Furby Boom
© 2013 Hasbro, Inc.
Furby Boom looks and acts a lot like last year's Furby, with the exception of some notched ears, cloth feet and your choice of six zany fur patterns. He (she?) is still is powered by four AA batteries, and can still drive adults from any room. The 2013 edition of Furby (the second of the next generation) has a few noteworthy features. For the first time, you can turn in it off (or put it to sleep) by holding it's tail. Also, if you have the free Furby app, your Furby toy can can have babies, that you can collect and care for. The app will run on either iPhones, iPads or Android devices. To put your Furby to sleep, you pull his tail for a few seconds -- Furby yawns and goes to sleep. To lay an egg, you start the Furby app, and put your Furby within earshot of your tablet. The tablet and Furby communicate with each other using audio watermarking technology -- ultrasonic encoded "chirps" that Furby can send or receive. You can collect up to 50 eggs on your app, which encourages you to charge out to your toy store to buy another Furby.
$65, Smart Toy, Android, iPad, iPhone
Teaches: fun with language, memory, logic