A Middle Eastern company has developed a unique featured headset for children gamers who spend most of their time playing online games. The newly designed headset aims to protect children from falling prey to online predators who abuse them through unethical demands and forcing for abusive activities.
During the days of the pandemic, the demand for online games surged and most youngsters especially in the middle east countries spend their time online, a search found the results.
The research also shared the facts that an increase in the cases where the youngster are falling prey to the trickster alluring the fresh blood to share their nude and explicit photos and videos in exchange for game currency.
The Internet Watch Foundation, a UK-based Charity organization has recorded more than 15000 cases of online child abuse and unethical activities in the month of September. While another British campaign organization recorded 1220 online abusive cases in the first 3 months of the lockdown.
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By finding the above facts, Mobily eSport in collaboration with an advertising agency MullenLowe MENA has created a new headphone named as ProtectSet headset. The device is equipped with voice-changing technology to help the children keep themselves safe while going online and playing games.
The device masks their actual age by making the sound heavier and thick. “The technology used makes the kid’s voice sound more mature by altering their pitch. We ran a series of tests to ensure that it sounded natural and not robotic. And this is what makes our device singular and well-rounded,” Matt Butterworth, managing director for the Middle East and North Africa, and Muhannad Kadi, general manager at Mobily said in a joint statement.
“More than 93 percent of kids play video games. We are 100 percent aware that the device, alone, does not end the issue. But it has the power to make people debate the issue and bring the subject of gaming safety into news stations, homes, workplaces, and so forth.”, they added.
“We did extensive research, testing, and audio calibration with the headset, on both girls and boys, to make sure the sound quality and output were really perfect,” they explained.
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The headset is compatible with all available gaming consoles and gadgets currently available in the market. Currently, the headset is in the prototype stage and expected to hit the market in the next 7-9 months. It is passing through the different tests and trials by professionals, gamers, and children.
A survey asked parents about their children’s presence on the internet and online games have the following results.
- 84 percent of parents are concerned that strangers will approach their child via online gaming platforms
- More than 74 percent of parents are worried about their child’s online safety
- Almost half of the parents (46 percent) said they did not know who their child was playing with online.
- More than 67 percent of parents wanted the gaming industry to do more to protect their children’s online safety.
- On average, parents thought their child would talk to a stranger online while gaming at least three times a week.
- 45 percent of parents predicted that their child spent up to 10 hours or more online gaming each week.