It will get here much more faster than people think. Building a brighter baby might bother some experts, but education is incredibly important to today's parents, she says. Along those lines, Neurosmith has developed the Babbler, a plush crib toy that introduces babies to the sounds of English, Spanish, French and Japanese, to prepare them for a society that grows ever more global. Little Linguist, which introduces languages to ages 1-5, will be distributed nationwide next month. Even if technology does it better, it's doing the same thing that's already been done and not making a deep difference.
Parents can expect the pace of toy advancement to accelerate.
Voice-recognition technology will allow that plush bunny to know when to be sad, and robotics will make the bunny hang his head. Druin's prototype playroom will be ready this spring. A recent grant allows the team to prepare interactive toys for next year, to test on hospitalized children. After that, she says, it's up to the kids. If they can dream it, mostly we can come up with it.