Hasbro announced that the fluffy and chatty animatronic children’s toy will return to stores next month.

Not quite your traditional gaming, but with 600 responses to user actions at least as complex as some interactive computer games I’ve played.

[Image description: two new Furbies]

  • flicker@kbin.social
    0·
    2 years ago

    The comments here prove we still don’t read the article. The new Furby is putting front and center “Does not connect to the internet.”

    • Neato@kbin.social
      0·
      2 years ago

      Where are you seeing that? I don’t see anything mentioned either way about internet connectivity in TheHill article nor the hasbro announcement.

    • chinpokomon@beehaw.org
      0·
      2 years ago

      The previous model connected via Bluetooth to a phone. I’m assuming the same with this one. No wifi, and therfore no “Internet” connection.

      • grumbul@beehaw.org
        0·
        2 years ago

        The Amazon listing mentions “does not connect to the internet or to any devices” so it might actually not have any sort of connectivity.

    • Onihikage@beehaw.org
      0·
      2 years ago

      The furby doesn’t need to connect to the internet directly, the app on your phone already will. I expect its permissions list to look as invasive as Play Services, or Facebook.

  • comicallycluttered@beehaw.org
    0·
    2 years ago

    I found them oddly endearing. Maybe because I didn’t have one of my own and played with the ones other people had.

    If I actually had one, I’d either have fallen on the “this is fucking creepy” side or “never leave me, Furby”. No in between.

    But they were always kind of the “Gremlins without exposure to water or food after midnight”.

    This being the timeline we’re in, I’m not ruling out the possibility that this changes. That they become exposed to something and we get a Furby revolt. Gremlins becomes real. Chaos.

    Gizmo 2024 - Infinity.

    “Furby sad. Furby see Atlas Shrugged. Furby save America. Furby is John Galt.”

  • Wigglet@beehaw.org
    0·
    2 years ago

    “Through this research, kids told us that it was important for Furby to be their ultimate best friend – a furry companion to do all the things a BFF would do, like dance to music, share fortunes, meditate, mimic each other in silly voices, and even put on a light show, and that’s exactly what we created.”

    I love picturing small children setting up elaborate light shows for their best friends

    • oomphaloompha@beehaw.org
      0·
      2 years ago

      kids told us that it was important for Furby to…

      …meditate…

      Ok I’m aware that traditions are different in different parts of the world and such, but now I’m picturing that times have changed so much kids are meditating and it’s an important thing to them. I mean I started kind of out of the blue as a kid without outside influence as a pasty white European dude, but I got made fun of for it when people found out.

      Kind of really cool if kids are meditating these days.

  • victron@kbin.social
    0·
    2 years ago

    Didn’t know those were discontinued to begin with, I got one for my daughter like 5 years ago, for Christmas. It used a mobile app or some shit.

  • mobyduck648@beehaw.org
    0·
    2 years ago

    The original '90s furby is unironically a fantastic platform for a hardware hacker, because they were so cheaply made the whole thing runs off a single motor and a clever arrangement of cams. It would be reasonably straightfoward to pull out the ‘guts’, fit a motor controller and a Raspberry Pi Zero, put a camera where the IR and light sensors go, put a better mic and camera in, then hook the bastard up to GPT-4! There’s a cam position sensor too so you could modulate its speech cycle by counting the syllables in the GPT output as well as move its ears, eyes etc.

    Other improvements could include high brightness RGB LEDs behind the eyes to indicate mood, an ultrasonic sensor with a second motor so the furby can turn around and make eye contact with people entering a room, and using one of the pi’s GPIO pins and a suitable piece of wire as an FM radio transmitter (use a low pass filter because doing that shits out harmonics quite badly) to hijack nearby radios.

  • Onii-Chan@kbin.social
    0·
    2 years ago

    These are actually pretty cute, but again with the fucking app and online connection. I’d never have one of these in my house, let alone give one to my kids to play with unless I’ve disabled any network connectivity (but the simplest solution would be to just not buy one.)

    • flicker@kbin.social
      0·
      2 years ago

      @Onii-Chan@kbin.social

      I think you misread the post friend. The app says that they introduced that garbage 10 years ago, but in a misleading move, they didn’t clarify that this new iteration of Furby does not have either.

      It’s a super dishonest way of writing. I hope this helped!