Janese Swanson, a veteran of the toy and software industries, founded the company in 1995. She wanted to produce technology toys for girls that were equally compelling as boys' toys. Girl Tech, which has since been acquired by Radica Games, has produced a line of voice-oriented toys in time for the holidays this year. Take Laser Chat. It has an infrared device that beams a five-second voice message up to forty feet across the air to another Laser Chat unit.
Kids can secretly record a message and then send it to their friend for playback.
It's kind of like high-tech whispering. It's a lock box that contains a notepad, a pencil and a secret compartment. The owner records a one-word password into the journal and then the toy requires that word be spoken back to unlock it. It uses voice recognition to not only recognize the password, but also the speaker. If it denies access, it reports the number of attempted intruders on the next successful attempt, perhaps to alert sisters to nosy brothers.