IT is the app that can keep tabs on your teen every time they borrow your car.
The new Teen Agree app can also tell parents if their child drives to far away from home, or exceeds the speed limit.

The $5 app is available for iPhones and Android phones, and was created by an American couple to keep tabs on their nine children.

“We really wanted to keep up with our kids, as we have nine between the two of us” said Laura Oooley, from Minneapolis, who developed the app with husband Nathan.
“You think you know where your kids are, but you’re never sure. It’s about having a ‘safe driving contract’ between parents and their children.”

The app updates servers every ten seconds with its location and speed, and parents can watch their offspring live as well as receive alerts.
Parents can set speed limits, and also how far away from home their child is allowed to drive.

“On the Android version we can also send an alert if there is texting while driving, which is a major cause of accidents,” said Nathan Oooley.

“We can also also send parents daily updates, and let them see up to three of their children at once.

Mr Ooley said that the data captured was secure.
“All of the data is encrypted, and we do not store any information, so only the parent can see it.”

He claims children have embraced the app. “The younger generation seems much more open to this - as parents have told us, if their kids are doing nothing wrong then there is nothing to worry about.”

However, experts say the app could cause friction.

“It will help put parents mind at ease, but there is also the balance that you have to tell your kids you don't trust them in the first place - which is the harder battle here,” said Stuart Miles of gadget site Pocket Lint.

“Ultimately this will make kids more aware of what they are doing, and if you can enforce that in your house then it’s a great idea.”

ends.

SONY, LG and Samsung have sparked a battle for the future of television with radical new screen technology that has led to giant ultralight TVs that are just 4mm thick.

Samsung and LG both announced they have developed 55inch TVs using a new technology known as organic light-emitting diode (OLED).

The technology offers razor-thin screens, sharper colours and faster-moving screens than any previous television.

It uses thin films of organic molecules to create screens that use less power than traditional flat screen TVs, yet have sharper and deeper pictures. 

Because the new TVs update their picture up to 1,000 times faster than current TV, they also do not suffer from motion blur during fast action scenes.

Prototypes of the new TVs, were on display today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and are expected to go on sale within months - although with price tags of several thousands pounds.

LG’s Chief Technology Officer Scott Ahn said the firm’s 55-inch 3-D organic light-emitting diode television, at 4 millimeters and 7.5 kilograms, is "the world's thinnest, lightest and largest OLED TV."

Robert King, head of Consumer Electronics, Samsung UK and Ireland, said: “Samsung has a history of creating innovative OLED products such as mobile phones, digital cameras and tablet PCs. Today, we are proud to extend our OLED leadership to the TV category, with this spectacular 55-inch Super OLED. Samsung is delivering the TV of tomorrow, today.”

Experts say the TVs are set to become the standard for televisions.

Stuff magazine’s Will Findlater said: “We’ve seen OLED TVs before, but only minuscule ones. Now Samsung and LG are going head-to-head with ludicrously slim, amazingly bright and devilishly clever OLEDs at a lounge-tastic 55in across.”

The two firms are locked in a battle to be the first to release their big screen gadgets.

“The Samsung just edges it, though, as it also has facial recognition and is one of the first TVs with upgradeable innards,” said Mr Findlater. 

He warned that consumers may be put off at first by high prices.

“This TV will not be cheap,” he said. 

The OLED screens will go up against a rival technology developed by Sony called Crystal LED in a bid to become the standard for televisions.

It uses millions of tiny pixels to create a picture, and Sony says it could leader to TVs cheaper to produce than OLED screens. 

First Look - LG 55inch OLED TV

Goes on sale later this year, price TBA

They are set to carry a price tag of several thousand pounds, but the first big screen OLED TVs really do offer a striking improvement on current high definition TV sets.

Colours are incredibly vivid and lifelike, which the fast screens mean there is none of the ‘blur’ often seen on current TV during high speed scenes such as figh sequences or car chases. The screens also look superb, being incredibly thin - in fact, LG admits one of its biggest problem is working out where to put the cables without ruining the design. Admittedly the price will put OLED TVs out of the reach of most of us for now, but in 2-3 years expect them to become the norm.

TWITTER has unveiled a major redesign aimed at taking on Facebook.

The microblogging giant has made it easier to have conversations via tweets, and to find new people to follow.

Twitter’s UK boss said he hoped the redesign would massively increase the number of users on the site , and revealed that 100 million users have already signed up.

“When I am asked how big the opportunity is for Twitter, I always answer with a question: ‘how many people are there in the world?’, said Tony Wang, the head of Twitter UK, at the firms West End office.

“The answer is seven billion, so that’s how big Twitter’s growth can be.”

Mr Wang said 2012 was going to be a ‘big year’ for the site, and revealed 250 million tweets a day are being sent.

The site has also redesigned users profile pages, making them more like Facebook pages, with more information about people and the tweets, pictures and friends they have on twitter.Mr Wang said the aims was to “bring to the surface material that you may never know you wanted”.

Ryan Sarver, director of platform at Twitter, said: “We want to take all of the tweets out there, and allow you to find the stuff that’s personal to you.

”We realised that tweets are not just tweets – they are photos, videos, articles, so with the new design we have focused on showing tweets as packages.”

The redesign comes as Facebook also launched a major new feature, allowing people to subscribe to websites via a single button. Facebook hopes it will increase the number of websites that produce content for the social networking site.

ADELE is the most downloaded artist of 2011 around the world, it has been revealed.

The Tottenham born singer topped Apple’s ‘iTunes rewind’ global chart, also winning Artist of the Year and Song of the Year award for Someone Like You.

The singer, who has recently undergone surgery on her vocal cords, said, “I’m thrilled to top the iTunes album chart of 2011 and to be iTunes Artist of the Year is just amazing”.

Earlier this month, she received six nominations for the prestigious US Grammys, including nods for Record Of The Year with Rolling In The Deep and Best Pop Solo Performance for Someone Like You.

The bestselling single of 2011 was LMFAOs Party Rock Anthem, which narrowly beat Adele’s Someone like You.

The New Artist of the Year was won by British singer songwriter Ed Sheeran.

“iTunes have supported me throughout 2011,” he said.

“From being an unsigned artist releasing my own records independently, right through to me signing my major label deal and the release of +. They’ve been amazing and it’s an honour they’ve chosen me for this award”.

iPhone photography app Instragram was iPhone app of the year, while game of the year on iPhone was Tiny Wings.

Full details of the top songs, books and apps are here

Sky today launched its first mobile film service allowing customers to watch Hollywood blockbusters on their iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

It hopes the service, which is free to existing subscribers, will help it compete against Apple, Amazon's Lovefilm and Tesco's Blinkbox, who all offer rival services. US giant Netflix is also set to launch in the UK early next year.

The free app works using a wifi connection. Users can choose from a library of hundreds of films, which instantly start playing on their device.

New release titles available through Sky Go over the coming weeks include Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Little Fockers, Black Swan, Gulliver’s Travels and Limitless.

“Sky Go has been a massive success with 2m registered users, and 30m pieces of content watched. It exceeded our expectations, but we want to keep making it better,” said Hilary Perchard, Sky’s Director of Product Management.

“We know people like to spend time watching movies at Christmas, so it seems the right time to launch this.

“For instance, you can let the kids watch a film on the iPad while you watch something else.”

The app follows several other from Sky, which include the ability to remotely record programmes, watch live football and even remotely set your Sky box to record.

“This is part of a big trend of enjoying life on the go - we think we’ve embraced that and brought more of the leading TV apps to the UK than any other company - our apps have been downloaded 18m times,” said Mr Perchard.

The firm is also believed to be planning to include social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook into future versions of the app. It comes as ex iPlayer boss Anthony Rose recently launched Zeebox, an iPad app which lets people see tweets and other information on screen.

“We’re looking at all sorts of things for the future, and social media is a big part of those plans,” said Mr Perchard.

“This is where the next layer of innovation lies for TV.”

Ian Lewis, Director of Sky Movies, comments: “Sky Movies on demand is a great addition to Sky Go and gives customers complete control over how, when and now where they enjoy the latest movies. Alongside other recent additions to Sky Movies like Anytime+ and 3D, the launch of Sky Movies on Sky Go helps customers get even more value out of Sky.”

Londoners are the biggest online addicts in the country, researchers warned today.

They found 57% of those in the capital suffer from e-anxiety if they cannot check their email or Facebook page, while 37% check their personal emails six times or more each day.

30% of Londoners spend six hours or more a day online, the highest level of any part of the UK.

Jon Blumberg from Sky Broadband, which carried out the survey of over 2,000 people, said: “We’re a nation of digital pragmatists, with 74% of people saying they feel more knowledgeable because of the internet and 72% feeling more up to date with what’s happening in the world. That’s exactly as it should be – the internet should help you live your life, not take it over.

“Our results reveal that this demand for unlimited broadband has turned much of the nation into Gigabyte Britain – addicted to their emails and social media accounts without worrying about knowing how stuff works or who built it in the first place.”

However, the findings from Sky Broadband’s first ever DQ Test – a study into the nation’s Digital Intelligence Quotient, or DQ, also found nearly a quarter of Brits (23%) have never used a social networking site at all and 17% of people in London claim to have never watched a video clip online.

The Capital also scored poorly on internet history - 48% believe the internet was invented by IBM – the highest figure of any part of the UK – and 24% by Apple.

Sky Broadband's research found that the UK population falls into five major categories:

Internet Intellectuals, who are both skilled at using online resources and have a high degree of technical know-how  about the internet and digital technology.

Cyber Savvies, who are above-average in their online skills and usage, but are less knowledgeable about how the internet and computers actually work.

Digital Pragmatists, who are quite confident about their online abilities but use the internet to help with their everyday lives, rather than being interested in it per se. They adopt new technologies and services after the previous two groups.

Steady Surfers, who log on for discrete, basic tasks, such as emailing, as opposed to the life-sharing, more “always on” approach taken by their social-media savvy peers.

Web Wary, who are still quite cautious about technology and its perceived risks.

 Sky's digital IQ test can be taken here: www.skydqtest.com

The Natural History Museum today revealed a unique experiment aiming to bringing the Facebook age into the scientific world.

Two skeletons that could hold the key to human evolution went on display today at the Museum. They are among the first to be painstakingly copied and loaned to scientific institutions around the word in a bid to improve our knowledge of human evolution.

The 1.9-million year old fossils from Malapa Cave in South Africa have the scientific name Australopithecus sediba. Experts say the pair, a yound boy and an older female, could help answer the question of how humans evolved.

The exact fossil replicas come from the University of the Witwatersrand, and the Government of the Republic of South Africa.

The groundbreaking deal is the first time such valuable scientific artifacts have been copied and given to other institutions to study.

“We want to try and change the behaviour of scientists,” said Professor Lee Berger of the Institute for Human Evolution at Wits University, who is leading the project.

“This is the first major discovery of the Facebook generation of scientists, and we believe that sharing is how we increase the scientific value. The tradition has been to hold these to ourselves, and not give access. We want to give copies to all the major scientific institutions around the world, along with published and unplublished information.”

Professor Chris Stringer, Research Leader in Human Origins at the Natural History Museum, London, said the skeletons, exact copies of the originals painstakingly made using resin, could help us understand where we came from.

“These are the most complete human like skeletons ever discovered, and we are very lucky to have them,” said Professor Stringer.

“We will make them available to researchers, and put them on display as soon as we can find the space - we hope that will be soon. Australopithecus sediba has a critical role in shaping our understanding about the route of human evolution.

“There is still a question over whether these are defined as human or not. With its ape-sized brain, ape-like body shape, and the form of the shoulders and arms sediba resembles its presumed local ancestor Australopithecus africanus.

"Yet the hands show more human proportions, suggesting greater dexterity. And the shape of the front of the brain cavity, the face, teeth, pelvis and legs also show more human characteristics. Sediba is the most human-like australopithecine yet discovered, providing valuable clues to the evolutionary changes that led to the genus Homo.”

“This gift gives us an opportunity to show these spectacular finds to the public and for researchers and students to study them,” said Dr Michael Dixon, Director of the Natural History Museum.

For more information on the skeletons visit www.wits.ac.za/sediba

LONDON’S first super fast 4G mobile phone network was switched on today.

Covering an area from Hyde Park to The O2 in Greenwich, it will give Canary Wharf, Soho, Westminster, South Bank and Kings Cross high speed internet access.

The technology is 10 times faster at navigating the internet than the current 3G networks, and the 25 masts in London will be able to carry more data than O2’s entire national 3G network.

“People won’t have to wait to watch video, and this will open up areas like 3D TV, and high definition videoconferencing,” said Rob Joyce, O2s head of 4G.

“As soon as you press play, the movie will begin. We’ve also seen that downloading apps from the Apple store is very quick.”

Operators hope 4G will also allow them to connect household gadgets such as gas and electricity meters and cars easily, allowing remote readings and even ‘smart’ fridges that can be used to order shopping.
Around 1,000 users will initially take part in the trial, including John Lewis, who will test it with staff throughout its stores.

However, as no mobile phones are yet available in the UK which use the service, triallists will instead use a 4G dongle plugged into a computer, or a small device that connects to the 4G network and creates a high speed wifi hotspot for users, which they can then link to their existing phone.

Ronan Dunne, Chief Executive Officer of Telefónica UK (O2), said: “Our work in London will give us a better understanding of the capabilities of 4G technology and will allow us to explore the superfast benefits it will bring to people and industry across the UK. The work we are doing now will lay the foundations for our commercial 4G network when it launches in the UK.” 

Readers of the recently launched Gizmodo UK technology web site will also be able to take part in the trial. Editor of Gizmodo UK, Kat Hannaford, said, “While we still have several years before 4G networks are available to consumers, this is a big step-forward for the industry and an exciting development for the UK’s capital.”

A smaller public trial opened last month in Cornwall, where Everything Everywhere is collaborating with BT Group to bring fast mobile internet to 200 people in the village of St Newlyn East for a three-month trial.

The auction for a national 4G network is expected to take place in 2012.

O2 also admitted its trial will need to end by the time the 2012 Games begins, as the radio spectrum it uses is reserved for wireless microphones and cameras during the Olympics.

More than 600 hi-tech firms are now in East London’s ‘Tech City’, it was revealed today.

As David Cameron met some of so called Silicon Roundabout's new firms around Old Strret, he hailed the growth of the area, which had only 200 hi-tech firms 12 months ago.

“One year ago we made a major commitment to helping the tech cluster in East London grow,” said the Prime Minister.

“The successful growth we see today is thanks to the talented, creative entrepreneurs who have decided to set up there. As a Government, we are determined to continue doing everything we can to help support and accelerate this growth. We have already taken action such as introducing the Entrepreneurs Visa and tax breaks like the Enterprise Investment Scheme. We are also looking at new ways we can protect Intellectual Property. But we are not done yet - we’re looking forward to continuing our work with the community in Tech City to further support them to grow”.

Eric Van Der Kleij, CEO of Tech City Investment Organisation, said: “The growth in Tech City is hugely exciting – and looks set to continue. We are not looking at a bubble here. This is real business creation and jobs based mainly on organic growth, encouraged by the right set of business-friendly policies. We’re working closely with Tech City companies to provide the right support at the right time, helping to build an internationally connected ecosystem that will thrive - whether it’s connecting experienced mentors to newer start-ups, introducing investors to the area, or working with larger companies to locate, share, and contribute to the success of the area.”

The Prime Minister also announced today that Ben Hammersley, Editor at Large of Wired UK, will act as a Tech City Ambassador.

The 600 firms can be seen on an interactive map here