Every day, it seems, technology opens up a fertile new market that never existed before. Take online gamers. Certainly a diverse crew, weighted a bit towards the male, but representing a wide range of ages and interests. But three-year-olds? Just never occured to me. That's one of the many ways that I am not like Disney, which is launching a new $50-a-year subscription service for preschoolers.

Parents who download the program can customize it for use by as many as five children on their home computer. The service, Playhouse Disney Preschool Time Online, includes Web features such as the automatic delivery of learning games and a feature that tracks kids' progress, along with larger automatic downloads of games and animation.

It's an interesting concept. I guess that Disney, the epitome of safe, wholesome family fare, hopes to cash in on two somewhat contradictory trends: parents' desire to make sure their kids are ready for school and plugged in to the technologies that are becoming so important to how we work and play; and their justified fears of the kind of trouble that can find a kid out on the Wild Wild Web.