Kids Get New Tablets Over the Holidays? Here’s How to Lock ’Em Down.

After $50 in Angry Birds purchases, I’m now the wiser.
angry_birds_tablet

Music-Discovery Service ExFM Pulls the Plug

A startup that had buzz four years ago says that it’s going dark, more or less, next month.

The NeatConnect Scanner Is a Cloud-Connected Guilty Pleasure

A hassle-free scanner that’s easy to set up and does most of what it promises to do. But there’s a catch: It costs $500.
NeatConnect

MindMeld Assistant App Listens Along to Conversations to Help in Real Time

MindMeld, which has been promised for more than a year and is one of the more ambitious application ideas out there, launches to the public tonight.

News Byte

Japan Overtakes U.S. in Apple/Google App Store Revenue

Japan is now the top country worldwide in revenue from Apple’s App Store and Google Play, according to a new report from App Annie. The app analytics company attributed the surprising shift to rapid smartphone adoption over the past year in Japan — where feature phones have held on for longer — and explosive growth in Google Play spending, outpacing global trends due to the availability of carrier billing as an alternative to credit cards.

Toca Boca CEO Bjorn Jeffery: Adults Don’t Understand How Kids Play

Well, most of them, anyway.

Group Wants Mattel to Recall a Newborn Bouncy Chair With Built-in iPad Holder

The idea of strapping a newborn into a chair facing a tablet is a really bad one, says one consumer group, which is calling on the toymaker to pull the product.

News Byte

Android Flashlight-App Developer Settles FTC Privacy Complaint

The Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday that GoldenShores Technologies, maker of the Brightest Flashlight Free app for Android, had settled an FTC complaint that its privacy policy failed to disclose the collection and sharing of user data with third parties, such as ad networks. The FTC said the app has been downloaded tens of millions of times.

Oh, the Places Your Phone Will Find

Field Trip, made by a division of Google, sends you, by way of pop-up cards, short blurbs about unique, sometimes-hidden locations as you pass them.

App Advertisers TapCommerce Raise $10 Million

The app boom has led to an app advertising boom, which means VCs are are interested. So is Facebook, which might make things interesting…

Twitter Likely to Kill Its Music App