"Are you ready to visit all our friends in the Hundred Acre Wood?" the plush toy asked me in its eerily accurate Pooh Bear voice.
I was ready, but I found that the Hundred Acre Wood isn't what it used to be. It's gone high-tech this holiday season, featuring conversations and games between the stuffed Pooh Bear in my lap and the Tigger on my computer screen.Many other kid toys also are in the loosely defined "techno-gadgets" category. There's the radio-controlled R.A.D. robot that tells me what it's doing, and which sounds a little like Will Robinson's robot on the old "Lost in Space" TV show. And there's the Barbie Photo Designer digital camera, which takes snapshots instantly without the need for film.
Toy manufacturers have turned out more than 50 such techno toys this holiday season, prompted by the ever-declining price of technology and the fear that today's sophisticated kids are prematurely giving up conventional toys for video games.
"The problem the toy industry faces is age compression. Children are becoming more mature at a faster rate, and the time they spend with Barbie and Lego blocks is shrinking," said Sean Kaldor of International Data Corp., a research firm in Framingham, Mass.
"Using technology lets toy manufacturers hold onto those kids for a little bit longer. Toys that move or act are a lot hotter than just stuffed dolls, and things that interact are an order of magnitude more interesting," Kaldor said. "It doesn't mean that Beanie Babies are doomed, but that technology toys are a strong category."
One result has been the increasing number of plush toys that, under their fur, are really robots.
"It started about a year ago with the Tamaguchi, an electronic pet you could control and nurture (inside a tiny video game.) So the toy manufacturers figured, 'Why not put it in bigger stuffed animals, and control the mouth and eyelid movement?' Tickle Me Elmo was the infancy of this. Now you've got Furby, Interactive Pooh and Barney," Kaldor said.
Despite the high-tech nature of these toys, they are relatively easy to set up and use, even for consumers with minimal technical understanding. The directions that come with them are self-explanatory: Put in batteries here, plug the gadget into your computer there, put the CD-ROM in the computer.
Smile for the Camera
A technical marvel at a low price, the Barbie Photo Designer Digital Camera allows a child (or an interested adult) to take electronic photos without film. Up to six images can be stored in the camera before you have to upload them through a cord that connects to your personal computer. Using Barbie software, children can make electronic "scrapbooks" with their photos, or put their own pictures into scenes with Barbie.
But the camera is useful beyond its status as a Barbie accessory. With minimal technical sophistication and some off-the-shelf software, you can print out those photos or attach them to e-mail to send to your friends. The downside to the camera is the images are grainy and far below the quality of conventional film. Still, a filmless camera for a child can save a lot of money on film processing.
Experts say the declining price of electronics has made digital cameras feasible for kids. Top-quality adult-level digital cameras cost $400 or more and use the latest, most expensive digital technology to produce sharp images. But for kids, toy manufacturers tend to use older, cheaper technology.
Pooh comes to life
My Interactive Pooh is nothing short of amazing -- a cartoon come to life.
Children will love the fact that Pooh can be personalized to speak their names. And adults will be charmed to find that Pooh's voice is absolutely faithful to the Disney film. Pooh's electromechanical innards do make some noise when he talks and gestures, but it's a small flaw in the illusion.
His kit includes the bear plush toy, a connector to link him to your personal computer and CD-ROM software that downloads conversation to the bear. He says the most when plugged into the computer, but he also works without a computer connection.
Besides playing out adventures and games on the computer, he's capable of situation-specific words and songs aimed at bedtime, play groups, birthdays, car trips and one-on-one play. Children also can help Pooh create a story by choosing characters and story elements. Then, after the completed story has been downloaded to the bear, a child can replay the story by pressing one of Pooh's hands.
But don't leave Pooh on overnight, because he likes batteries even more than he likes honey. It takes three C batteries to keep him talking, and that can get expensive.
Cooler than a cell phone
The Philips Myna Pager ($50), like its namesake bird, is a pager that you can program to play melodies of your own choosing each time you receive a page.
This isn't exactly a toy, but it isn't very serious, either. And pagers have been embraced by teenagers as a cooler item to carry than a cell phone.
Programming the pager is simple. By calling a toll-free number and tapping in a series of numbers on your phone's touch pad, you send yourself a message consisting of a melody. (This is the same technique you'd use to send a telephone number message to a pager.)
In a couple of minutes the pager will go off, and you'll have the choice of making the new melody the one that plays each time you receive a page in the future. You can store several melodies and periodically change which one you hear.
The pager comes with 14 pre-programmed melodies, including "Beethoven's Ninth," "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and "Satisfaction." You also can create your own melodies, using the telephone touch pad.
More from Game Boy
The Game Boy Camera and printer was a terrific idea that lost something by the final product. It's a superior digital camera with a low-quality output system.
The camera is a slick little device that comes with its own games, and slides into the game slot on the back of a hand-held Game Boy video game player. It captures detailed snapshots, which the player can then view on the screen, incorporate into a couple of video games or print.
But the printer is very low-quality, and generates tiny, gray images that often are further flawed by small lines through the picture caused by the electronics. A finished picture was about twice the size of my thumbnail.
The camera is quite adjustable. If you want to take a picture of something wider than the camera can accommodate, it can be set to take a panoramic picture in four sections, then assemble them for printing. It also has an automatic time-lapse setting that allows you to take a series of pictures which you can then display as a slide show. You also can alter photos by drawing on them or adding other images.
Monster fighting
A popular new game for Game Boy hand-held computer game units, Pokemon ($30) is built around finding, capturing, collecting and trading what are called "Pocket Monsters." This game first appeared more than two years ago in Japan. Players try to become the World's Greatest Pokemon Trainer by searching for, raising and battling with 150 monsters hidden throughout the game. To win, a player must collect all 150 monsters, which can take weeks or months. There are two game versions, Red and Blue, and to win players must have access to both versions.
Experts say the game is different from other Nintendo games because it encourages cooperation between players rather than solo play. Two players can link their game units together with a special cable to interact, negotiate trades, collect new monsters and compete in a virtual beast battle.
Pokemon is now a $4 billion industry in Japan, based on game sales, comic books, feature films and a TV show. The TV show made worldwide news last December when an intensely flashing special-effects sequence induced convulsions and nausea in more than 700 viewers.
Nintendo, which makes Game Boy, expects to sell 1 million to 1.5 million of the games in the United States by Christmas.
Gas up and go
To make car race games on your computer seem more real, replace your keyboard with a Sprint Racing Wheel (Car racing game not included).
The steering wheel, complete with gear shift and reverse buttons, clamps on to your computer table directly in front of the monitor. A cord attaches the wheel to a floor unit that has gas and brake pedals. The whole thing plugs into the game port of your computer.
The Sprint wheel is designed to be used with car racing computer games made by other companies. So, to use this product, you'll have to spend an additional $40 to buy a good car racing game.
I tried it out with "NASCAR Racing 2" and found that at high speeds it's easy to oversteer. That meant that several times I hit the wall along the outer edge of the Phoenix International Raceway, struck other cars or spun around out of control -- all minor inconveniences in computer racing. But I soon mastered the wheel, and learned to hug the inside of the banked racetrack, or "stay low" in racetrack lingo. It was definitely a good driving experience.
Radical robot
The R.A.D. Robot ($100; charger and battery sold separately, $25) is a toy for a generation raised on imaginary robots. An unofficial poll of four children found him to be the coolest tech toy of all.
He is part radio-controlled car, part missile launcher and part mechanical man. Standing less than knee-high on an adult, he moves about easily on tank-like treads, following instructions from a hand-held radio controller.
R.A.D. closes his arms, picks up objects, fires missiles and climbs obstacles. He also can lean forward and backward to keep his balance. You can use him outside, but stay out of sand or water.
R.A.D. speaks aloud when you switch him on, doing a "system check" in a voice that would make any movie robot proud. He also will say "Alert, Alert" if something is blocking his path or the going gets too steep.
R.A.D. can use your voice, as well -- you can broadcast from the remote control unit to a speaker inside the robot.
Interactive workbench
The Tonka WorkShop CD-ROM Playset is an engaging interactive tool workbench for youngsters ages 3 and older. It allows them to work along with an animated character on the computer screen.
Except for the CD-ROM, there's very little that's high-tech in this product, and that's its beauty. It overlays the keyboard and merely pushes the appropriate keyboard button when a particular tool is used.
When a child operates one of the tools on the workbench -- a drill, sprayer, hammer, screwdriver, saw or sander -- things begin to happen on the screen. A block of wood is sawed, or a steel block is turned into a swing set. In deference to the age of the users, it makes no difference whether the right tool is used; the job gets done anyway.
Kids can choose to work on a construction project in a barn, cellar or storage shed, or they can use a pickup truck to travel to another work site. Tonka Joe, a friendly worker, guides them through the process, and can be summoned by pushing a "Joe" button on the workbench.
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service