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Getting a small child to brush their teeth can feel like hosting a nightly WWE wrestling match in your bathroom. But the new icon-based Octopus watch for kids ages 3 to 8 aims to help with this and other daily habits. 

The Octopus watch's Kickstarter campaign has raised more than $231,000 in pledges — more than four times its $50,000 fundraising goal — which could indicate that at least a few parents are seeking help in the instilling-good-habits department. 

Actually the Octopus, designed by JOY, has three intended functions. It's a watch, teaching kids to read time using both digital and analog faces. It's a scheduler that parents can remote-program with pop-up icons to notify kids when it's time for certain activities: basketball practice, bath time, feeding the cat. And it's an assistant, providing tips, notes, and reminders for both kids and parents.

"Studies have shown that children under 8 years old don’t understand the concept of time, let alone remember what to do when a certain time rolls around," the company says on its Kickstarter page. "We have designed the first watch that helps them understand how parents expect them to use their time. We believe this will help children form good habits and help them to take responsibility for their actions."

"We have designed the first watch that helps [kids] understand how parents expect them to use their time."

The Octopus is controlled by an iOS or Android app. It comes with customizable, age-based schedule templates and an optional gamification feature that lets kid unlock badges. Parents can sync up via Bluetooth, program the watch in three different modes, according to a child's developmental stage (from icon-based to text-based), and there are 600 stored icons. 

(Fingers crossed that one of those 600 stands for, "Seriously, no, you can't have a lollipop. You can eat almost anything else. Please stop asking.")

Also, two separate phones can sync up with the same watch — or multiple watches — meaning the Octopus system is flexible enough to allow two parents or caregivers to collaborate in programming watches for multiple children, if needed. 

The watch itself is available in four kid-friendly colors, and it features a color OLED display. It comes with a USB charging cable and wall plug, and JOY claims battery life is around 96 hours on a full, three-hour recharge. An optional, ghostie-looking cyclops charging stand (maybe it's supposed to look like... an octopus?) is available for purchase, and doubles as a nightlight. 

The Octopus watch is also IP65 water resistant, meaning it can't go to swim class but it should survive sprinklers and hand-washing. 

Xiaomi recently released its own version of a smartwatch for kids, 8-bit the Mi Bunny, but it's mostly useful for tracking your kid's location, whereas the Octopus is focused on building a sense of autonomous participation in family routines. In its Kickstarter campaign, the company points out that the watch is useful for minimizing run-of-the-mill daily power struggles and has also been well received by parents of kids with special needs who benefit from extra structure and reminders. 

Modern parents know that it can be tough to resist quantifying kids' lives, and to strike a balance between teaching them to be productive and allowing time for unstructured play. But the Octopus seems like a potentially fun family experiment that could introduce kids to some of the more helpful aspects of technology without sticking them in front of a screen. 

The Octopus was developed and prototyped by JOY's co-founders, Sam Hickman and Omar Alaouf, during a three-month stint with a team at the HAX hardware accelerator program in Shenzen, China. Their Kickstarter campaign launched in June 2016, and the company plans to ship its first watches in Nov. 2016.

Until then, we'll continue to rely on bubble-gum flavored toothpaste and a modified sleeper hold to persuade our kids to brush. 

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Getting a small child to brush their teeth can feel like hosting a nightly WWE wrestling match in your bathroom. But the new icon-based Octopus watch for kids ages 3 to 8 aims to help with this and other daily habits. 

The Octopus watch's Kickstarter campaign has raised more than $231,000 in pledges — more than four times its $50,000 fundraising goal — which could indicate that at least a few parents are seeking help in the instilling-good-habits department. 

Actually the Octopus, designed by JOY, has three intended functions. It's a watch, teaching kids to read time using both digital and analog faces. It's a scheduler that parents can remote-program with pop-up icons to notify kids when it's time for certain activities: basketball practice, bath time, feeding the cat. And it's an assistant, providing tips, notes, and reminders for both kids and parents.

"Studies have shown that children under 8 years old don’t understand the concept of time, let alone remember what to do when a certain time rolls around," the company says on its Kickstarter page. "We have designed the first watch that helps them understand how parents expect them to use their time. We believe this will help children form good habits and help them to take responsibility for their actions."

"We have designed the first watch that helps [kids] understand how parents expect them to use their time."

The Octopus is controlled by an iOS or Android app. It comes with customizable, age-based schedule templates and an optional gamification feature that lets kid unlock badges. Parents can sync up via Bluetooth, program the watch in three different modes, according to a child's developmental stage (from icon-based to text-based), and there are 600 stored icons. 

(Fingers crossed that one of those 600 stands for, "Seriously, no, you can't have a lollipop. You can eat almost anything else. Please stop asking.")

Also, two separate phones can sync up with the same watch — or multiple watches — meaning the Octopus system is flexible enough to allow two parents or caregivers to collaborate in programming watches for multiple children, if needed. 

The watch itself is available in four kid-friendly colors, and it features a color OLED display. It comes with a USB charging cable and wall plug, and JOY claims battery life is around 96 hours on a full, three-hour recharge. An optional, ghostie-looking cyclops charging stand (maybe it's supposed to look like... an octopus?) is available for purchase, and doubles as a nightlight. 

The Octopus watch is also IP65 water resistant, meaning it can't go to swim class but it should survive sprinklers and hand-washing. 

Xiaomi recently released its own version of a smartwatch for kids, 8-bit the Mi Bunny, but it's mostly useful for tracking your kid's location, whereas the Octopus is focused on building a sense of autonomous participation in family routines. In its Kickstarter campaign, the company points out that the watch is useful for minimizing run-of-the-mill daily power struggles and has also been well received by parents of kids with special needs who benefit from extra structure and reminders. 

Modern parents know that it can be tough to resist quantifying kids' lives, and to strike a balance between teaching them to be productive and allowing time for unstructured play. But the Octopus seems like a potentially fun family experiment that could introduce kids to some of the more helpful aspects of technology without sticking them in front of a screen. 

The Octopus was developed and prototyped by JOY's co-founders, Sam Hickman and Omar Alaouf, during a three-month stint with a team at the HAX hardware accelerator program in Shenzen, China. Their Kickstarter campaign launched in June 2016, and the company plans to ship its first watches in Nov. 2016.

Until then, we'll continue to rely on bubble-gum flavored toothpaste and a modified sleeper hold to persuade our kids to brush. 

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

In honor of Mother's Day on Sunday, Apple has created a site that allows anyone to add a photo of their own mother to a rolling slideshow of mothers from around the world.

The site is MomsShotOniPhone and using it is as simple as most iApps. You simply visit the site, enter your first name and last initial and then add a photo of you and your mother.

Despite the sweet sentiment, as with all corporate moves, it pays to read the fine print

When you're done, you're given a one-click option to post the slideshow to your Facebook account. Once it's posted to your Facebook feed, watch as a soft music bed plays and mothers from various Apple fans fade in and out of the frame just before ending with the image you uploaded and a Happy Mother's Day greeting from you to your mother.

Of course, despite the sweet sentiment, as with all corporate moves, it pays to read the fine print. On the site's Terms and Conditions, the company states:

By submitting a photograph or video (“Content”), you grant Apple Inc. the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to incorporate such Content and your name into a video produced by Apple and to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt, and promote this Content, in whole or in part, on Facebook.

So before you submit a photo of dear old mom, best to make sure you're ready to surrender those rights to your cherished family photograph. 

Apple kicked off its celebration of Mother's Day last week with a heartwarming video that also emphasized using the iPhone to take photos of your family. 

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In an emotional 1,100-word Facebook post published Friday, Sheryl Sandberg reflected on her first year as a widow and single mother. 

The Facebook COO, who lost her husband Dave Goldberg in May 2015, describes a "new and unfamiliar world" of trying to succeed at work without a partner at home, struggling to comfort her grieving children and regularly encountering reminders, like father-daughter dances, that her family will never be the same.

"Before, I did not quite get it. I did not really get how hard it is to succeed at work when you are overwhelmed at home," Sandberg writes in her post. "I did not understand how often I would look at my son’s or daughter’s crying face and not know how to stop the tears. How often situations would come up that Dave and I had never talked about and that I did not know how to handle on my own."

While the post was deeply personal, Sandberg devoted much of it to honoring single mothers and describing the challenges they face. 

"For many single mothers, this is the only world they know," Sandberg writes. "Each and every day they make sacrifices, push through barriers, and nurture beautiful families despite the demands on their time and energy."

Sandberg, who authored the 2013 bestselling book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, even gave credit to critics who said she didn't fully understand or account for the choices single mothers must make when trying to tend to their children and excel at work. She writes: 

In Lean In, I emphasized how critical a loving and supportive partner can be for women both professionally and personally—and how important Dave was to my career and to our children’s development. I still believe this. Some people felt that I did not spend enough time writing about the difficulties women face when they have an unsupportive partner or no partner at all. They were right.

Sandberg, however, didn't stop there. She marshaled statistics to illustrate the tough odds single mothers labor against, including the fact that 35% of them experience food insecurity and 46% of families headed by black and Hispanic single mothers live in poverty. 

"Single moms have been leaning in for a long time." 

Sandberg highlights the story of one San Jose, California, mother who works two jobs and must choose between groceries and paying her cell phone bill. Both are essential, she writes, because without the phone, her son won't be able to call his mother at her second job to say he's arrived home after traveling through their unsafe neighborhood. 

"Single moms have been leaning in for a long time—out of necessity and a desire to provide the best possible opportunities for their children," Sandberg writes. 

She criticizes the American stance on issues like paid parental and sick leave as leaving families to "fend for themselves" and concludes the post with a call to "rethink our public and corporate workforce policies and broaden our understanding of what a family is and looks like." 

Sandberg's strong convictions and empathetic approach will likely quiet some of her critics, particularly if she continues to advocate for all single mothers and their families — and she seems poised to do just that.

"We need to understand that it takes a community to raise children and that so many of our single mothers need and deserve a much more supportive community than we give them," she writes. "We owe it to them and to their children to do better." 

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Xiaomi, surprisingly, hasn't released any smartwatch to compete with the Apple Watch or dozen of Android Wear smartwatches out there.

The Chinese tech giant is now dipping its toes into smartwatch waters with its first one called the Mi Bunny — designed specifically for kids.

The $50 Mi Bunny, like Xiaomi's other fitness trackers, is low on the tech side. But the few things it does, it likely does well. It's primarily designed for parents to keep track of their kids.

There's no LCD on this guy. It has an LED display that can display 8-bit symbols, kind of like an on a Tamogotchi. 

With the built-in 4G SIM card, kids with the Mi Bunny can send voice messages to pre-set contact numbers and make emergency calls. The smartwatch also connects to Wi-Fi and a smartphone via Bluetooth. Battery life is said to last up to six days on a charge.

GPS lets parents or guardians know their exact location at all times. Parents can use a smartphone app that connects to the Mi Bunny to see their location on a map.

The Mi Bunny is compatible with Android devices running Android 4.2 (or higher) and iOS devices running iOS 8 (or higher).

The smartwatch's silicone band is small enough to fit kiddy wrists, but the limited features could also make it useful to keep tabs on senior citizens if the band fits.

In other Xiaomi news, the company is expected to unveil its Mi Band 2 fitness tracker alongside the Mi Max.

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