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.)
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!
Didn't the FBI ban Furbies from their offices, because they recorded conversations? I have to admit, the nostalgic part of my brain kind of digs this, but I'm not super into the idea that it could be used for spying, especially since it sounds like these will connect to your phone.
I always wanted a furby and maybe now that I'm a grown adult I'll finally get one lol. Although any time I see a furby now I'm reminded of this scene from Mitchell's vs the Machines.
I like those projects where people have attached a raspberry pi to the old furbies to turn them into cool things, I wonder if that will be possible with these new ones?
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.
“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
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.
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