from the get-in-touch-with-your-feminine-side dept.
Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
In 1998, Slovenian toy company Mehano designed a line of children's electronic typewriter toys with the ability to write secret messages.
Eventually, the company licensed the typewriter to another company, (none other than Barbie herself), that had something altogether different in mind for the toys. Slathered in pink, it was soon headed to market to appeal "to girls."
[...] The four encryption modes — each featuring a simple alphabet substitution cipher (or 1-to-1 encoding) — were left out of Mattel's instruction manuals and advertisements. Mattel is Barbie's parent company. Even the latest model, produced in 2015, omitted this novel feature.
[...] It's an all-too-common marketing assumption that continues to plague the "pink aisle" of girls' toys. They often fail to encourage little girls to grow up to be engineers and scientists. A December report by the Institution of Engineering and Technology showed that boys were almost three times more likely to receive a STEM-themed toy for Christmas.
"STEM toys are by default for boys," says Meryl Alper, professor of communication studies at Northeastern University. "We have to add 'for girls.'" With over a decade of experience working in children's media at Northeastern, Sesame Workshop and Nick Jr., Alper emphasizes the importance of representation and diversity in characters and storylines. Playtime matters.
"Children use the objects in their world to think through ideas," she says. "If you have objects that signal to a kid that it's not for them, either explicit or implicit, you reduce that opportunity to learn through manipulation."
Related Stories
Mattel will not sell an all-in-one voice-controlled smart hub / baby monitor, setting back the state of parenting by decades or even millennia:
Toymaker Mattel has shelved plans to build an "all-in-one voice-controlled smart baby monitor," after complaints about the device were raised by privacy advocates and child psychologists. According to a report from The Washington Post, the company said in a statement that the device, named Aristotle, did not "fully align with Mattel's new technology strategy" and would not be "[brought] to the marketplace."
Aristotle was unveiled back in January this year by Mattel's Nabi brand. It combined the smart speaker and digital assistant functionality of Amazon's Echo with a connected camera that acted as a baby monitor. But the Aristotle was intended to be a much more active presence in children's lives than an Echo speaker, with Mattel claiming it would read them bedtime stories, soothe them if they cried in the night, and even teach them their ABCs.
Mattel also appointed a new chief financial officer.
Also at Ars Technica and MSPoweruser.
Related: Amazon Declares War on YouTube by Launching Amazon Video Direct
Barbie Typewriter Toys Had a Secret Ability to Encrypt Messages — but They Didn't Think Girls Would
Amazon Dominates Voice-Controlled Speaker Market
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday January 22 2017, @01:37AM
Perhaps Mattel (or whatever the Barbie manufacturer is) don't want kids encrypting their notes for safety (writing love-letters to the local park pervert, for example) and disciplinary reasons? Especially since parents may not be able to figure out what the messages say or how they were encrypted?
Just because you know what a substitution cipher is doesn't mean that other parents do.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Sunday January 22 2017, @01:43AM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 22 2017, @01:56AM
So, the children in your life don't have secrets from their parents? Parents are all-knowing, almost omniscient presences in their children's lives?
So, let's say that a very dull parent discoveres an encrypted message in their daughter's stuff. That dull parent is sure that the message has meaning, but can't figure it out. What does the dullard do? He shows it to HIS parent, sibling, cousin, or someone who isn't quite so dull. And, almost certainly someone figures out the simple encryption, tells the parent what it says, and the parent does whatever a dull parent does. Take the typewriter away? Forbid the daughter to use encryption? Execute the person with whom she is corresponding? Execute the daughter?
I presumed from day one that my children would have secrets that I was not privy to. It seldom bothered me that they talked in some kind of kid-riddles. It didn't bother me that they would be gone from the house for minutes or hours, then decline to explain how they used all of that time.
How many other parents allow their children to have secrets? And, how many demand to know every thought that passes through the child's head?
My hove mode was broken long before I ever understood what helicopter parents are. I can't help wondering who raises the better adjusted child - helicopters, or people like me.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday January 22 2017, @02:06AM
Of course they're gonna keep secrets. I did. But they should have to work for it.
But then again I was one of those kids who had to put real effort into acquiring porn. Like running guerella missions into the parents' closet and get a boost [bcu.org] to reach the top shelf where the porno mags were stored. Porno mags were more valuable than gold then, we had a thriving black-market trade and all that.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 22 2017, @03:39AM
Mmmmm - since I had an abusive father, maybe my childhood was skewed somehow. From about age 8 or 9, I learned to keep a lot of secrets. By age 12, my parents had little idea what I was up to. I had the proverbial answers ready at all times. "Where have you been?" "Out." "Who have you been with?" That was either "Myself" or "With friends." "What were you doing?" "Hiking." All true, but very uninformative. Let's just say that I spent no time in the house, so they couldn't possibly know what I was doing.
But, good or bad parents, I just can't imagine parents prying into every detail of the kid's life. Maybe you're right, a kid should work at keeping secrets. If he's not willing to work at it, then the secrets aren't very valuable to the kid.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday January 23 2017, @06:01PM
So, let's say that a very dull parent discoveres an encrypted message in their daughter's stuff. That dull parent is sure that the message has meaning, but can't figure it out. What does the dullard do? He shows it to HIS parent, sibling, cousin, or someone who isn't quite so dull.
In a sane and rational world perhaps. What happens too often now is that the parent goes into a paranoid conniption fit, drags in equally uninformed and paranoid parents, blows the thing out of proportion into some new danger of the week for our children, and something else harnless and fun gets restricted.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Snotnose on Sunday January 22 2017, @01:56AM
I'm gonna say, left hand girl understands privacy, right hand other end is a perv. There ain't that many pervs out there, ignore what the media wants you to think. Certainly fewer pervs than people trying to intercept her conversations.
I'm gonna go with little girls learning to encrypt their communication is A Good Thing (tm).
Now, if we can only get G.I.Joe to encrypt his messages we'd be on to something.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22 2017, @11:09AM
A kid is several times more likely to be struck by lightening than taken by a stranger.
It just isn't responsible parenting to have a kid without lightening protection. The kid should use something non-conductive to push or pull a lightening rod at all times, while wearing non-conductive footwear. For example, lineman's boots and one of those big insulators like they put on megavolt power lines. The lightening rod needs to be taller than the kid, with a wide wheelbase so it doesn't tip, and redundant grounding straps to drag on the ground. Hearing protection and UV protection are needed. For the best protection, a Faraday cage can be used -- you'll provide this extra bit if you really love your child.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ledow on Sunday January 22 2017, @02:07AM
What an damning indictment of modern parenting, consumed by paranoia.
Go watch The Imitation Game. Go talk about anyone's childhood toys and books. Kids are making up codes in class, at home, for puzzle books, for toys and have been for centuries.
Why on earth would you think that the problem with your scenario is THE CODE USED and not WRITING LOVE LETTERS TO AN ADULT?
As such, the code - in and of itself - has no problem inherent to its usage.
Your post is literally the paranoid guy on the Internet from 10 years ago (Oh, but only BAD people need to encrypt their messages, what are you trying to hide) brought forward into parenthood.
Get a life.
The real problem is that kids aren't given these kinds of intellectual challenges any more. The sexism thing is part of this (girls play Barbie, boys create working models of an internal combustion engine), but it's part of the dumbing down of modern living.
I'm so incredibly disappointed when I look at the toys my daughter chooses to play with, and the TV shows she chooses to watch. Zero educational content. LEGO Friends - LEGO for girls! So they turn it into a TV cartoon which is the most cringe-inducing tripe I've ever seen in my life. And LEGO Friends, as compared to boys LEGO aimed at the same age group, includes precisely zip beyond putting pink and purple blocks together.
And it's worsening with apps and websites, because they all claim to be "educational" but I honestly fail to see the educational aspect in 99% of them (P.S. I work in schools - that includes quite a lot of the crap that the schools use too). Let's give everyone Minecraft, Microsoft say it's educational and people do lessons in it so it must be! Bollocks. The bit that COULD be interesting (redstone circuits) is basically never touched by kids. Hell, I've seen a teacher try to cram it into a Geography syllabus. Let's not even get into their use of "SimCity" apps, attempting to crowbar them into a curriculum as well.
Kids at 12 - when I was that age - were soldering together their own computers from components. They were blowing crap up in the kitchen sink (I still do this!) and playing with dry-ice and acids. They were learning Morse Code and signalling "codes" to their friends. They were building and using CB radios (child protection wasn't an issue, because nobody was stupid enough to think that giving your address to a stranger or meeting them was a bright idea).
And it was nowhere near being "just the geeks". The school bully was a CB-freak. Others learned to make stink bombs from recipes in old books.
Now, none of that is "necessary" as they have a smartphone that's several 10's of thousands times faster than those computers, that can talk across the world and encrypt their communications for them. They aren't allowed near anything deemed "mildly hazardous if mishandled", which includes communications media. And anything vaguely intellectual or interesting or about exploring stuff is the realm of "the geek", stereotyped beyond anything that was around when I was a kid.
Kids today are already losing the intellectual interest, and it's not being helped by all being told they are all so fabulous all the time for every little thing. I've worked in schools - state, private, primary and secondary - for the last 20 years and I've yet to see a kid that I think might be able to program when they're older, for instance.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday January 22 2017, @02:31AM
Hey, I didn't endorse what I said, but was actually reinforcing your point - that modern parents are more paranoid than ever.
That being said, I'm going to call bullshit on soldering their own computers and building CB radios. Maybe a handful of select rich-kids did, but not the real-world. Reminds me of that Slashdot comment where some guy bragged about building a database system in assembler when he was eleven. I one-upped him by saying my pregnant mom would straddle the chair in front of the computer-desk and I would reach out my own mom's cunt before I was born to hand-code an RTOS in machine-language.
The rest of your points are, eh, on-point -- especially that creativity and imagination are no longer factors in childrens' toys. We used to play with our toys, now, kids' toys play with them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Sunday January 22 2017, @01:14PM
Have to disagree with you EF.
At 10-12 years old I was constructing simple radios with components taken from old TVs found on dumps or wherever. My first circuits followed a similar line. At 14 I had managed to save enough from my Saturday job to buy a Heathkit 3 valve (tube) HF radio which I had to assemble myself. Don't underestimate what 'children' can do, or convince yourself that only the rich could afford such hobbies. My parents were typical working class and not at all wealthy or privileged.
Knowledge, most often gleaned from library books at no cost,was available to all who sought it. Almost every child I now see has their own phone. If they stop texting the person standing next to them and go search the web they will find more information than they could ever hope to absorb in a lifetime.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Sunday January 22 2017, @02:18PM
Would you like his name and address? He was the school bully, and he was mad into CB. There was a huge array of MASSIVE antennae sticking out of his house. He had a bedroom full of kit and was on it every night after his trucker-dad got him into it, which they built from old truck kits that were ripped out and repaired by them and then converted, amplified, tuned, etc. to improve their usefulness.
And ZX Spectrums were sold in two models - one for rich-kids pre-assembled, one for poor-kids where you soldered it together yourselves and saved £50. Have you never heard of the ZX Spectrum? Hell, I soldered my one back together any number of times when it was destroyed (I blame Daley Thompson's Decathlon, personally, with it's "waggle joystick to run forward" play that always got out of hand and broke the expansion connector for the joystick interface).
So, I'm sorry, but rather than "call people out", maybe do some fact-searching.
(Score: 2) by cmn32480 on Monday January 23 2017, @01:30PM
And this was pre-vacuum tubes. They had to carve their own stuff from hunks of rock using other hunks of rock!
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday January 23 2017, @06:05PM
You had hunks of rock? Luxury.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday January 22 2017, @02:32AM
Kids at 12 - when I was that age - were soldering together their own computers from components. They were blowing crap up in the kitchen sink (I still do this!) and playing with dry-ice and acids. They were learning Morse Code and signalling "codes" to their friends. They were building and using CB radios (child protection wasn't an issue, because nobody was stupid enough to think that giving your address to a stranger or meeting them was a bright idea).
Careful there -- most of those activities could get you branded a "potential terrorist" today. Along with losing these skills and opportunities, there's a culture of paranoia around the things that few kids (or people in general) do anymore.
We've gone past "anti-intellectual": that's merely devaluing of intelligence in society. Now we FEAR independent thought. And to me, that's even more profoundly disturbing. It's one thing to brand someone a "geek" or "nerd" or whatever and make fun or alienate, but it's another to discourage exploratory activities because they might be perceived as a "terrorist threat."
Or, well, sometimes other fears too -- like how all chemistry lab glassware is suspected as "drug paraphernalia" these days. In some states, you even need a permit to own it (e.g., Texas). I'm talking about basic stuff like an Erlenmeyer flask. I'd be in trouble there, since I actually use lab glassware in my kitchen, since it's more thermal shockproof and cheaper than a lot of (worse) glassware marketed for kitchen use. But we've moved beyond reason here.
So aside from the reasons you cite, we actively discourage independent thought and exploration unless it's "approved" ahead of time, which kind of defeats the ideas of "independence" and "exploration."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22 2017, @03:30AM
Kids at 12 - when I was that age - were soldering together their own computers from components.
I was, but the vast majority of people weren't. I think you have a delusional view of the past; most people were never very intelligent or interested in educating themselves. What you saw was the exception to the rule, and of course, soldering is not very impressive to begin with, so it's nothing much.
(Score: 2) by Ellis D. Tripp on Sunday January 22 2017, @01:49AM
Seems to me this would be perfect for the same subset of girls that write about their crushes and whatnot in lockable diaries, no?
"Society is like stew. If you don't keep it stirred up, you end up with a lot of scum on the top!"--Edward Abbey
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Sunday January 22 2017, @02:23AM
Another toy that could make rudimentary codes was Texas Instruments' Speak & Spell:
The "Secret Code" mini-game would encrypt or decrypt "words" (really, any string of up to 8 letters) by matching up two sets of the alphabet, slightly askew, in the form of a Caesar cipher.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speak_%26_Spell_%28toy%29 [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22 2017, @03:44AM
Loads of fun for all ages, until someone puts an eye out! "Do not look into laser with remaining eye!" I really thing that age is not the issue with STEM, or with STEM Toys. Missile intercept? Cool!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22 2017, @06:16AM
or they could think kids are idiots who wouldn't use the feature even if they documented it. Probably the former though.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Sunday January 22 2017, @08:52AM
Back in the ark ages, when I grew up (60s/70s), you had dolls for girls and erector sets for boys, but there was also a huge pile of toys with no particular gender. Legos, for example.
So today, after decades of intense feminism, we have this [secondnexus.com]. WTF?
Can anyone explain this? Because, let's face it, this would not exist if all those "feminist" moms didn't buy the stuff...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22 2017, @02:04PM
Can anyone explain this?
Marketing... sell the same junk twice (one for boys, one for girls).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22 2017, @10:00PM
Three or more times if you include trangendered children and other sexual dyslexics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22 2017, @02:55PM
is just a toy. No need to put STEM requirements on my Lincoln Logs.