Over on our bot-obsessed sister site BotJunkie, Evan Ackerman seems pretty happy to have discovered that BeatBots, makers of the original $30,000 Keepon, are teaming up with the UK’s Wow! Stuff to finally produce a toy version called the ‘My Keepon.’ But what’s easily the most exciting part is that this version is going to sell for just £29.99, or about $40. So you won’t need to mortgage your house to buy one.
And while Wow! Stuff might be UK-based, they’ve already got a major US retailer lined up (who will be officially announced on February 14) so the My Keepon will be available internationally when it officially goes on sale. Now how closely the My Keepon will resemble and act like the Keepon Pro remains to be seen given the massive price discrepancy between the two, but Evan spoke to Dr. Michalowski about the toy, and was assured that they’re working hard to accurately reproduce the core functionality and look that has made the original Keepon so popular.
And if you’ve never seen Keepon in action before, I’ve included Evan’s interview with them at CES a couple of years ago which gives a good idea of what it can do, and how it came to be.
Some people keep a solved Rubik’s Cube on their desks as nothing more than a decoration, and seem to get really, really angry if you completely mess it up while they’ve stepped out for lunch. (It was no reason to bust my favorite pencil in retaliation!) But imagine how upset they’d be if they had dropped $1,950 on this Rubik’s Cube from Dunhill which is covered in squares of dyed shagreen leather. (Which comes from sharks and rays these days.)
The cube itself is a “genuine competition standard Rubik’s cube” which basically means it’s your regular old plastic model, so there’s nothing special on the inside. But the individual squares of leather have been polished to a smooth finish which is apparently easier on the hands while solving the cube. A nice touch for sure, but I doubt anyone who spends almost 2 grand on a Rubik’s Cube is going to spend much time playing with it.
Google is getting to release the second generation of its popular Android toy robot line. The first series was designed solely by Andrew Bell, but this time around the 3” vinyl robots will don the designs of three designers. Andrew Bell is back but we also have designs from Gary Ham and Google themselves.
The rarity of each figure is decided by their ratio and the ratios for the known designs so far are: Hexcode by Andrew Bell: 2/16, Cupcake by Gary Ham: 1/16, and Greeneon by Google, Inc.: 2/16.
Expect more of the suspected twelve designs to be revealed as we near the release date of early March. The series will be blind-boxed once again, meaning purchasers of the tiny guy won’t know which design they will receive until its opened. Just like opening up a pack of trading cards.
The new series will be arriving in stores and online at Dead Zerba in early March at will retail for $7.50 just like last time. Get ready to collect all of the little guys. What design would you like to see?
Listen, I’m not saying this ride-in Dalek toy isn’t amazingly cool, I just don’t think it’s targeted at the right demographic. Dr. Who has never really been a Saturday morning or after-school type TV series, and I feel that 99% of the kids out there today will have no clue what a Dalek is. I mean I didn’t even know how to pronounce it correctly until I watched this promotional video of kids who are unrealistically excited to ride around in these.
Available in 5 colors, each Dalek stands ~50 inches tall, features 360 degree steering, 10 Dalek sounds and sayings, lights and is powered by an included 6V rechargeable battery. The not so cool parts? They’ll set you back ~$317!!(£199.99) AND are only recommended for kids aged 3-6. Lame!
The folks over at Pocket-lint have been doing a great job covering the Toy Fair going on across the pond, digging up quite a bit of stuff that wasn’t shown at CES. Like this recognizable accessory which adds a bit more credence to the iPhone as a gaming platform. I mean what self-respecting console doesn’t have some kind of gun accessory right?
From the same people responsible for the iPhone RC car/heli remote from a couple of days ago, this AppToyz accessory works with an accompanying augmented reality app that has you blasting aliens in your actual environment. And to keep the price down to under ~$30 (£20) instead of interfacing with the iPhone’s dock connector, the App Gun simply uses a touch-friendly lever to tap the screen whenever you pull the trigger.
So it’s not really accurate to say that like Scrabble, Simon is the lastest Hasbro game to get the electronic treatment because Simon was actually one of the first electronic games on the market back in the 80’s. But this updated version called Simon Flash certainly expands what the original Simon was capable of. Not to mention making it far more portable.
Simon Flash is composed of 4 blocks that light up red, blue, yellow and green, and in addition to letting you play a traditional game of Simon where you repeat an ever expanding sequence of colors, the cubes include other game variants too. Like the classic peg-based game Mastermind, for example, where you work to figure out a secret color combination in a set number of moves. There’s no word on when Simon Flash might be available, but your safe bets are sometime in the Summer or just in time for the Christmas holidays.
While devices like Sphero or Parrot’s AR.Drone that use the iPhone or iPod Touch as a remote control usually just rely on the device’s built-in wifi or Bluetooth, these AppToyz, from a UK-based company called MediaSauce, use a cheap add-on dongle to communicate over RF I assume.
And instead of interfacing with the dock connector on the bottom of the iPhone or iPod Touch, the AppToyz dongle plugs into the headphone jack which seems to be standard procedure for third-party remote control hardware like this. As a result, when available sometime this year, they’ll be a bit more affordable than something like the AR.Drone with an RC helicopter selling for ~$80 (£50) and an RC car that’s a bit cheaper at ~$47 (£30).
I went skiing once as a kid and it was fun, but I remember it being very tiring. If you like to ski cross-country or downhill, but want to take some of the work out of it Skizee is a new gadget that looks really cool. The Skizee is like a snowmobile with a tread only.
The tank tread can get grip in snow and works when there is no snow on the ground as well. The user controls the device with a pair of handles that they hold and the motorized Skizee pushed them around. Steering is done by leaning just as you would steer normal skis.
The Skizee is made to be transportable in the trunk of an average car and power comes from a 10.5hp 4-stroke engine. It has electric start and power is controlled with a trigger on the right handle. The thing even has a power core that runs off the motor to generate electricity for cameras and other gadgets. Pricing is unknown right now, but the company will be taking orders soon.
We’ve already expressed our excitement for Sphero, the smartphone controlled robotic ball, but at this point no one knows when we’ll actually be able to get our hands on one. And if you’re like us, and aren’t so great with the concept of waiting patiently, the Tama-Robo could be a half-decent alternative, if only because it’s available now.
It comes in a kit meaning there’s a bit of assembly required, but your $70 from the Japan Trend Shop, and a bit of hands-on labor, gets you a robot toy in a plastic sphere that’s able to autonomously follow a light source thanks to four sensors you’re probably not going to want to forget while putting it together. Tama-Robo doesn’t seem to be as refined as Sphero though. As you can see in the video included below it spends a lot of time just wobbling around while trying to follow the light, but like I already said it has the distinct advantage of being available right now, so we’re going to cut it a little slack.
Android has become a big enough platform that they’ve got an official toy line. When you’ve got a toy line and an OS under the same brand, you know what you do? You send those toys into outer space with a Nexus S. Then since the brand is a global brand, you make an Asia exclusive Chinese New Year toy and you extend the power of your brand by an exponential amount.
Our good pals at Android Community got their claws on one of those Asia-only toys and they’ve done a fabulous review of it. Not only is this toy super high quality and nicely printed, it’s super cute as well. A cardboard box with gloss print ink, two pieces of thin plastic casing, and six points of articulation later, you’ve got yourself a lovely little desk warmer.
