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I bought three of these as gifts we had a pretty good experience with the hardware, but the social features integrated into the operating system disappointed me

I bought three of these as gifts we had a pretty good experience with the hardware, but the social features integrated into the operating system disappointed me. my 6 year old daughter was getting harassed by another user. Everything she was saving was getting posted to a social forum, a user was sending her messages about everything she did, there was no way to block the messages, except to disconnect from all the online features that included all the educational content. The Kano teams response at the time was was: 'The design of Kano world sort of mimics Twitter, which means that shares are open to comment by the Kano World community. ... comment deleting is disabled on it is because there have been cases where a lot of users were excluded and bullied by having their comments deleted' I think this is an unsatisfactory unsophisticated response for a product aimed at children Perhaps this is now improved? Kano redesigned their online features several times, and my kids lost all their work and lost interest. But not until they had completed the learn to use the terminal adventure, which led to us playing zork.

mkatx 6y ago
Are they Children's Online Privacy Protection Act compliant? And if they are compliant, are you saying their product is unusable if you refuse consent? I would think their design mimicking Twitter would put them under COPPA.
- monkeycantype 6y ago
  I have no idea if they are compliant, I was a fairly early user and I don't know how much their software has evolved. At the time the education content they curated was online, and you needed to be logged in to progress and unlock content. This content is a key part of their product, the whole point of the Kano is that it is a carefully prepared experience from the moment you hold the box, until you're writing bash scripts. The interface would prompt you to post your work, and the way that choice was integrated, even if it wasn't mandatory, it seemed as if was the only way to save your work. Once it was posted it was publicly available, and anyone with a Kano login could comment. If my daughter was logged in using the Kano she would be notified of the message. There did not seem to be any way to set any privacy controls, given that I asked Kano specifically about this I'm sure they would have let me know. I confess I have a low tolerance for hype, and as a result my communication with the Kano team was a little bumpy. I was genuinely disappointed with aspects of their product. I think a more thoughtful self critical culture would have addressed what I believe were glaring problems. Overall I appreciate what they do and I bought three.

mkatx 6y ago

Are they Children's Online Privacy Protection Act compliant? And if they are compliant, are you saying their product is unusable if you refuse consent? I would think their design mimicking Twitter would put them under COPPA.

monkeycantype 6y ago
I have no idea if they are compliant, I was a fairly early user and I don't know how much their software has evolved. At the time the education content they curated was online, and you needed to be logged in to progress and unlock content. This content is a key part of their product, the whole point of the Kano is that it is a carefully prepared experience from the moment you hold the box, until you're writing bash scripts. The interface would prompt you to post your work, and the way that choice was integrated, even if it wasn't mandatory, it seemed as if was the only way to save your work. Once it was posted it was publicly available, and anyone with a Kano login could comment. If my daughter was logged in using the Kano she would be notified of the message. There did not seem to be any way to set any privacy controls, given that I asked Kano specifically about this I'm sure they would have let me know. I confess I have a low tolerance for hype, and as a result my communication with the Kano team was a little bumpy. I was genuinely disappointed with aspects of their product. I think a more thoughtful self critical culture would have addressed what I believe were glaring problems. Overall I appreciate what they do and I bought three.