The ” Digital Barbie ” expected to be released by end of 2015 has a microphone, speaker and two LEDs embedded in the doll’s necklace, while rechargeable batteries in its legs can be connected to an external wall-mounted charger. Hello Barbie works by using Wi-Fi to connect to the Internet.
A spokeswoman for Mattel told BBC:
The number one request we hear from girls around the world is that they want to have a conversation with Barbie. Now, for the first time ever, Barbie can have a two-way conversation.
Hello Barbie records a child’s words, encodes and sends it to the Central processor of Toy Talk and the response is sent back to the device within a fraction of second to have a natural and fluid two-way conversation. The toy can also send emails to the parent regarding its conversations with the kid.
The Toronto Star quotes a Toy talk spokesman:
She’ll be able to talk to kids about a wide range of topics, including food, fashion, geography, career paths and other topics kids want to talk about.
Toy talk also downplayed security concerns raised by many on the huge amount personal data collected in its servers. According to the company, parents will be informed about the type of data that the new “Hello Barbie” doll will collect, and the data in the Toy talk requires a password to access. Parents can also log in to the Web interface and delete the recordings after they’ve been stored and on cancellation of the account, all the data will be erased.
Hello Barbie is expected to sell for about $US74.99. However, Mattel has not confirmed a release date.
