toys – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Stories filed under: "toys"

Wait, Grimes Also Has An AI Toy Called Grok?

from the do-you-grok-it? dept

Oh boy. We’ve already written a few times about Elon Musk’s “Grok” AI from his company xAI, which may or may not be a part of ExTwitter or possibly Tesla, but no one really knows because all of Elon’s companies blend together in a mishmash of hell for anyone who believes in good, normal corporate governance. Specifically, we’ve covered how he’s facing a kinda serious trademark issue with Groq, a well-established AI chip company that has a trademark on the name Groq for use in artificial intelligence (and, no the different spelling doesn’t matter under trademark law).

And now there’s news that there’s a separate Grok AI situation that he faces… this one coming from his ex (he sure does love his “x’s” huh?) Grimes. Apparently there’s a toy startup, named Curio that has teamed up with Grimes to make an AI-powered toy named Grok (I swear this is a sentence that makes sense).

A glimpse toward this future is beginning to emerge in products like Grok, an AI-powered plush toy in the shape of a rocket that can converse with your child. Grok is the first product from a Silicon Valley start-up called Curio that is leveraging Open AI’s technology on a line of toys Curio’s founders say will be capable of long-running, fully interactive conversation, allowing a child to view it almost as a peer or friend.

Canadian musician Claire Boucher, known as Grimes and the mother of three of Elon Musk’s children, is an investor in and adviser to the company, and she will provide the toy’s voice.

“Every [change] in technology unlocks new forms of entertainment,” said Sam Eaton, president and chief toy maker at Curio, who was previously an engineer at Roblox, the gaming platform. “It’s a different level of immersion for playtime.”

And, yes, Curio apparently filed for a trademark on the word Grok as well in September, but in the category of “electronic learning toys” or “plush toys” so it’s not clear it will conflict. For what it’s worth xAI also filed for trademarks on Grok, one on October 23 and the other on November 7 of this year.

There’s also, um, this:

Sallee said that the toy was designed with Grimes’s children in mind and that they have a friendly relationship with it. “The toy was designed for X and the other kids,” she said, referring to the son of Grimes and Musk, X Æ A-Xii, “but X primarily because he’s of age where he can actually talk to the toy and it can talk back more effectively.”

But the toy has no relationship with Musk’s AI start-up, which also is called Grok. Curio holds the trademark on the name, and the two AI products are totally unaffiliated, Curio says. The name Grok was devised by Grimes and the Curio team, who said the word was a shortening of the word Grocket, which was coined because Grimes’ children are exposed to a lot of rockets through their father’s ownership of SpaceX.

As far as I can tell, it’s false that they “hold the trademark” on it. It’s only an application at this point, which makes it pending. I do not see a fully registered trademark on “Grok” for either company (and it wouldn’t surprise me if Groq opposed one or both trademarks).

Also, it seems… mighty convenient for this claim that “Grok” here is short for “Grocket” (especially since then wouldn’t it be called Grock?) but I guess I’ll let the two exes battle that one out among themselves.

Filed Under: elon musk, grimes, grok, toys, trademark
Companies: curio, groq, twitter, x, xai

Privacy Advocates Continue To Warn That Modern Toys Are A Privacy Mess

from the My-Barbie-needs-a-better-firewall dept

Tue, Jan 17th 2023 03:34pm - Karl Bode

A decade or so ago there was a wave of warnings by privacy advocates about how modern toys had become major surveillance devices. Makers of voice recognition toys in particular had a nasty habit, researchers warned, of collecting everything your child says, poorly “anonymizing” the data (a meaningless term), then failing to secure that data from attackers.

A decade later and researchers and activists are still busy trying to get consumers to understand that modern toys are a privacy and security mess. Companies continue to over-collect data on children and monetize that data for advertising, allowing the creation of detailed profiles on children. All while not really making that clear in terms of service. And while hiding behind flimsy claims of “anonymization.”

Year after year, privacy advocates warn that significant reform is needed, and year after year not a whole lot changes when it comes to the warnings or our collective response to them:

It’s just one example of a growing trend, according to nonprofit researchers at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). The organization’s recent report said smart toys bring new risks, including microphones and cameras, paired with significant data collection.

“Having any data collected on a child that isn’t strictly necessary is really reckless and unsafe,” said RJ Cross, of U.S. PIRG.

And this kind of lax privacy and security standards extends to educational computer learning products. A July 2022 study by Human Rights Watch found that the “overwhelming majority” of EdTech products endorsed by 49 governments during the pandemic surveilled or had the capacity to surveil children in ways that risked or infringed on their rights.

Forcing legal accountability for global toymakers is often an uphill climb. You’ll occasionally see a company hit with a major lawsuit (as Genesis Toys was in 2017 after it was discovered that its Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled toys lacked even rudimentary security, allowing third-party surveillance of kids), but most of these offenders see no meaningful repercussion for lax security and privacy standards.

And again, all of these toy companies (even the ones hit with major lawsuits) hide behind the idea that there’s nothing to worry about because kid data is “anonymized.” But numerous studies keep showing how it’s easy to identify an “anonymized” individual in a data set like this with just a small smattering of additional data. As more compromised datasets stumble around the Internet, the worse it gets.

COPPA is dated and broken, the U.S. FTC lacks the money or staff to pursue privacy at any meaningful scale, and we still haven’t passed even a rudimentary new privacy law for the Internet era. When it comes to everything from your smartphone apps to your kid’s Wi-Fi connected Barbie, we’ve made it abundantly clear that making money was our top priority, and privacy remains a distant afterthought.

Filed Under: advertising, anonymization, privacy, security, smart toys, toys

Bad Patents Getting In The Way Of A Fun Toy; Or Why I Had To Teach My Kids About How Patents Ruin Everything

from the well-that-sucks dept

Last year I backed a very cool looking crowdfunding project for my kids. It’s called Makeway, and seems like the coolest ever possible marble run setup. Marble runs are already cool, but since basically everyone in my family will spend hours just staring at some of the more advanced marble run setups in museums (or building them in the more hands on museums, or much simpler ones with just home kits), this seemed like a really amazing project to be able to create a museum-level marble run in your own home. The project launched right before the pandemic went into full swing, and, like tons of crowdfunding projects, it’s had some difficulties along the way. Of course, unlike many such projects in which the creators go quiet and hide behind silence as they deal with the difficulties, the guy behind Makeway sends out incredibly and intricately detailed novella length updates, going deep into the challenges and (usually!) the solutions.

Indeed, that part has been kind of fascinating — especially to my kids, who actually get super excited each time a new update is sent and want to hear all the details of the project (indeed, learning about how difficult it is to create a product like this, and the effort the creators are making to get past those hurdles, seems like a good lesson for kids to learn). While they’ve been disappointed that the shipping of the product has been delayed, the updates are still neat, and I have every confidence that the product will eventually be delivered.

Except… not all of it. The latest update gave me a new lesson to teach my kids: just how stupid patents can be, and how they can mess up cool products. Buried in the middle of this latest epic update was one hurdle that simply could not be overcome: threats from patent holders. For a freaking marble run piece.

It’s not a critical piece by any means — it was more of a fun piece. Indeed, they called it the “party” piece. Basically as a marble would zip by, a fan would spin, and it could light up with a message and play music. Neat:

The Makeway guys really liked this part too:

The party part is our pride. We invested to make it sleek, elegant, always working with no buttons or switches, and mostly – working fluently, with a slight touch of the running marble. We hired a composer to make the music, we added our vocals to the track, we programmed the fan light to show Makeway’s logo, we placed an order and fully paid for 2 IC’s (the brain of the part) – one for the lights and one for the music, and to our delighted surprise, all this effort came up to a really satisfying part, that we included in many of our videos. We were very happy and even surprised when all were composed together into one working piece, and we were excited to start producing it to be able to ship it soon to our backers…

But, it’s not to be. Apparently, they were threatened by someone with a newly granted patent (they don’t reveal who it was, other than that it’s by a competing marble run company — though they do reveal that the lawyers refer to it as the ‘205 patent, meaning those are the last 3 digits of the patent number — but a bit of poking around by me has failed to find the relevant patent Update: clever commenters have found the patent) from someone who claims that this little toy violates their patent:

Unfortunately, some time ago we got a letter stating that we are infringing, with this piece, a patent that was approved a few months ago and that is owned by a marble-run company. The patent describes a part that, when triggered by a marble, turns on light, and/or sound, and/or sends RF signals.

The Makeway guy says he explored a variety of options, but with the other company demanding a huge licensing fee — on top of all the other challenges that this project has come across, it just couldn’t work out.

A company at this gentle stage of stabilizing it’s financial standards, in our size and with our resources, could waste all of it’s assets trying to defend it’s activity in those types of lawsuits. As hard as it is for us, we just can’t take the risk to get lost in lawsuits instead of fulfilling Makeway and taking care of it’s future. we had to sacrifice our best part in order not to get in financial troubles that might (and most likely) risk the future of Makeway.

And that’s why, this week, I (for the first time) had to explain to my kids just what patents are, and just how damaging they can be. It’s something I’ve obviously written about for years, but didn’t expect that it would impact my kids at this age. And, yes, in the grand scheme of things, Makeway not being able to deliver this one fun, but not essential, part is not the end of the world. But it really does show how ridiculous patents are. Why does such a thing need a patent? It doesn’t. It’s clearly an idea that multiple people were coming up with. Just let everyone develop their own versions and compete in the marketplace.

Filed Under: competition, marble run, patents, toys
Companies: makeway

DailyDirt: How Quickly Can You Solve A Rubik's Cube?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The original Rubik’s cube puzzle was invented in 1974, but there were similar puzzles made before — such as a 2x2x2 cube puzzle and a spherical 3x3x3 puzzle. The patents for these toys have expired, but people playing with these puzzles are still going strong. Speedcubing or speedsolving is a competitive sport, and there are variations on the activity to solve it blindfolded or with feet only or with just one hand. If you have a scrambled Rubik’s cube sitting in drawer somewhere, maybe you’ll be able to buy a robot to solve it for you soon.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: cubestormer 3, god's number, guinness world record, lucas etter, puzzles, robotics, rubik's cube, speedcuber, speedcubing, speedsolving, toys

Awesome Stuff: Tech Toys

from the all-play-and-some-work dept

This week, we’ve got a lineup of crowdfunded fun with three high-tech toys, only one of which is designed primarily for kids (and it’s the most mature and productive of the three).

FDL-1

The foam dart arms race continues with the FDL-1, which may be the most fearsome contender yet. It’s a high-power, fully-automatic robotic dart launcher that can be configured as a standalone turret or a handheld blaster. But the truly cool part is how it’s made: apart from the electronic guts, the entire thing can be produced with most average hobbyist 3D printers with a 6″ cube build size (not just high-end professional numbers). All of the schematics, instructions and software is open source and/or Creative Commons ShareAlike, so upon release the FDL-1 will be free and easy for anyone to build and modify. In the mean time, its 3D-printed construction also enables several ways to order one on Kickstarter at different tiers (though the prices of all three are high): as a 3D printing kit that includes components and filament, as an assembly kit with components and pre-printed pieces, or as a fully assembled unit.

Kamibot

Though I’m sure there are plenty of kids who wouldn’t mind getting their hands on an FDL-1, it’s a pretty advanced project with a price tag of several hundred dollars to boot. In the mean time, there’s the Kamibot: a papercraft robot kit designed to teach kids to code. To keep things at a beginner’s level, the robot itself is a single pre-made unit based on open source Arduino, with IR and ultrasound sensors, multicolor LEDs, and a single servo in addition to its dual-motor drive. It’s wirelessly controllable and, more importantly, highly programmable via a robust drag-and-drop “learn to code” interface. To keep things fun and interesting for kids, it also has a bunch of papercraft templates for building cool-looking skins on top of the robot itself, from tanks to Frankenstein.

Immersit

“Moving seats” that rise and fall and tilt and sway according to what’s on screen were a staple of Universal Studios when I went there as a kid, and if you’d asked me then (or yesterday, for that matter) whether that technology would be coming to the living room anytime soon, I’d probably have dismissed the possibility. Well, the Immersit has shown otherwise: it’s a home system that adds motion and vibration feedback for video games to just about any sofa. It works with PC, X-Box and Playstation and is preconfigured to respond to 120+ games, not to mention a whole bunch of movies (it works with plain old video, too). For games, the motion is based on various signals detected from the game, and can be configured at a granular level to change what motions go with what game actions. For movies, the team is using a combination of software and human adjustment to create motion codes for various movies; the Immersit detects the movie being played, and looks up the appropriate motion track. As with all such devices, it has to be tried to be properly evaluated, and I’d be pretty dubious about dropping $700+ on one without doing so — but the reviews from those who’ve had the chance are so far pretty positive.

Filed Under: 3d printing, awesome stuff, coding, robotics, toys

Awesome Stuff: Simple Geeky Toys

from the inexpensive-awesome dept

With CES wrapping up today, the internet is awash in rundowns of the greatest new gadgets, and these days it’s barely newsworthy that this or that product was partially funded on Kickstarter or created by a team with a crowdfunding background. So instead of looking at the CES crop, most of which you’ve probably already seen, this week we’re rounding up three simple and inexpensive geeky playthings.

Luma Dice

Usually, when it comes to things like dice and playing cards, I’m an advocate of keeping it simple. The fetishization of “lucky” dice is just superstition and magical thinking. But maybe I should lighten up, because some of the specialty dice showing up on Kickstarter are admittedly pretty cool, with the most noteworthy being the Luma. It’s a solid aluminum die with powered LEDs embedded as pips, and contains an accelerometer to activate them automatically when it’s picked up or rolled. You’d think that with the accelerometer already present, they’d have a mode to light up only the up-facing side when a roll is complete — but sadly they don’t. Though, that may be part of why the price is surprisingly reasonable at only $21 (approximately, as the original prices are in Australian dollars) for a pair.

The Sound Reactive Mask

While we’re on the subject of lighting up things that don’t normally light up, this product might emerge from the Montreal electronic music scene but it’s tech-geeky through and through. Sound-reactive clothing and costuming is nothing new, but this might be the first time I’ve seen anyone with a good design sense use it in a way that’s actually fun to look at, unlike the terrible t-shirts marketed to “ravers”. The stylized jaguar design on the foam mask appears to respond quickly and accurately to music by deconstructing and reconstructing itself piece by piece, to pretty impressive and mesmerizing effect. And once again, the price is lower than you might expect for this kind of Kickstarter project: again about $21, thanks this time in part to the exchange rate with Canadian dollars.

The Key Armory

Several years ago, for reasons I still don’t fully understand, a friend bought me a gag birthday gift in the form of a giant sword — one of those ridiculous fantasy ones with all sorts of curlicues that I assume would render any real sword useless. It’s neat, but it’s weird, and I have no idea what to do with it — so it’s lived in its box under my bed ever since. Somehow I doubt I’m the only person with a display sword in that situation. Well, the Key Armory offers a slightly more workable alternative: lovingly crafted key blanks with handles hilts inspired by various famous fictional swords. They are available in two common key types, though if you don’t use one of those, you’re out of luck for now. And in keeping with this week’s low-price theme, they are only $10 a pop with discounts if you buy more than one.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, dice, keys, toys

DailyDirt: Wall-Climbing Robots (aka Toys)

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Toys have really become much more advanced than the yo-yos and etch-a-sketches of the past. Sure, kids will always like to play with the big cardboard boxes instead of the toys that came in them, but older kids have amazing remote-controlled drones and paper planes (that they might need to register with the FAA someday). If you’ve been looking for some cool RC cars that can climb walls and drive on the ceiling, there are a bunch of toys to choose from.

If you’ve been thinking about learning how to code, take a look at our Daily Deals for a collection of online courses to help you program and/or master some professional skills.

Filed Under: bb-8, drones, gecko, materials, prototype, rc cars, robots, toys, vertigo
Companies: disney research, takara tomy

Disney Grapples With Light-Side/Dark-Side, Retracts Toy DMCA, Resubmits It, Is Probably Our Father, Aaaah!

from the toy-story dept

It’s a struggle that Disney ought to know quite well, having taken over the Star Wars franchise. The struggle between good and evil; the light side of the force… and the dark side. And it looks like we’re all getting a front row seat to the internal strife of Disney via the ongoing silliness surrounding the image of a Star Wars toy accidentally released to the public by a retailer.

If you recall, our original post detailed how Disney was apparently abusing the DMCA process to take down the photographs of Justin Kozisek, contributor to Star Wars Action News. The photographs were of a toy that was in and of itself something of a spoiler due to the outfit the character is wearing. Pretty much everyone speculated that Disney was using the DMCA process to avoid the spoiler reaching audiences before the release of the latest film, which is, of course, not what the DMCA process is for. Also, most people were happy to agree that claiming copyright on images of a legally purchased retail item was Jar Jar Binks level absurdity. Well, Marjorie Carvalho, who runs Star Wars Action News, tried to reach out to Disney to see what was going on.

She wrote a polite e-mail to the Disney company e-mail address listed in her DMCA notice, explaining exactly what happened. While Carvalho didn’t get a direct reply, her message seemed to have worked. Last night her account got a late e-mail from Facebook stating that “The Walt Disney Company has retracted their intellectual property report.”

“All we did was write a letter, and a few hours later, it was retracted,” she said in an interview with Ars this morning, pleased with the result. “It pays to take the high road and get your facts in order, rather than overreacting. I feel good about it, and it’s nice that they’re recognizing they made a mistake.”

The light side jedi is humble and knows the best course of action when he or she is at peace. Carvalho’s email must have had a tranquilizing effect on Disney, allowing it to turn away from the darkness. Much as Vader rendered himself useful for thirty seconds by tossing Emperor White Raisin or whatever his name was down a galactic laundry chute that for some reason had been installed in an Emperor’s throne room, Disney realized its error and became good again.

For about an hour or so. The dark side is tempting, after all. According to the Ars Technica article linked above:

Not 10 minutes after getting off the phone today, Carvalho informed Ars that the image was taken down again. Disney sent an identical DMCA notice.

“For reasons we can’t understand—Disney has now RESUBMITTED the claim, again removing the pictures (that they restored this morning),” she told her followers on Facebook.

This time, Facebook removed the entire post, not just the photo. It also administered a punishment to Kozisek, banning him from posting on the site for three days.

Yes, with the kind of speed that would impress a tie fighter pilot, Disney went from pulling the DMCA takedown to re-submitting it. Meanwhile, as Disney goes through this phase of self-discovery, images of the toy that it had hoped to censor exist roughly everywhere anyway, including in the reporting that has been done on this whole stupid episode. In other words, the only thing that Disney has managed to accomplish throughout this whole thing is to look bumbling and silly, and to Streisand Effect news about the toy all over the internet.

Filed Under: dmca, photographs, star wars, takedowns, toys
Companies: disney, facebook

Toy Maker Vtech Hacked, Revealing Kids' Selfies, Chat Logs, & Even Voice Recordings

from the because-we-can dept

Tue, Dec 1st 2015 02:03pm - Karl Bode

As companies race to embrace the inanely-named “internet of things” (IOT), security and privacy are usually a very distant afterthought. That’s been made painfully apparent by “smart” refrigerators that expose your Gmail credentials, “smart” TVs that transmit your living room conversations unencrypted, or “smart” tea kettles that compromise your Wi-Fi network security. In all these examples the story remains the same: everybody’s so excited to connect everything and anything to the internet, few companies can be bothered to do so intelligently and correctly.

And with the mad rush to bring this kind of aggressive myopia to toys, the lack of security is now impacting kids as well. Late last week a hacker revealed that he (or she) had hacked into the servers of Hong-Kong-based toy company Vtech, exposing the data collected by the company’s “Kid Connect” service (which lets parents use smartphones to talk to kids using toy tablets and other devices). Once inside, the hacker obtained the names, email addresses, passwords, and home addresses of 4,833,678 parents, and the first names, genders and birthdays of more than 200,000 kids.

What’s more, the hack revealed that Vtech was storing kid selfies, voice recordings, and even entire chat logs between parents and their kids. In short, Vtech was gathering and saving pretty much anything these devices could get their hands on. VTech didn’t respond to questions regarding why it needed to store all this data. And that’s likely because, like most IOT gear makers, it didn’t much think about it. It was so enamored with the gee whizery of gobbling up all manner of user data for later use, it couldn’t much be bothered to ensure fundamental security best practices.

As Mark Nunnikhoven at Trend Micro remarked shortly after the hack was revealed, the lure of IOT has many companies collecting far more data than they could ever even conceivably need — just because they can:

“This opens the organizations up to unnecessary risk. If the words “might”, “possible”, or “potential” are used in an argument supporting the collection of data, you’re about to violate the principle of least data. You should only collect and store data for well understood use. Data should be evaluated for it’s overall value to the organization and?just as importantly?the risk it can pose to the organization. Unless the cost to acquire the data in the future is so ridiculously high that it’s infeasible, you should always opt to collect and store the data when you have a concrete use for it.”

That’s common sense, but the excitement surrounding IOT has made it clear that common sense doesn’t enter into it. At least not in the design and implementation phase. Only once they’re caught not giving a damn about security or privacy are these over-enthusiastic companies suddenly model citizens. Vtech is of course no exception, since issuing a press release stating it has shuttered many of the websites hoovering up this data. The company also reiterates how it’s “committed to protecting our customer information and privacy”:

“We are committed to protecting our customer information and their privacy, to ensure against any such incidents in the future. Our Privacy Statement can be found on our website here. The investigation continues as we look at additional ways to strengthen the security of all on-line services provided by VTech. We will provide further updates as appropriate in the future.”

But if companies were so breathlessly committed to privacy, they wouldn’t rush products to market and leave fundamental security standards as a distant afterthought in the first place. And with everything from your smart toaster to your kids’ Barbie doll now gobbling up an ocean of household data, it’s going to be an increasingly ugly lesson to learn.

Filed Under: hack, internet of things, kids, logs, privacy, toys
Companies: vtech

A Weave Is Not A Toy: Toys R Us Opposes Hair Extension Company Trademark

from the annoyed-are-me dept

When we encounter stories of trademark bullying over broad language, it’s fairly common to find that the fight is between a large corporate entity pushing around a much smaller one. This case is no different. For some reason, retail toy giant Toys R Us is apparently opposing the trademark registration of a small Miami-area hair extension company.

Hair Are Us, a popular hair extension business in midtown Miami, has drawn the attention of Toys R Us, one of the world’s largest retail toy chains. The parent company of Toys R Us, Geoffrey LLC, filed an opposition to Hair Are Us’ trademark application. In the opposition, the company alleges Hair Are Us infringes on its established trademarks.

Geoffrey LLC apparently has a registered trademark on the “R Us” phrase and is suggesting that this trademark is in conflict with Hair Are Us. But, given both the business that Toys R Us is in and the very fame the company has for being in that business, it seems ridiculous to request that the Miami company’s “Are Us” name is going to somehow confuse consumers into thinking the hair extension business was in any way affiliated with the toy retailer. And because trademark law includes provisions that companies must be competing within the same market in order for infringement to occur, it’s difficult to see exactly why Toys R Us is pushing around a small hair extension business at all.

Of course, the usual excuses are trotted out when pressed on the question.

Toys R Us declined to comment for this story, but in court filings the company argued that Hair Are Us sounds too similar and could deceive the public into thinking it is connected to Toys R Us. The toy retailer also said allowing Hair Are Us to trademark would dilute its famous brand which has been in existence since 1960.

Trademark experts say Toys R Us has a legal duty to police its brand, but the growing hair company contends its name is different enough from Toys R Us and that the toy giant should back off.

The excuse that brands have to actively police their trademarks is always the excuse for these types of things, but, as in this case, that argument is often false. Brands must police actual infringing instances, not every instance of anything even close to similar uses. The difference is one that allows a small hair extension company to exist, as it represents no threat to a major toy retailer. It’d be nice to see a large company like Toys R Us acknowledge that, for once.

Filed Under: hair extension, r us, toys, trademark, weave
Companies: hair are us, toys r us