Comparing MMGuardian with Android’s New Kid Mode

Kid Mode, more technically called “Restricted Profiles,” is Android’s first attempt to create a real, native way for parents to control the content on their kids’ phones.  While the idea is laudable, as Techcrunch highlighted, the implementation needs work because Kids Mode still does not provide parents with the comprehensive feature set they need to effectively keep kids safe.

Kid Mode centers primarily on Application Control.  It allows parents to essentially whitelist the apps they want their child to be able to access.  Moreover, it allows parents to get granular within each app – enabling or disabling the app’s permissions to alter its available feature set.

But, Kid Mode is an “opt-in” option for developers – and a virtually unknown Android option for parents.  So how many developers, at this early stage, will voluntarily allow their apps to be blocked from a huge population segment of devices?  That is simply unknown at this point.

More importantly, while App Control is a very important feature, Android’s attempt is not “parental control” in the needed, comprehensive sense: – it is more of a one trick pony.  App control is just one problem parents have with their kids’ use of devices: other issues include overuse, which is solved by instant and scheduled lock, unsavory contacts and texts, which is prevented by call and contact blocking and text monitoring, and texting while driving.  MMGuardian solves each of these problems in turn, creating a much more complete solution for parents.

In the future, Android will need to get in front of this issue to even come close to the capability that third-party apps already provide parents today.  Whitelisting and blacklisting – of both contacts and apps – is just the beginning.  The future lies in true device management: setting lock and location schedules well in advance and enabling continuous safe driving and bullying protections.

MMGuardian Supports TextKills’ Indiegogo Campaign to Prevent Texting While Driving

By Paul Grossinger

MMGuardian Parental Control and TextKills share a common goal: to eliminate texting and driving from America’s roads. That is why we encourage our users to look at TextKills’ Indigogo campaign to help make a positive difference and save lives.

Nearly 3,000 teens died in distracted driving accidents last year, according to AOL News. Please help us work to reduce that sad number and keep more teens safe.

TextKills is a non-profit organization devoted to bringing more awareness to the growing danger of texting and driving. The organization relies on first-hand testimonials and advocacy work to grow awareness and is now working on funds for a film to showcase texting and driving’s dangers.

MMGuardian is devoted to creating the best text and drive prevention tool available on the market. Always free, MMGuardian’s text and drive prevention feature helps save teen lives – both teen drivers who would be texting without MMGuardian’s safeguards and their passengers.

We encourage you to try MMGuardian today and help TextKills make a difference.

MMGuardian Featured on Upside on Comcast Hometown Network

MMGuardian Featured on Upside on Comcast Hometown Network

By Paul Grossinger

On Tuesday July 9, MMGuardian made its debut for thousands of Northern Californians who tuned into the 6:30pm PST broadcast of Upside, the primetime news show on Comcast Hometown Network.

Parental control is becoming a hot topic as kids leave school for the summer and parents grapple with how to handle their children’s rapid-fire smartphone use and the dangers associated with their activities.

On Upside, smartphone dangers were discussed but with an eye for the upside – pun intended – in the issue for parents, which is that these dangers can be quickly mitigated with parental control. MMGuardian’s feature set, including call and text monitoring, scheduling and instant phone controls,and text and drive prevention were on full display for the show’s viewers.

For more information, check out the broadcast!

MMGuardian and the Battle Against Cyber-Bullying

By Paul Grossinger

Half of all children experience cyber-bullying.

According to a study by the Prague Monitor, half of all school-aged kids will experience cyber-bullying in at least one of its many forms during their formative years.

So, globally, at least half a billion children experience cyber-bullying through their computer, mobile device, or, most prominently now, their smartphone.

The rising issue of mobile cyber-bullying is becoming a huge issue here in the US as well. 90% of US kids either see or experience cyber-bullying, according to ThinkProgress.org, which adds up to nearly 2.1 million bullies and 2.7 million of their victims in American schools.

What can be done to stop this rising tide in its tracks?

Encouragingly, parents, educators, and technologists are all taking action to attack the rise in cyberbullying. Parents of teens who have committed suicide are travelling across the country, encouraging kids to stop bullying their peers. Educators and filmmakers like K.R. Shields are working together to promote anti-bullying films like Love is All You Need, which is meant to show kids the real consequences of bullying.

And technologists like ourselves at Pervasive Group are working on MMGuardian. MMGuardian’s Monitor, Call Block, and App Block features now work symbiotically to prevent bullying: Monitor allows parents to flag words and phrases of concern in text messages, Call Block enables parents to shut off certain bullying contacts’ access to their kids, and app blocker enables parents to shut off bullying via third-party apps like Oovoo and Facebook Messenger.

Cyber-bullying is a growing problem – but we can all be part of the solution.

Work with K.R. Shields and Love is All You Need to Prevent Bullying

By Paul Grossinger

Cyber-bullying is wrong and it is becoming an epidemic in America. That is why it is so important to help support projects like K. Rocco Shield’s Love is All You Need, an anti-bullying short film that shows with chilling clarity the terrible consequences of teen cyber-bullying.

Love is All You Need is the story of a straight girl in a parallel universe America where homosexuality is normal and heterosexuality is abnormal. The protagonist is bullied throughout the film and pushed, ultimately, to suicide. The film’s message is clear: treat others as you would like to be treated and, even if you are not a perpetrator, do more to prevent harmful cyber-bullying. MMGuardian, which includes text alerts to prevent cyber-bullying and blocks for harmful calls, texts, and mobile apps, is already a dogged supporter of anti-bullying efforts nationally.

Now Ms. Shields and her team are working on a new ending for the Love is All You Need to increase the film’s educational accessibility and on a new, full-length feature film version of the story. We encourage you to visit her campaign on Indigogo and support this important effort!

May 24th, 2013, Las Vegas, NV: MMGuardian™ Wins Prestigious CTIA Show Emerging Technology Award for Best Mobile Productivity and Public Safety Application of 2013

Pervasive Group Inc. is excited to announce that MMGuardian Parental Control the CTIA 2013 Emerging Technology Award for best Mobile application in Productivity, Utility, and Public Safety.

Out of several hundred applicants, fifteen semi-finalists, and five finalists, including new products from large multinationals like Dell, Motorola, and NQ Mobile, MMGuardian was selected as the winner by CTIA Wireless’ judges; a panel of one hundred carefully selected wireless industry experts.  MMGuardian is an android smartphone application that enables parents to comprehensively manage their child’s smartphone use, preventing teens from engaging in dangerous mobile activities including texting while driving, cyber-bullying, dangerous app use, distraction in school, and sexting.

“We are very pleased to win this prestigious award and to have been recognized by CTIA and respected industry experts for our technology leadership in the exciting and rapidly growing mobile parental control space.  We will continue to rapidly innovate and build the best possible product, which parents deserve to have to protect their children from the tremendous risks associated with un-controlled use of smartphones and tablets,” said Pervasive Group CEO James Zhou.

MMGuardian contains built-in technology and intellectual property critical to building leadership in the growing mobile control space.  In particular, MMGuardian’s product contains built-in intellectual property claims surrounding incoming calls, silent mode, auto-replies, app accessibility, pre-defined call lists, information exchange between phones, and warning alerts, is significantly more battery efficient than competitor offerings – capable of running in the background for up to two days without depleting the child’s phone battery – and contains an uninstallation and tampering prevention engine built in to prevent children from altering the product post-installation.

This intellectual property and technology leadership has placed Pervasive Group and MMGuardian Parental Control at the forefront of the rapidly growing mobile parenting market.  By 2016, according to Pew Research, 95% of teens aged 12 and above in the United States and Europe will use smartphones, representing an international market of over 200 million parents and an annual opportunity exceeding $5 billion.

The Emerging Technology award is the culmination in a series of exciting recognition for MMGuardian Parental Control.  In January, MMGuardian launched commercially and was recognized at International CES as a Showstoppers Launch.it Finalist.  Between October and November, MMGuardian has also won awards from Ultra-Light Startups New York City, the New Jersey Entrepreneurship Network, and the New Jersey Venture Conference.

“We will continue to build on our intellectual property leadership in this space, providing parents a comprehensive parental control solution and earning leadership in this multi-billion dollar market,” Zhou said.

For more information on Pervasive Group and MMGuardian, contact paul.grossinger@mmguardian.com.

 

New Release of MMGuardian Includes Exciting New Features

Pervasive Group is excited to announce the new release of MMGuardian, version 1.3x, which includes several very important, exciting new features for parents.

In particular, parents now have new options for when the lock their child’s device with MMGuardian.  Specifically, parents may choose:

1. Whether or not to terminate an ongoing call when the lock is activated.

2. Whether or not to put phone into silent mode when the device is locked.

3. Whether or not to send an auto reply when the device is locked

4. Whether or not to allow certain apps to be accessible when the phone is locked.

5. Whether or not to allow child to call or text a pre-defined list (by the admin) of contacts

6. Whether or not to send location information in case of emergency.

6. The ability to detect user tampering when phone is locked, present a warning and alert the parent, and then lock down the phone to a minimum access level

Please try out these exciting new features when locking your child’s phone and we hope you enjoy using MMGuardian.

MMGuardian™ to Demo on Stage at CTIA 2013

By Paul Grossinger

The future of mobile parenting is here.

For anyone is Las Vegas May 20-24, it will be front and center when Pervasive Group Inc. presents MMGuardian on the Exhibit Innovations Stage in CTIA World.

MMGuardian is also a CTIA E-Tech Award Finalist in the Mobile category, so it is exciting to see mobile parental control get the attention it deserves from the wireless world even as it becomes an increasingly pressing issue for parents.

MMGuardian is one of the most comprehensive mobile parental control options available to parents. It offers a rare mix of phone access control (including instant location and phone lock and prescheduling), monitoring (for calls, texts, and applications), safe driving technology, and battery efficiency. Parents try it for free and can buy Premium for only $2.99/month or $24.99/year.

For more information MMGuardian and the upcoming CTIA presentation, email paul.grossinger@mmguardian.com.

MMGuardian is a CTIA E-Tech Awards Finalist

By Paul Grossinger

MMGuardian is excited to be a CTIA 2013 E-Tech Awards Finalist!

E-Tech is accepting votes now, so if you would like to vote for MMGuardian, visit the E-Tech Awards page. We hope to earn your vote.

The E-Tech Awards honor innovative new companies and products in their respective fields. MMGuardian was nominated in the mobile apps, utility, and public safety category, for providing a new, innovative form of mobile parental control to parents of android-owning children and teens.

Although being a Finalist is exciting, what is more exciting is the growing attention being paid to smartphone dangers – of which this is a small but important step. Parents now face a myriad of problems with their children’s smartphone use including texting while driving, cyber-bullying, overuse of the phone, misuse of the phone, and dangerous applications, and MMGuardian can be the solution to this growing set of problems.

 

MMGuardian Can Help New Public-Private Partnerships to Fight Texting While Driving

By Paul Grossinger

In a sign that governments and private individuals are beginning to recognize the threat posed by texting while driving, public-private partnerships are beginning to form to directly combat the threat.

This week, Ford and the Orlando Sentinel announced a partnership to provide teens in the Orlando area with new information to change attitudes on texting and driving. The new information will explain the deadly dangers of the practice and seek to reduce teen texting while driving over time.

The Ford effort comes on the heels of progress on new state legislation in Florida to ban texting and driving, a crucial step forward that may come to full fruition this year.

We are excited to announce that MMGuardian can help.

MMGuardian enables parents to directly prevent their teens from texting while driving. When enables, MMGuardian’s “Safe Driving” function turns off texting capability on the teens’ phone when they are in a moving vehicle, unless the parent has set a manual override to indicate the teen is not driving.

MMGuardian provides parents with the active control they need to balance the outreach and informational programs and state legislation coming into play. New information and state laws will help but they need to work in conjunction with an enforcement tool like MMGuardian to be as effective as possible.