply pushing a button on the side of the phone.

If the phone's power is switched off, a presetting can enable the handset to automatically turn back on (in as little as five minutes) and message the incident and the phone's location to a registered DoCoMo phone.

An amulet-style remote controller worn by the child can be used to make a misplaced phone beep if within a range of about 10 meters (may vary with usage environment). If the user moves even farther from the handset, the phone can automatically lock (requires presetting). If the handset remains out of the amulet's range for more than five minutes, a message can be sent automatically to a registered DoCoMo phone.

The F801i is ergonomically designed for easy use by small hands, and its waterproof body can withstand accidental immersion (up to 30 minutes at one-meter depth) or concentrated water sprays.

The phone's soft-rectangle shape and round speaker grille enclosed by a ring-shape LED were conceived by renowned designer Kashiwa Sato to symbolize safety, peace of mind, creativity and the future.

DoCoMo, as part of its corporate social responsibility program, provides education on the proper use of mobile phones by children. The Mobile Phone Safety Program involves workshops for students from elementary through high school, as well as for parents. DoCoMo has conducted more than 3,600 workshops for some 540,000 people throughout Japan since 2004. This program, along with services for site-access restriction, location information, etc., form a broad framework within which DoCoMo works to provide parents and their children with a safe and secure environment for using mobile phones.

More Photos of the phone can be found at Akhiabara News website.