DS and Pedophiles

I just watched this story on Milwaukee's Fox News about the possibility of bad people chatting up your kids with Pictochat*. While the story focused on how weird-os and long-haired hippies might be chatting with your child, I think the real important part of the story is that the wireless reach on these things is phenomenally better than advertised! They have a range of over 300 feet the story says. I think that's wonderful and something for Nintendo to be proud of. This little handheld device has enough power to transmit a good strong signal and still has pretty good battery life.

In all honesty, this story did prompt me to make a mental note to tell Brendan not to give out information to strangers, but that's good advice anywhere: pictochat, online, phone, etc. I think that the Fox news story needlessly targeted the DS for the shock value. The story would have been better if it was about teaching your kids not to give out personal information. I cold easily see a dumb kid answering the phone while you were in the shower and answering questions you might not want them to.

By the way, I live at 777 Pine Gulch and my ATM Pin is 12345, thanks for asking. Oops, maybe I shouldn't have said that...

*PictoChat is the app that comes built into all Nintendo DS units that lets you chat wirelessly with other DS users within a certain distance. It works on Wi-Fi just like laptops, etc.