The annual New York Toy Fair gives retailers a sneak peak at what are sure to be the hottest toys for the upcoming year. Following our visit to the London Toy Fair in January, we decided to stop by the New York Toy Fair this month to check out some of the newest tech toys. Here are a few of our favorites.
One of the absolute coolest toys we saw at this year’s New York Toy Fair, Jurassic World Kamigami Robots allows you to build your own custom robot in one of two different colors. Once you’ve built your robot, you can connect it to the Kamigami Jurassic World mobile app to customize its movements and even allow it to interact with other robots.
Mattel’s newest Kamigami robots come in at $60, and you should expect to see them on store shelves shortly before the release of Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom in June.
Although the Star Wars Droid Inventor Kit is marketed toward younger children, it was one of our absolute favorites at this year’s New York Toy Fair. Winner of 2018 Toy of the Year award for best creative toy, the Star Wars Droid Inventor Kit allows you to build your very own R2-D2 and take him on one of sixteen different missions.
The Droid Inventor Kit rolls in at $100 and is now available Buy Now and in stores.
If you’re looking for a retro gaming experience, Arcade1Up’s collection of game cabinets may be the perfect fit. The company has created five custom cabinets, each containing three to five games. Game selection includes, Street Fighter II, Atari’s Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, among othes.
Compared to other game cabinets, Arcade1Up’s selection is a steal at $400, but you’ll probably want to add a riser to the mix, since they’re a little on the short side at four feet tall. Expect to see the full collection of gaming cabinets on sale in the fall.
While the Jurassic World Pterano Drone is marketed toward children 8 and up, adults will certainly love it as well. A kid-friendly spin on the classic quadcopter, the Jurassic World Pterano Drone operates via a durable remote and features mesmerizing wings.
Jurassic World Pterano Drones will fly into stores this spring. The drone will set you back $120, but it’s definitely worth the price.
Although the Dropmix Music Mixing Gamei is not technically new, it remains one of our favorite toys for children and adults in 2018. Dropmix teaches you the basics of music composition with color-coded cards that allow you to create your very own mix. And if you want to add friends into the mix, Drop mix has an awesome game component for up to four players.
Dropmix is available now online and in stores. The gaming system starts at $100, while Playlist Packs come in at $15 and are updated throughout the year.
San Francisco startup Dimensional advertised for people to walk robot dogs through city streets. The New York Times reported that the job could include carrying a roughly 33-pound robot back to the office if it overheated. A lift home is an awkward requirement for a labor-saving machine.
Keeping the hardware running is only one challenge. Anthropic's robotics tests found that language models mostly failed when controlling joints directly, but did better when directing trained controllers. Giving an AI agent a body doesn't teach it to handle ordinary household objects.
Soon, a mattress protector may be more than a bed cover. Australian medtech company Sleeptite and researchers at RMIT University have received a US patent for FlexiSense, a smart bedding technology that tracks body position and posture to help caregivers identify when older residents may be at risk of falling.
The technology is being developed for Sleeptite’s in-bed monitoring system, REMi, and was recently on display at The MedTech Conference in Boston. A peer-reviewed study in Flexible and Printed Electronics says the sensors can also be made at scale without sacrificing performance or durability.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.