The children's e-mail program - which is being launched on Friday in cooperation with Norway's leading internet service provider (ISP) Telenor - is part of Magic Desktop, a package that includes another ten programs. Three years later he has come up with Magic Mail. Mr Jolstad realised something had to be done and set to work. The children tried his laptop, but using conventional e-mail programs was of course difficult, while accessing inappropriate websites or deleting daddy's work files proved easy. Three years ago, Mr Jolstad and his three and four-year-old sons were living in Spain, far away from their Norwegian grandparents.

When sending or receiving e-mails, the children use Magic Mail's clickable pictures and icons rather than text. Only authorised content can pass through the shell, so parents can draw up 'white lists' of e-mail addresses with which their children can communicate, and of websites they can access, he told BBC News Online. The man behind the software, Easybits program developer and partner Lars Jolstad, describes it as a 'protective shell' that is placed over Microsoft Windows. The idea is to protect them from sex and drugs spam and other unsavoury aspects of the internet, while at the same time give them access to the web's more useful and entertaining sides. The software is described by its developer as a 'children's own operating system' and is aimed at two- to 12-year-olds.

Even very young children can use the programĬhildren as young as two are the target audience of a new software that will enable toddlers to both surf and send e-mails safely without help from their parents.

Easybits software