Toys

Nintendo’s Two New Free Switch Apps Are for Toddlers, and a Wooden Block Calls Up the Character

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Software, Toys, Video Games,

Nintendo put out two new Switch releases this week that cost nothing, run with the Wi-Fi off, and are built for someone who cannot read the title screen. Hello, Peach! and Hello, Luigi! are on the eShop now, free on Switch and Switch 2, and here is the complete list of things to do in them: poke a cartoon face, stretch it, spin it, and play peekaboo.

There is no score, no levels and nothing to unlock, and both run single player in handheld mode only. Nintendo's store pages file them under the genres "Action" and "Simulation," which is funny until you picture a toddler dragging Luigi's nose across the screen and decide the tag is doing its best.

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LEGO’s Next Zelda Set Puts Link on Epona With 1,750 Pieces

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Toys, Video Games,

LEGO started its Zelda line with a tree. Then it built a castle. Now it wants you to build a horse, and it would rather not say what the horse costs.

The LEGO The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – Link & Epona set got a few seconds of screen time during Nintendo's Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct on Tuesday. Nintendo's own description calls it a 1,750-piece collectible display model for adults, due in spring 2027. That is the whole spec sheet. No price, no set number, no dimensions, and no preorder date.

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Hugging Face’s $399 Microduck Ships With Its Training Code on GitHub

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Mods / Hacks, Toys, Artificial Intelligence,

Most robot news arrives as a video. A humanoid folds laundry in a lab you'll never visit, running software you'll never see, and six months later nobody can buy it. Microduck showed up on Thursday as a pre-order page and two GitHub repos.

It's a 25cm bipedal robot duck, it costs $399, and it comes from Pollen Robotics, the French startup Hugging Face bought last year. It walks, sits, crouches, kicks, grabs things with an articulated beak, roller skates, and gets back up after most falls. Seven behaviors ship trained. Every one of them was learned in simulation, and every one of them is yours to retrain.

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Lego’s New Pokemon Sets Battle Each Other, and the Loser Actually Faints

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Toys, Video Games,

Leave one of Lego's new Pokemon alone on your desk for long enough and it falls asleep. Snoring included.

That detail tells you most of what's different about the Lego Pokemon Smart Play line, which goes on sale August 1 with sets running from $15 up to $120. Lego's Smart Brick tech showed up earlier this year in a Star Wars collection, and that line was fun in a specific way: you built a scene and acted it out, more director than participant. The Pokemon version does something else entirely. It borrows from the video games.

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The LEGO One Piece Teaser Is Exactly the Goofy Detour This Story Needed

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Movies, Toys, Videos,

There is a particular kind of joy in watching a deadly serious adventure story get handed over to a pile of plastic minifigures, and Netflix just leaned all the way into it. The streamer dropped a teaser for LEGO One Piece, a two-part animated special that retells the first two seasons of its live-action pirate show entirely in brick form. It looks every bit as gleefully silly as that sentence sounds.

The special lands September 29, and the premise is smarter than a cash-in usually gets to be. Instead of a straight replay, it uses Usopp as the narrator, walking a wide-eyed Tony Tony Chopper through everything the Straw Hats got up to across the East Blue and the Grand Line. If you have never touched One Piece, that framing is basically a friendly on-ramp. If you have watched every episode twice, it is a chance to see the whole saga from a new angle, in a form that refuses to take itself too seriously.

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Tesla Is Selling a $225 Balance Bike for Toddlers

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Toys, Transportation,

Your two-year-old cannot legally drive. Tesla has found a workaround anyway. The company is now selling a $225 balance bike for toddlers, a pedal-free, motor-free little machine that a kid propels the old-fashioned way, with their own feet on the ground.

That is Flintstones-style locomotion at a Silicon Valley price. The bike targets kids aged 2 to 5 who weigh under 77 pounds, with a lightweight magnesium frame in white, a five-way adjustable black seat, the Tesla word mark on the side and a T logo up front. It comes with assembly tools. It is also, as of now, already sold out.

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Spin Master’s Air Hogs Supernova: The flying orb with motion controls

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Features, Product Reviews, Toys,

There've been a lot of options for toy drones over the years, and you may think that they're all pretty much the same. At first glance, that's understandable since they typically lack the premium features you find on more prosumer level drones, like 4K cameras. That's why I appreciate what Spin Master is doing with the new Air Hogs Supernova. I've covered Spin Master products in the past, and usually come away impressed - this time is no different. Spin Master sent over the Air Hogs Supernova for me to test out, and it actually took away some of my uneasiness about using more expensive drones that I’ve acquired in the past.

The Supernova is Spin Master's first motion-controlled drone. Don't expect it to be as feature-rich as the DJI Mavic Air, but do expect to be able to pull off some pretty impressive tricks with hardware that's responsive and kid-friendly to boot.

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Holiday Top Tech with Best Buy: Nintendo Switch!

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Toys, Video Games,

Best Buy has looked through all the recent hardware gadget releases, and the company has put together it's Holiday Top Tech list for 2017, which will be rolling out soon. While we wait for the full list to drop, Best Buy has tasked me with revealing one of the hot items that you'll find on the list - the Nintendo Switch!

If you've somehow missed the phenomenon that is the Nintendo Switch, it's the first console in history that is both a complete home console with high-definition graphics while simultaneously being a completely portable console that allows you to play your game library on the go. The Nintendo Switch launched back on March 3rd, and since then, it's been difficult to find in stock both online and in stores up until about a month ago.

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2015 Holiday Gift Guide: Star Wars BB-8 Sphero

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Features, Toys, Kids, Techies, Teens, Under $250, Under $500,

Meet BB-8 - the app-enabled Droid that's as authentic as it is advanced, and the latest entry in our 2015 Holiday Gift Guide. BB-8 has something unlike any other robot - an adaptive personality that changes as you play. Based on your interactions, BB-8 will show a range of expressions and even perk up when you give voice commands. Set it to patrol and watch your Droid explore autonomously, make up your own adventure and guide BB-8 yourself, or create and view holographic recordings.

It’s now possible to explore the galaxy with your own trusty Astromech Droid by your side. BB-8 is more than a toy - it’s your companion.

You can pick up the Star Wars BB-8 Sphero now. 

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The Best Buy Holiday Shopping Event is this Saturday!

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Corporate News, Microsoft, Toys,

If you're into tech (and if you're reading Gear Live, then it's safe to say that you are,) you'll want to check out Best Buy this Saturday afternoon. Coming to select Best Buy stores will be the Best Buy Special Holiday Shopping Event - yep, the holiday shopping season is being kicked off at Best Buy in a majoy way. In fact, this is Best Buy's biggest shopping event of the year. It all goes down on Saturday, November 7th. What can you expect? Read on!

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