The HOT Netbook, aka my son's new toy...

Right after I finished reading the article in Wired, "The Netbook Effect: How Cheap Little Laptops Hit the Big Time" in the latest issue, my nephew called me and said, "I have bought two netbooks for my cousins!" Apparently, these are the hottest "accessories" in Asia, since almost everybody has an iPhone now.  (Not in Japan though, despite the "controversy", I have been told by a few folks in Taipei that Japanese for some reason are not going gaga over iPhone, unlike people here in Taiwan...) 

 

Granted that the netbooks my kids got, at 4GB, would be considered a joke, my kids absolutely LOVE their new "toys."  Asus Eee PC costs just a bit more than Nintendo DS here. No processing power to speak of, nevertheless, perfectly fine for surfing the web.

 

Although I thought about whether it is a good parenting choice to let my kids consider YouTube as just another standard entertainment channel, I feel optimistic about Pros weighing more than Cons: my 6-year-old boy googled the weather in Beijing on his own when I wondered out loud, "Hmm, I hope we don't need jackets when we go to Beijing,"

 

Here is another prediction about this phenom: Soon Oxford Dictionary will add "netbook" as one of the new English words. 

Posted via email from The Absence of Alternatives