Anatomy of a Furby

Once a year, the collective will of children worldwide makes itself known to us by choosing one toy — be it a Cabbage Patch Kid or a Tickle Me Elmo — that it Must Have Or Else, and if we don't like it, we can lump it. (Actually, we can't even do that.) This year the children have spoken, and they have chosen the Furby, a vaguely Gremlins-like being from ((Tiger as their one true playmate. But before we let those hordes of furry robots into our homes — or, God forbid, pay $800 for one on eBay — doesn't it behoove us to ask, just what is a Furby?

The Furby was actually invented in 1997 by an electrical engineer named Steve Hampton, who offered it to Tiger Electronics on a freelance basis. But Furbys are only the latest in a long line of stuffed animals equipped with sensors and CPUs that allow them to perceive and react to the world around them. Teddy Ruxpin, introduced in 1983, was probably the first — it could talk and move its mouth, and it reacted to signals encoded in its animated TV show. Microsoft's Interactive Barney was another step in the evolutionary chain: It was equipped with a light sensor that told it when its eyes were covered, and it could interact with a PC if the appropriate software was installed.