Toy Fair Resembles CES for Kids

 

By Alexander Gelfand

Wired

February 9, 2007

NEW YORK -- If you suspect that kids today are growing up too fast, next week's American International Toy Fair at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center may be all the proof you need.

In keeping with the general trend toward "age compression" or KGOY (industry shorthand for "kids getting older younger"), toy manufacturers will be introducing a host of adult technologies aimed at small children -- including kid-friendly laptops, graphics tablets, digital cameras and a host of other high-tech items.

Consumer electronics for kids is the fastest growing trend in the $22 billion toy industry. With children becoming ever more tech savvy at ever-younger ages, toymakers are scrambling to capitalize on the rapidly growing market for youth electronics.

"We've been seeing kids are getting comfortable at a scary age," says Richard Vincent, CEO and creative director of Kutoka Interactive, which will be introducing a line of colorful optical mice designed just for tots.

Vincent initially thought toddlers wouldn't have the motor skills to manipulate adult peripherals, but that hasn't been a problem.

"We've seen 2-year-olds doing very well, and it's unnerving," he says.

Along with its optical mice, Kutoka will also have a line of digital cameras and graphics tablets produced by French toy giant Smoby and aimed specifically at children. Each device will come bundled with its own software, custom-tailored to young users.

The $55 Technokids Graphic Tablet, for example, features Click & Create With Mia -- a kind of Photoshop for tots that teaches kids to draw, paint and animate shapes on screen, and allows them to create posters, invitations and birthday cards.

"You have a lot of the concepts behind Photoshop, but it's also a project program," says Vincent.

Similarly, the software that comes with Smoby's digital cameras allows children to morph, label and organize their images, then e-mail them to their friends.

Mice and cameras are just the beginning.

Concept Enterprises will be introducing a SmartKids laptop for children aged 3 to 6 that features a piano keyboard and bilingual programs in Spanish and English.

Jazwares will be showing off its Marvel Ani-Movie Studio, which allows kids to create digital stop-motion films starring Marvel Comics characters.

And there will be the inevitable iPod accessories, including Pressman Toy's iGamez, which allows kids to play a digital version of Name That Tune.

Age compression is one factor driving this phenomenon; the other is the declining cost of electronic components.

"Now that the cost of this technology has fallen, we can put an electronic tablet in front of a preschooler," says Kevin Curran, managing director of Fisher-Price. "Our children have been exposed to more technology, but if it wasn't affordable, it wouldn't make its way into the marketplace."

Fisher-Price will be unveiling its own graphics tablet and software package, the $50 Digital Arts and Crafts Studio.

Inexpensive devices that can serve double duty as children's toys and adult tools are especially appealing to parents. Smoby's graphics tablet, for example, works just fine with Photoshop.

"So mom or dad's going to say, 'Cool, I'm going to buy the graphics tablet because I can use it, too,'" Vincent says. And if the software is rich enough, the toys have the potential to become "lapware" that kids and parents will play with together.

Fisher-Price is also introducing the Smart Cycle, a small stationary bike that allows kids to peddle their way through a virtual environment on a standard television set. Kids can race other on-screen vehicles, and play a variety of educational games: picking up letters or numbers, or spelling various words. The faster they pedal, the faster the game.

The exercise may help assuage the greatest fear of any parent in an increasingly tech-driven toy environment: that too much technology will lead to the creation of tiny couch potatoes.

"If you were sitting behind the one-way mirror of a focus group, you can imagine that's exactly what we heard," Curran says with a laugh.

Of course, not everything at the fair will serve a higher purpose.

Pyramat will be demonstrating the butt-blasting power of its PM440-W wireless gaming chair, the latest in a line of surround-sound Barcaloungers designed to apply a heavy dose of deep bass to your backside every time you pop a cop in Grand Theft Auto.

There will be plenty of low-tech offerings, as well.

Just across from the sprawling Maisto International display of die-cast cars and trucks, tiny Interactive Cultural Media will be hawking African Dance for Children, a multimedia kit with technical props limited to a DVD, a handmade grass skirt and some water-soluble body paint.

Still, there seems little doubt where the toy industry is headed in the long run.

"You give them a choice between playing with an electronic thing on a computer and a pile of Lego bricks, and a lot of Ph.Ds will tell you it's better for them to play with the Lego bricks," says Kutoka's Vincent. "But they'll take the computer."

 

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