One that you're likely to see a lot is Power Talk by Tiger Electronics, a division of Hasbro Canada Corp. of Montreal. Users can send 10-second voice messages to other kids with Power Talk units, from about 15 metres away inside a building and 30 metres outside. Each sleek, silverish-grey unit has an address, so messages can be delivered to one person only. V Mail can transmit messages four seconds long up to 30 metres away through walls and objects, and flash to indicate a message waiting. Then there's Laser Chat, from Dallas-based Radica USA Ltd.'s Girl Tech line, which will transport a voice message via infrared technology to another Laser Chat within 12 metres.
Radio frequency goes through walls, which is a huge advantage.
Pocket Com, also by Girl Tech, not only sends and receives messages up to 60 metres, it comes with Radica's Surfer Girl browser that lets a user with a PC download e-mail from the Girl Tech Web site to a handheld device, draft a response and fire it back the same way. It won't arrive until January, but your kids may want to start saving now. For the toy industry, getting a new product into the stores can't happen too soon. The experts are betting that the portable communications devices will help to bring the kids back, buoyed by major television advertising campaigns this fall. Girls, especially, are shown in research groups to be great communicators, and they're being targeted by many of the manufacturers.