Teen Gadget Offers Chat, Runs Games, Even Plays Matchmaker
If it catches on with the high school crowd, it could be the terror of teachers everywhere: a colorful hand-held gadget that enables teens to send messages to their friends in class without the hassle of passing notes.
The Cybiko, which looks like a walkie-talkie with a black-and-white LCD screen and small keyboard, aims to fill the age gap between Palm hand-helds for mobile professionals and the Nintendo Game Boy for kids.
To capture the teenage market, New York-based start-up Cybiko Inc. has seized on the group’s social needs. The wireless gadget offers basic organizer functions, but also communicates with others of its kind up to 300 feet away.
“We want to create a social environment where teens can chat and interact,” said Cybiko President Donald Wisniewski. “We see a huge opportunity with 12-to-16-year-olds.”
Users can trade messages and play games with one another. One game imitates the online shoot-em-up PC games popular among teenage boys.
The Cybiko connects to PCs as well, and the company provides free software on its Web site that can be downloaded to the device through a cable.
If one Cybiko is hooked up to an Internet-connected PC, other Cybikos within range can send and receive e-mails from the Net.
The device has an expansion slot, which Cybiko says will be able to take an optional digital music player that uses the popular MP3 format. As if the Napster file-sharing program were not enough to scare the music industry, one MP3-equipped Cybiko can send music to others.
The Cybiko alerts users to received messages by vibrating. In a slightly presumptuous way, it also alerts users if another Cybiko carrier matching their romantic preferences comes within range.
After I had described myself to the Cybiko, it assumed I was looking for a slightly younger woman 5-foot-3 to 5-foot-11 in height and--unbelievably--weighing only 60 to 80 pounds.
Of course, the preferences could be changed, but I’m still waiting for that “love-tingle” vibration alert.
