After Nest contacted its customers earlier this month urging them to better secure their accounts, it appears the company is now taking the reins.
Some of the LEGO playsets are actually pretty advanced as far as toys for kids are concerned. However it seems that the company is looking to make their sets even more hi-tech by introducing augmented reality to them where with its Hidden Side sets, they will be allowing players to “catch” ghosts using AR.
According to LEGO, “LEGO Hidden Side includes a series of eight ‘haunted’ building sets full of awesome functionality and secret surprises that, on their own, provide the build and roleplay fun of any LEGO play theme. Activating the bespoke AR app developed together with the theme brings the models to life, revealing a hidden world of interactive mysteries and challenges to solve.”
Tom Donaldson, senior vice president, Creative Play Lab at the LEGO Group adds, “At our core we focus on tactile building, but AR presents opportunities to enhance physical LEGO play with new action and mastery elements. We’re breaking the mold of gaming-first AR play experiences to create a new type of play where the physical world actually influences the AR layer, instead of the other way around.”
It actually sounds like a pretty fun way to experience LEGO, especially in this day and age where kids might be more interested in playing on their phones than with actual physical toys, this could be a good way to keep the current-generation of children interested in LEGO.
LEGO Playsets Get Hi-Tech With Augmented Reality
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The rapper said the 2017 Fyre Festival was the “most iconic festival that never was.”
Apple has just bought up the talent it needs to make talking toys a part of Siri, HomePod, and its voice strategy. Apple has reportedly acquired PullString, also known as ToyTalk, according to Axios’ Dan Primack and Ina Fried. The company makes voice experience design tools, artificial intelligence to power those experiences, and toys like talking Barbie and Thomas The Tank Engine toys in partnership with Mattel. Founded in 2011 by former Pixar executives, PullString went on to raise $44 million.
Apple’s Siri is seen as lagging far behind Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, not only in voice recognition and utility, but also in terms of developer ecosystem. Google and Amazon has built platforms to distribute Skills from tons of voice app makers, including storytelling, quizzes, and other games for kids. If Apple wants to take a real shot at becoming the center of your connected living room with Siri and HomePod, it will need to play nice with the children who spend their time there. Buying PullString could jumpstart Apple’s in-house catalog of speech-activated toys for kids as well as beef up its tools for voice developers.
PullString did catch some flack for being a “child surveillance device” back in 2015, but countered by detailing the security built intoHello Barbie product and saying it’d never been hacked to steal childrens’ voice recordings or other sensitive info. Privacy norms have changed since with so many people readily buying always-listening Echos and Google Homes.
In 2016 it rebranded as PullString with a focus on developers tools that allow for visually mapping out conversations and publishing finished products to the Google and Amazon platforms. Given SiriKit’s complexity and lack of features, PullString’s Converse platform could pave the way for a lot more developers to jump into building voice products for Apple’s devices.
We’ve reached out to Apple and PullString for more details about whether PullString and ToyTalk’s products will remain available.
The startup raised its cash from investors including Khosla Ventures, CRV, Greylock, First Round, and True Ventures, with a Series D in 2016 as its last raise that PitchBook says valued the startup at $160 million. While the voicetech space has since exploded, it can still be difficult for voice experience developers to earn money without accompanying physical products, and many enterprises still aren’t sure what to build with tools like those offered by PullString. That might have led the startup to see a brighter future with Apple, strengthening one of the most ubiquitous though also most detested voice assistants.
Google Voice users on iOS have a new privacy feature and it’ll be arriving soon on Android, too. Called Anonymous Caller ID, the new setting gives users the option to hide their caller ID on all outgoing calls, eliminating the need to manually block caller ID with each phone call. The new option joins the recent VoIP call support and … Continue reading
Hasbro has introduced the latest evolution in toy lightsabers with its new Star Wars Lightsaber Academy. The system involves an extendable toy lightsaber that works with a mobile app to help kids develop their Jedi skills. Hasbro is also offering a basic version of its new toy lightsabers that doesn’t include Bluetooth, as well as a version of the lightsaber … Continue reading
As we remember the now-officially-dead Opportunity rover this week, one fact keeps sticking out to me: That machine traveled a whopping 28 miles across the surface of another planet. And it did so in short, nerve-wracking spurts. Spread over the course of 14 years, 28 miles may not sound like that much, but consider…
That drug companies have fueled the opioid crisis by flooding the market with deceptively advertised, highly addictive painkillers is no secret. But the antics of Insys Therapeutics, now being revealed in an ongoing federal court battle, seem especially evil. Well, evil and incredibly, supremely ridiculous.
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