A Highly intellegent toy?
Cindy Smart, The smartest doll in the world. Should it be on sell or not? What do you think? it's kinda scary but interesting..and..I dunno.
Edit: the link's not working but here:
A Chatty Doll of a Different Kind
By REBECCA FAIRLEY RANEY
OS ANGELES -- In a room the size of a small classroom, under the gaze of Tweety Bird and Tekno the robotic puppy, Bob Del Principe engages his newest creation. The floor is littered with stuffed animals, and the walls are covered with role-play kits complete with swords, whistles and walkie-talkies.
But Mr. Del Principe's attention is fixed on a doll. She sits on the conference table in a denim jumper, with white-blond hair tied in a ribbon. The company that makes her, Manley Toy Quest, has named her Cindy Smart. She can hear. She can talk.
But above all, Cindy is the first doll that can see — a feat that Mr. Del Principe, a toy maker, describes as the holy grail of his craft.
He sits down at the table and opens the conversation.
"Cindy?" he says.
In a little peeping voice, she answers, "I'm here."
"Do you want to play school?" he asks.
"Yes!" she says.
He places a card with the word "dog" on the bulletin board in front of her.
"Can you read the word?" he asks.
"D-O-G," she says. "Dog."
"Very good," Mr. Del Principe says.
"That's because I have the best teacher in the world," she replies.
As the conversation continues, it is somewhat reassuring that Cindy is tethered to a circuit board. In fact, even with the circuit board in sight, talking about Cindy while she chatters away in the background is like talking about a small child while the child is present. Soon, the contents of the circuit board will be placed on a microchip, and Cindy will be free to read, talk, tell time and solve math problems without any visible sign of her electronics.
Adults who observe interactions with the doll often describe the experience as spooky.
"It's scary to people," said Tara Cortner, associate marketing manager for Manley Toy Quest. "They wonder what's going to happen with toys."
The company plans to start selling the doll in September for $99 on the Home Shopping Network, with a limited production of fewer than 10,000 dolls this year. For that price, buyers will receive the doll, a chair, a desk, a bulletin board and a CD that contains 33 lessons.
The doll's "vision" and her real-time conversation are made possible by improvements in voice recognition technology, a touch of artificial intelligence and a 16-bit microprocessor that the company created over the last year. The new chip processes information much faster than the 4-bit processors typically used in electronic toys. It stores a database of images, including words, letters, numbers, shapes, colors and the positions of hands on a clock.
A tiny camera hidden by a bee-shaped brooch on Cindy's jumper captures images from the bulletin board and matches them to those stored in the database. The doll is stocked with 700 words and can recognize 77 phrases. Cindy is programmed to pretend that she does not know some very simple words, like "cat," so that a child can teach them to her.
Manley Toy Quest, which is based in Hong Kong, has been making toys for 30 years. Its products include robotic pets, electronic hand-held games and stuffed animals that are sold at theme parks. A privately held company, it has about $300 million in sales a year.
The company's new doll has created a lot of excitement in the toy industry, said Jim Silver, publisher of The Toy Book, a trade magazine that covers the toy industry.
"It's never been done before," Mr. Silver said. "This is something that's entirely original."
Mr. Silver said that demand for technology in toys was growing. The challenge for Cindy Smart, he said, will be whether the market will support a doll in this price range.
"In the past, we have seen $70 dolls sell very well," he said. "This is a $100 doll. We're going into new territory with this one. But this is not your typical doll."
Mr. Del Principe, who is Manley Toy Quest's vice president for research and development, said that Cindy Smart could be a pacesetter, much like Chatty Cathy, the talking doll introduced by Mattel more than 40 years ago.
"Every doll after that had to talk," he said, adding that Cindy Smart could have the same effect. "In five or 10 years, toys will routinely have this technology."
By next year, he said, Cindy will be able to read Japanese, a notable addition to her current library of basic words in French, Spanish, German and Italian. And as processing power increases over time, Mr. Del Principe said, he anticipates creating dolls that can read sentences and recognize faces.
But for now, the toy maker delights in simple conversation.
"Cindy?" he says.
"I'm here," she answers.
"I love you," he says.
"I love you!" she replies.
Last edited by PinkHaired Mudokon CWR; 08-11-2002 at 01:09 PM..
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i just dont know why people would do that....i mean its a toy for crying out loud but its still kinda scary...it just goes to show how strong technology is today that they can create such a thing...sometimes i wonder if its good for us
woah that is creepy.....can you post the pic.....it reminds my of cucky from childs play its all
then it goes to
. perhaps the doll is not safe emotionally for childrent to play with...when they find out its a robotic doll....some might get all scared and emotionall.....creepy thought
heehee....i can just imagine that...people should go back to Barbies and tea parties.....forget this doll Cindy its evil and unatural
