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Developers start to dig the way of the NIMBY

So you drag the kiddos away from the TV, buckle them in the car where they can tune in to videos, only to arrive at the store where there's nothing for them to watch. Awkward!At last someone has addressed this video-input deficit by outfitting supermarket carts with TV screens.

Read the full article at Baltimoresun.com »

They're trying them out at the Safeway in the Long Gate Shopping Center in Ellicott City, as well as other Safeways and K-Marts around Baltimore. Cabco, the Chicago-area cart maker, hopes to be in 300 stores nationwide by the end of the year.

The Cabco TV Kart looks a lot like those regular kiddie car carts. But down where the pint-sized driver sits, there's a TV screen that plays Bob the Builder, Barney and Thomas the Tank Engine.

Up top where the cart-pusher can see, there's a second screen that plays ads and parenting messages. The ads, which are not played on the child's screen, are triggered by little infrared gizmos around the store, so the pitch for OxiClean pops up as you're in the cleaning products aisle.

"The whole idea is that maybe Mom gets a little bit of a break and the child is in a safe, comfortable environment," said Patrick Burke, a Cabco vice president.

He notes that the carts keep the kids lower to the ground than traditional carts, as is recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which keeps some alarming stats about cart-related head injuries.

Of course, the American Academy of Pediatrics also takes a dim view of TV for youngsters. (It recommends that children under 2 see none of it, and that for older kids, all screen time - computers, TV, videos - be limited to less than two hours a day.) What do they think of the TV carts?

"That is unbelievable," said Dr. Vic Strasburger, a professor of pediatrics at the University of New Mexico who is on the academy's Council on Communications and Media. (If those credentials don't do it for you, he's a City College grad, Class of '67.)

"This is out of control," he said. "There's no reason to interrupt cartoon viewing by going to a supermarket. Let's have a strap-on video recorder that can be attached to their heads and they can watch TV and videos all the time."

Burke said he's heard that criticism and respects it. But the biggest complaint he gets is from parents, who wish they could rejigger the programming on their screens.

"I was just at a trade show," Burke said. "The number of guys who came up to me and said, 'Can I put on ESPN?' - it must have been 10."