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 it's 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.
I found them oddly endearing. Maybe because I didn't have one of my own and played with the ones other people had.
If I actually had one, I'd either have fallen on the "this is fucking creepy" side or "never leave me, Furby". No in between.
But they were always kind of the "Gremlins without exposure to water or food after midnight".
This being the timeline we're in, I'm not ruling out the possibility that this changes. That they become exposed to something and we get a Furby revolt. Gremlins becomes real. Chaos.
Gizmo 2024 - Infinity.
"Furby sad. Furby see Atlas Shrugged. Furby save America. Furby is John Galt."
Didn’t the terrifying Furby Connects of like 2016 have the ability to connect to internet-connected apps and would send OTA updates to the furby on a weekly basis? I think the furby itself was receive-only and wouldn’t send anything, but I might be wrong. I still think it’s fair to say that furby was at least semi-connected to the internet.
Technically Furby Connects is a subcategory of Furby, and I was talking about the main line, (and "Connect" is in the name, so that is still not trying to sneak it past consumers) but I could see the argument it is a little pedantic.
But saying THIS model has a camera and is connected to the internet explicitly goes against most of the advertising and most everyone is just wanting to act panicked about a basic toy. 😑
Oh! I actually thought the Furby Connect was another mainline furby, but I honestly didn't find it good looking, so I passed on it completely (I've been more of a tamagotchi person anyway). I think a lot of the "furbies are creepy" opinions are just rehashed fear from the lies that were spread about the first couple furbies. I wasn't allowed to have one when I was a kid because the people on tv said it was creepy because they might have cameras and would record children.
If my parents knew I have a stripped gen 2 furby with a single eyelash on my shelf looking like a skeleton, they'd definitely think it was creepy haha
I want the same toys but less loud and needy. 😭I loved Furby and tamagotchi too, but I wanted them to bring some of the stuff from those digimon pets they had way back in the 90s. Let me make tamagotchis fight!
Tangent here: Not sure if you've seen Owl House, but they show a tamagotchi-like device in the second season** where you can send little pictograph messages to your friends and WHAT I'D GIVE TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT. It reminded me a bit of Pictochat on the DS. But I know any device that was made would be pretty expensive since it would need wireless even if it wasn't internet-connected. So that means it'd have a high resolution screen to justify the price, which would make it more expensive, then thicker for bigger batteries. It just doesn't seem realistic or even something I'd want in the end with all the upgrades.
I do really miss little devices with low resolution displays. A lot of charm goes away for me when you don't have to use your imagination at all- same with furbies that speak in clear english. There's SO much room for expanding on the ideas of furbies and tamagotchis that hasn't been explored, but unfortunately, I'm not sure if that'll ever actually exist until a group of nerds get together and makes it happen. Being able to fight and collect things and have actual permanence in the game without babying the digital pet constantly would be amazing!
The furby doesn't need to connect to the internet directly, the app on your phone already will. I expect its permissions list to look as invasive as Play Services, or Facebook.
@grumbul, oh, I missed that subtlety... Maybe it wasn't even so subtle, but I was focused on the does not connect to the Internet to see the "or devices."
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