Disney’s Dream Desk PC

Disney have released their Dream Desk PC – a US$600 (€500) 2.6 gHz Celeron-based computer that comes complete with digital pen and suite of software. A 14” flat screen monitor with the characteristically round Mickey ears is a US$300 (€250)optional extra – but if you’re going to buy the PC, you have to have the ears too, right?

The striking blue computer was designed by Frog Design and made by Medion AG, a large German manufacturer. It even has a child-sized mouse for those little hands, and a unique cable management system to keep tempting electrical cables away from curious fingers.

To protect children, the PC comes with the EmailProtect and ContentProtect email and internet filtering applications. Plus on the entertainment side, the PC comes preloaded with several Disney games and tools for playing with Disney media (just play fair with the DMCA, kids!). A DVD player and CD writer is included for budding pirates.

This is Disney’s first attempt at a PC aimed at children. Bob Iger, Disney President said at the unveiling yesterday: “We’ve travelled a long way since that first Mickey writing tablet hit the market in 1929. At the core of Disney is our mission to entertain and enlighten audiences through products that spark the imagination. With the launch of the Disney Dream Desk, a computer designed with kids in mind, we’ve developed a tool box for children to unleash their imaginations and expand their minds.”

Disney Consumer Products

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Fraser Lovatt

Fraser Lovatt has spent the last fifteen years working in publishing, TV and the Internet in various capacities, and believes that they will be seperate platforms for at least a while yet. His main interests at the moment are exploring where Linux is taking home entertainment and how technology is conferring technical skills on more and more people.Fraser Lovatt was born in the same year that 2001: A Space Odyssey was delighting and confusing people in the cinemas, and developed a lifelong love of technology as soon as he realised that things could be taken apart, sometimes put back together again, but mostly left in bits or made into something the original designer hadn't quite planned upon.At school he was definitely in the ZX Spectrum/Magpie/BMX camp, rather than the BBC Micro/Blue Peter/well-behaved group. This is all deeply ironic as he later went on to spend nine years working at the BBC.After a few years of working as a bookseller in Scotland, ("Back when it was actually a skilled profession" he'll tell anyone still listening), he moved to England for reasons he can't quite explain adequately to himself. After a couple of publishing jobs punctuated by sporadic bursts of travelling and photography came the aforementioned nine years at the BBC where he specialised in internet technologies and video.These days his primary interests are Java, Linux, videogames and pies - and if they're not candidates for convergence, then what is?