How many family members in your household access your Netflix account? Netflix has made some progress on making their service more family friendly, and for my daughters’ sakes they’ve got a little further to go….

We enjoyed a long New Year’s weekend away from home, spending most of our time at the indoor pool at our hotel, playing cards in our room, or mindlessly watching network TV.  Looking for a little programming variety, I fired up the Netflix app on my iPhone and scanned the usual screen landscape:

Recently Watched: Curious George, Avatar The Last Airbender, Wizards of Waverly Place, Gossip Girls, Vampire Diaries, Hannah Montana, Veggie Tales  ….

Woah, what a minute. Hmm. A few of these set off the warning flares. I have two girls ages 12 & 11, six boys 10 and under, and then a wife that ain’t spending a lot of her free time watching Netflix.  I’m no expert, but from everything I can tell Gossip Girls and Vampire Diaries probably aren’t in the age-appropriate wheelhouse for pre-teen girls which means my daughters were sneaking some inappropriate viewing time on their iTouch , which means—queue the knee-jerk reaction–I blew my stack!

Five minutes and a mini-Spanish Inquisition later, my girls continued to voraciously deny the offense. Shucks, they did look pretty darn earnest. Maybe I accidentally hit the viewing on these shows recently when I was browsing around? But for both shows? Naw.

Finally it clicked: Our 18 year-old babysitter was checking-in on our dog a few times a day back home. Clearly she was making herself comfy and enjoying some couch-time with the dog and the ladies from Gossip Girls. We’re not the type of family to tuck a secret babysitter webcam into the bookcase, so it felt a little creepy to have an audit trail of her viewing habits.

Some key takeaways:

• The Jerk: Yep, I’m a big ol’ jerk. My daughters got a big bear hug and even bigger apology from daddy ASAP. Mea culpa!
• Parent Control: Boy, I wish Netflix had some privacy controls so I don’t have to use a combo platter of responsibility dialog, scare tactics, and the “Recently Watched” queue as a deterrent to keep my kids from accessing mature and R rated content!
• The Recommendations: Shoot, I just realized that my babysitter’s viewing is probably going to skew the recommendations that Netflix starts spitting out at me. Uh oh.
• The Audit Trail: There’s some mature stuff – like Spartacus or The Tudors — that I click on that I just plain don’t want to show up in my Recently Viewed list. Period. Netflix, can you give me a widget that will allow me to suppress this?

Any of this ever happen to you? How many family members access your account? Please share!

Tom Edwards is VP, Digital Strategy at Red Urban. He lives in Dallas, TX with his wife and 3 kids. He blogs at:http://theblackfin.com

Everywhere you look you are beginning to see the signs of Augmented Reality becoming a part of our everyday lives. Initially the thought was more science fiction than reality. Remember Tom Cruise manipulating interface controls in mid-air in MinorityReport? We are getting closer to this type of interaction becoming a reality.

Augmented Reality involves the interaction of live & digtial data. It can be initiated by introducing a coded AR Marker to a webcam to cause an action or you can use the camera and GPS technology of your mobile phone and link to geocoding or image recognition to create digital overlays of your surrounding environment.

With research such as the sixth sense project making the minority report style interaction a reality augmented reality has definitely become more mainstream over the past year. As recently as last December’s Esquire magazine placed an augmented reality marker on the cover of their issue where users could activate the extended experience via their webcam.

Now brands like Burger King and greeting card provider Hallmark are joining the augmented reality revolution combined with an increase in adoption of smart phones over the next 2-5 years the sophistication and availability of augmented reality solutions will continue to rise.

What does the future hold for our kids and how we can enhance our time with them using the latest augmented reality offerings? Traditional father/son bonding company Topps brought augmented reality baseball cards to our attention last March. This is a great way to extend the traditional experience of sharing baseball cards and incorporating technology at the same time.

A new service has just been released and is accepting new users called ZooBurst.  ZooBurst is a web-based digital storytelling tool that is designed to let anyone easily create their own customized 3D pop-up books.

You and your child can create a 3D book with your own artwork within the book, embed the content on any website that accepts HTML embed code and with their augmented reality mode you can experience a book in the palm of your hand with the help of a webcam.

On the gaming front Microsoft’s Project Natal and Sony’s PlayStation Move will bring augmented reality into the living room this fall. This is a great opportunity to realize the potential of Augmented Reality by incorporating the web with your live person that is fully connected to various social channels and can digitally drive interaction with friends.

With Augmented Reality becoming more mainstream there will be more opportunities to enhance our time with our kids whether it is playing AR based games in our living room thanks to Natal or sharing AR powered Topps baseball cards. The important fact is that we are engaging with our kids and combining our love of technology with entertaining our kiddos.

Tom Edwards is VP, Digital Strategy at Red Urban. He lives in Dallas, TX with his wife and 3 kids. He blogs at: http://theblackfin.com

iPad launch day… 5 ways you and your kids can benefit from the iPad

Netflix for iPad

As a tech savvy dad of three I am always looking for ways to improve my kiddos entertainment experiences on the go. With the release of the iPad today I am already looking at how the device can enhance my time with the kiddos. Here are five ways to immediately start enhancing your time together via the iPad.

1. Netflix & Movies: The Netflix instant streaming is amazingly smooth. You can be watching Veggietales in a matter of seconds. Speaking of movies… titles such as Toy Story, Toy Story 2 (HD) Alvin & The Chipmunks theSqueakquel and the Princess and the frog are available from iTunes and look great. With the larger screen and crystal clear display it makes watching videos and entertaining the kiddos an easier proposition than just your iPod or iPhone. With the optional iPad case you can place the iPad in an ideal viewing position.
2. Games: With over 400 games at launch (I stopped counting after Page 34). I immediately began downloading games that the kids and I would find interesting. There is a wide range of ages represented as well as games for both boys and girls. I have a 7 year old boy, 5 year old girl and 2 year old little guy.
   1. Scrabble ($9.99)– classic boardgame revisited for the iPad
   2. Draw (free)– simple drawing application that is fun for most ages
   3. UNO ($6.99) – Uno is always a good time with the kiddos… UNO!!!
   4. Worms ($4.99) – Nothing like taking control of worms with weapons
   5. Disney Fairies Fly on iPad ($7.99) – For the little princesses in your life this app will get them closer to Tinkerbell
   6. Phineas & Ferb Arcade on iPad ($2.99) – Fun arcade games from the two imaginative fellows.
   7. JellyCar 2 on iPad ($2.99) – Roll jelly car roll.
   8. Dora the Explorer Coloring Adventures ($4.99) – Fun coloring app of everyones favorite explorer.
   9. My First Words in American English ($2.99) – Help the little ones learn the basics
   10. VH1 Classic Presents: Intellivision for iPad ($2.99) – Old school gaming brought to the iPad.
3. iBooks & Read Along: Toy Story and Toy Story 2 read along apps are available on launch day.
4. Marvel Comics: A great way to view comics is through the Marvel Comics app. The benefits of the iPad are really apparent when viewing magazine style assets.
5. ESPN Score Center XL: This one is for the dads but I am already enjoying the benefits of this app in preparation for Final Four Saturday.

These are apps that are available on launch day that I found interesting. As with the iPhone expect a flood of new and innovative apps that will test the limits of the iPad and bring hours of enjoyment for you and your kids.