zaterdag 21 september 2013

Fashion Angels Barbie Lap Desk

Fashion Angels Barbie Lap Desk

The Barbie Lap Desk makes a portable design workspace wherever you go. Sitting in bed, on the couch, or even in the car, the Barbie lover will adore this fun, glamorous polka-dot print lap desk with a square holder for pencils, crayons, pens, or even some snacks. It has a hard plastic work surface.

  • Product Dimensions (inches): 16.5 (L) x 3.2 (W) x 11.5 (H)
  • Age: 4 years and up

Price: $23.99


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Polaroid Barbie Pink Instant 600 Film Camera

Polaroid Barbie Pink Instant 600 Film CameraJunior photographers can create instant photos of Barbie and her friends dressed in their prettiest clothes with the Barbie Instant 600 Camera. The square camera is made of heavy-duty plastic and has rounded corners and a flip-up flash, all in Barbie's signature colors of hot pink, bright purple, and lime green. A sheet of flower stickers is included to add a customized touch. The camera uses any Polaroid 600 Instant Film, including the variety that can be decorated with pens and a special Barbie film that takes pictures with flowered borders. --Marcie Bovetz

Price:


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Barbie Kid Safe Headphones - Pink (19759)

Barbie Kid Safe Headphones - Pink (19759)Barbie KID SAFE Headphones with built in Volume Limiter

Price: $19.99


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Barbie: Jet, Set & Style - Nintendo DS

Barbie: Jet, Set & Style - Nintendo DSThere are REAL styling activities for you to do as you travel with Barbie in the jet salon to 10 exotic cities styling HAIR-tastic hair and performing fabulous make overs on clients from around the world. The game is available this September on Wii and Nintendo DS and DSi.

Price: $19.99


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HedBanz Game

HedBanz GamePlay Hedbanz, the quick question game of “What am I?” Ask “yes” or “no” questions to figure out if the cartoon on your head is an animal, food or man-made object. Be the first player to guess what you are and win! Hedbanz – the game where everybody knows by you!

Price: $16.99


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vrijdag 20 september 2013

Barbie Horse Adventures: Mystery Ride - PC

Ride through lushly detailed challenging areas with Barbie and her friends in this fun equestrian adventure.

Price: $19.99


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PEZ Gift Tin, Barbie, 1.74 Ounce

4 Barbie dispensers. 6 rolls of candy

Price: $10.99


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Barbie, I Can Be- A Pet Vet (Step into Reading, Step 1)

Barbie, I Can Be- A Pet Vet (Step into Reading, Step 1)Barbie wants to be a pet doctor! Join her as she helps a vet take care of puppies, kittens, horses, and many other lovable pets in this original Step 1 book in the Step into Reading series.

Price: $3.99


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Barbie of Swan Lake

Barbie of Swan LakeBarbie magically comes to life in her third animated movie Barbie: Of Swan Lake. Barbie stars as Odette the baker's daughter who follows a unicorn into an enchanted forest. While there she is transformed into a swan by an evil wizard. Through courage honesty and intelligence she will save herself as well as the Enchanted Forest.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHILDREN/FAMILY Rating: NR UPC: 012236144762 Manufacturer No: 14476

Price: $9.98


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Unique Barbie Round Paper Plates, 7", 8-Piece

Unique Barbie Round Paper Plates, 7Barbie All Doll'd Up Plastic Tablecover measures 54" high x 102" wide.

Price: $4.99


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Thermos Tritan Hydration Bottle, Barbie, 12-Ounce

Thermos Tritan Hydration Bottle, Barbie, 12-OunceNothing is more vital to staying healthy and fit than proper hydration. Thermos hydration bottles make it easy to stay hydrated throughout the day. They are made of BPA-free, Eastman Tritan copolyester materials, reusable and built-to last. The Thermos 12 ounce hydration bottle will help your child stay fashionable hydrated all day long. This 12 ounce bottle is also the perfect size for any lunch kit or backpack. It includes an easy to use flip up straw and an integrated carry loop for the perfect on the go hydration bottle. Not for use with hot liquids as that may cause burns. It is highly recommended that this bottle not be intended for use with carbonated beverages as carbonation places the product under pressure and may cause it to leak. For use with children 3 years or older. Hand washing recommended.

Price: $9.99


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Thermos Barbie Soft Novelty Lunch Kit

Thermos Barbie Soft Novelty Lunch KitFor over 100-year, Thermos has created unique products fueled by hotter, cooler and fresher thinking. This commitment continues with an expanding range of innovative, fashionable lunch kits that get your child's healthy lunch to school and back in style. Pack their lunch in Thermos each day instead of using disposables: you'll reduce waste and save your family money. Now that's fresh thinking. The Barbie Novelty Lunch Kit is shaped like a purse, features glitter accents . This lunch kit is 100-percent PVC free with PEVA lining and features superior quality closed cell polyethylene foam insulation. Intended for children five years and older. Wipe clean with a damp cloth.

Price: $14.99


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More Dads Buy the Toys, So Barbie, and Stores, Get Makeovers

For the first time in Barbie’s more than 50-year history, Mattel is introducing a Barbie construction set that underscores a huge shift in the marketplace. Fathers are doing more of the family shopping just as girls are being encouraged more than ever by hypervigilant parents to play with toys (as boys already do) that develop math and science skills early on.

It’s a combination that not only has Barbie building luxury mansions — they are pink, of course — but Lego promoting a line of pastel construction toys called Friends that is an early Christmas season hit. The Mega Bloks Barbie Build ’n Style line, available next week, has both girls — and their fathers — in mind.

“Once it’s in the home, dads would very much be able to join in this play that otherwise they might feel is not their territory,” said Dr. Maureen O’Brien, a psychologist who consulted on the new Barbie set.

Consumer surveys show that men are increasingly making the buying decisions for families, reflecting the growth in two-income households and those in which the women work and the men stay home. One-fifth of fathers with preschool-age children and working wives said they were the primary caretaker in 2010, according to the latest Census Bureau data. And 37.6 percent of working wives earned more than their husbands in 2011, up from 30.7 percent 10 years earlier.

“Kids are going to grow up with dads that give them baths and drive them to soccer and are cutting up oranges for team snacks,” said Liz Ross, president for North America of BPN, part of the IPG Mediabrands holding company, which recently completed a study on male consumers. “What will go away, albeit slowly, is the image or the perception of the befuddled dad.”

The change is having consequences beyond toys. Consumer products have traditionally been marketed to appeal to women, and stores have been designed for women’s sensibilities. Now, some brands and stores are catering directly to male decision-makers. Sears is reorganizing stores to put tools next to work wear, for instance, based on men’s preferences. Procter & Gamble is working on men’s grooming aisles at top retailers, a nod to the fact that women are no longer choosing shampoos or shaving creams for their husbands. With the selling point that it helps girls develop spatial reasoning, the Barbie set, a joint effort of Mattel and the toy company Mega Bloks, is also meant to pique fathers’ interest.

“Dad is a bigger influencer in terms of toy purchases over all, and this sets up well for that, because the construction category is something Dad grew up with and definitely has strong feelings and emotions about,” said Vic Bertrand, chief innovation officer of Mega Brands, Mega Bloks’ parent company.

Construction sets for girls are a speedy growth category, thanks to Lego’s introduction of its Friends line in January. Despite criticism that those sets were sexist — themes include a beauty shop and a fashion studio — Lego’s chief executive said in August that the company sold twice as many of the sets in the first half of the year as it had expected, and retailers like Amazon and Target have named them hot holiday toys.

Anne Marie Kehoe, vice president of toys for Walmart U.S., said that, with the Barbie addition, construction toys aimed at girls will represent about 20 percent of the toy construction category by the end of this year, while last year there were just a handful of products.

Research shows that playing with blocks, puzzles and construction toys helps children with spatial development, said Dr. Susan C. Levine, chairwoman of the psychology department at the University of Chicago and co-principal investigator at the National Science Foundation’s Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center. Even controlling for other skills such as verbal and numerical skills, she said, children with better spatial thinking are more likely to eventually go into mathematics, engineering, science and technology.

She said that a set aimed at girls could be beneficial, if only because it might increase girls’ likelihood of participating in construction activities.

Dr. O’Brien, the consultant on the new Barbie set, said adults had traditionally been “the limiting factor” in why girls have not played with those toys as often.

Recently, she said, there has been a shift in attitudes, as parents study research on development and spatial play. “For this particular product, one of the advantages is you can appeal to both moms and dads,” she said of the construction set.

During her research, Dr. O’Brien said, she watched a grandfather jump in to explain building principles to his granddaughter, who was playing with the Barbie. Still, the construction set is not exactly dump trucks and dirt. It remains “unapologetically all girl,” said Stephanie Cota, senior vice president of global marketing for Barbie, girls’ brands and games at Mattel.

The Mega Bloks building pieces are pink (Pantone 219, the signature Barbie color), and the construction choices are scenes like a fashion boutique, a mansion and an ice cream cart. Each set comes with a small Barbie figure that can be snapped into the scene.

Mattel, the world’s largest toy maker, still leans heavily on Barbie, one of its most popular and longest-running franchises. However, pressure to update Barbie has been high — Mattel has introduced Barbies with video cameras and digital cameras in recent years.

Yet sales of Barbie in North America through September fell 1 percent, even as sales of Mattel’s other girl brands, like Disney Princess dolls, rose 44 percent. Mega Brands makes just a fraction of what its larger rival Lego does, and had revenues of about $376 million last year.

The Barbie brand, which tends to raise feminists’ ire for its overly sexualized dolls, not to mention the 1992 version saying “Math class is tough,” has already taken some high-arched steps toward gender equality. A computer-engineer Barbie was introduced two years ago, for instance, with the support of the Society of Women Engineers.

This time, though, the introduction appears to be a response more to market changes than to critics.

Girls “don’t necessarily care about, ‘That’s a boy toy; that’s not for me,’ ” said Ms. Cota of Mattel. “Now, more so than ever, girls are looking at what’s fun, what they like.”


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Judges Cut Back Damages Owed by Mattel in Doll Case

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that a jury should not have been allowed to consider MGA’s claims that it was the victim of trade secret theft during a trial that was convened to consider a lawsuit by Mattel, which contended that MGA stole the idea for Bratz from Mattel.

The case dates to 2004 when Mattel first filed a lawsuit asserting that the designer of the toys, Carter Bryant, was working for Mattel when he did the initial drawings and early work on the Bratz, hip-hop-inspired dolls with large eyes, heads, lips and feet, and tiny noses.

The Bratz doll, introduced in 2001, was a blockbuster and posed a serious challenge to Mattel’s Barbie after decades of fashion doll dominance.

A jury awarded Mattel $100 million in 2008 and found that Mr. Bryant had developed the Bratz concept while with Mattel. But the Ninth Circuit overturned that verdict and a new trial was ordered.

Before the start of the second trial in Santa Ana, Calif., Judge David Carter of Federal District Court allowed MGA to submit a counterclaim to the jury that accused Mattel of engaging in corporate espionage at toy fairs and conspiring to keep Bratz products off retail shelves.

In April 2011, a jury rejected Mattel’s claims and sided with MGA. Mattel was ordered to pay MGA a total of $309 million in damages and legal fees.

On Thursday, a unanimous three-judge panel ruled that the trial judge was wrong to have allowed the jury to consider MGA’s counterclaims because they were unrelated to Mattel’s initial lawsuit.

MGA said it would continue to pursue its trade-theft claims by filing a new lawsuit. For its part, Mattel asserted in a statement, “We are confident that such a lawsuit will be barred by the statute of limitations.”

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, writing for the same Ninth Circuit panel that overturned the initial verdict in 2008, said MGA could keep $137 million in legal costs spent fighting the Mattel lawsuit.

“While this may not be the last word on the subject,” Judge Kozinski said, “perhaps Mattel and MGA can take a lesson from their target demographic: Play nice.”


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Putting Technology to Work for Play

How do the tech toys measure up? This is not a typical "best of the year" list; rather, it is an attempt to make you — a busy parent or grandparent — smarter than a fifth grader, in 1,200 words or less, while pointing out a few noteworthy examples. The prices are from Amazon.com, unless noted.

A Child’s First Tablet

This year there were two noble attempts to trick children into believing they could have their very own tablet. The LeapPad Explorer ($100, leap.com) and the InnoTab ($80, vtechkids.com) are powered by four AA batteries, have single-touch screens and can double as media players for showing pictures or playing music. In addition, the LeapPad has a front-facing camera. But the apps are in the $5 range and require a USB connection to a computer, or you can buy cartridges in the $25 range. And even the best of these feel watered down compared with an app like Cut the Rope.

One solution is to buy last year’s Leapster from LeapFrog or a MobiGo from Vtech for $50 and stock up on discounted cartridges. If spending $500 for an iPad 2 is out of reach, there are other ways to give a child access to the ocean of apps in iTunes. An older, deactivated iPhone, which works essentially as an iPod Touch, is one route, or a new iPod Touch 4G is going for $190 or so at Wal-Mart (for the eight-gigabyte version). New Android-based options are popping up every week. One of the best is the $200 Nabi (foozkids.com), a full-featured seven-inch Android tablet with a front-facing camera and a set of controls that let parents pick and choose from the growing number of Android apps. Finally, don’t discount the dazzle — along with a vast software library and robust parental controls — provided by the Nintendo 3DS ($165, nintendo.com/3ds).

Exploiting the iToy

No single device since the invention of the bicycle has altered a child’s wish list more than the iPad. If you don’t believe me, go to the mall and ask Santa, or note the number of mainstream companies making app-related toys.

Disney AppMates ($10, disney.com) are matchbox-size cars from the “Cars” movies that you slide around on the slippery iPad screen, which delivers a set of self-scrolling roads with ramps. When the novelty fades and you run out of roads, you can buy another car for $10 to unlock a new “Cars” personality and another section of the map.

You can significantly improve an iPad’s chance of survival when it is slammed in a minivan door if it is encased in foam with Big Grips ($35, biggrips.com). The lightweight and easy grip makes the iPad 2 easier to hold like a steering wheel.

For iPhones or the iPod Touch, HappiTaps ($20, infantino.com) turns the screen into an oblong-headed bear that you can clip to a stroller, to provide conversation or deliver a lullaby (there are different modes).

The Appfinity AppBlaster ($40, theappblaster.com) is evidence that game controllers can come in many forms, including a bright orange, two-triggered assault rifle. You snap your iOS device into a holder on the gun barrel, download the app and start blasting at creatures that are floating around the room, as seen through the camera on your device. For tips on childproofing an iOS device, see this from the Times Gadgetwise blog: nyti.ms/kj4cEX.

Fish and Cameras That Fly

For less than $50, you can get your pick of flying helicopters, which seem to have more LEDs and features. The Air Hogs R/C Fly Crane has a tiny retracting hook for picking up extremely light objects.

More interesting are the schools of fish-shaped mini-blimps that have been flying around Toys “R” Us stores lately. Air Swimmers ($40, x-zylo.com) are pillow-size helium-filled fish that were originally a class project at Stanford. One fish can fly about five hours on an AAA battery, which doubles as ballast. By using the radio controls, you can steer left or right, or (slowly) up and down. The fish are sold uninflated and require some head-scratching to put together. That includes finding a tank of helium, a detail not mentioned in the commercials. You can buy a tank for $25, or visit a local party store, which could make for an interesting drive home. Air Swimmers are fragile, and they do not mix well with even the slightest breeze or ceiling fans.

For a bird’s-eye view of your backyard, the Air Hogs R/C Hawk Eye Blue Sky ($50, spinmaster.com) houses a tiny video camera just under its nose. Using controls on the remote, you can snap still JPEG photos or capture up to five minutes of silent AVI video, which will undoubtedly end with a crash. After your flight, you plug the plane into your computer using the included USB cable to view the video and charge the batteries. In the field, the charge can be delivered by the controller, which uses six AA batteries.

Barbie Tech

Sweet Talking Ken ($25, mattel.com) is a regular-size Ken doll with a Justin Bieber haircut and a hidden microphone. The result is a hilarious open-ended play experience where you can put your own voice inside the doll, with a playback option that lets you alter your voice.

Barbie Designable Hair Extensions (barbie.com/designable-hair/) is a $45 kit that consists of a standard-issue Barbie doll and eight sheets of printer paper designed specifically to work with your inkjet printer. The paper contains a swath of clear nylon hair that is glued flat against the card stock, which is thin enough to work with your printer. A Web-based design studio makes it easy to mix and match designs or import photos, although lining up the paper requires some test runs. Of course, there is nothing to say you cannot use your own markers and sidestep the printer altogether. Finished projects can be clipped onto your doll or your own head, using the included hair clips.

Dancing With Toys

The winner of this year’s dancing toy competition is Let’s Rock Elmo ($70, hasbro.com). The judges, ages 5 to 16, said that Elmo did more and sounded better than this year’s competition from Fisher-Price, Rock Star Mickey ($50). Our testers also liked Elmo’s ability to play a set of musical instruments, and his hinged arms give him a lifelike motion.

Stocking Stuffer

Hexbug Larva ($11, hexbug.com ) is the latest microrobot to crawl out of the labs of Innovation First. Slightly larger than a fortune cookie and powered by button cell batteries, this slug can "slither" on smooth surfaces, propelled by offset wheels that give it a unique motion best described as creepy. A nose-mounted sensor can see objects in the path, and the Hexbug changes directions accordingly.


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Leaving Behind Malibu in Search of a New Dream Home

Potential buyers may want to try bargaining down the price when they realize the house has only one bedroom and one bathroom — and three walls.

Those clues ought to point to the owner: Barbie, the doll who has, in the imagination of millions of girls, lived on the beach — in a home formally known as the Barbie Malibu Dreamhouse — since the introduction of Malibu Barbie in 1971. Mattel, the toy maker that has marketed Barbie since 1959, is to announce on Thursday that Barbie is posting a “for sale” sign on her house in preparation for a move.

The announcement will kick off a campaign that is to culminate with a disclosure of Barbie’s new home, which will be brought to life in a playset that will come out in the fall, in time for the 2013 Christmas shopping season.

The campaign is meant to mix actual and imaginary elements. For example, a section of Trulia, the real estate Web site, will carry the for-sale listing for what is being called “the dreamiest of dreamhouses.” Josh Altman, a cast member of “Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles,” a reality series on the Bravo cable channel, is being “hired” by Barbie to list the house.

And four designers are forming a dream team, in Mattel’s parlance, to advise Barbie in her hunt for a new home. They are Jonathan Adler, who brought the Malibu playset to life in 2009 as part of a commemoration of Barbie’s 50th anniversary; Lulu de Kwiatkowski; Celerie Kemble; and Trina Turk.

Although the campaign will include some traditional advertising like an ad in Us Weekly magazine, the bulk of it will involve digital media, on platforms like trulia.com and the Barbie Web site, barbie.com; social media like Facebook and Twitter; and public relations.

The campaign will also include so-called experiential marketing in the form of “Barbie the Dreamhouse Experience” — a touring exhibition, in a partnership between Mattel and EMS Entertainment — that is to begin this year in two markets, Berlin and Sunrise, Fla.

When Mattel reported its fourth-quarter results on Friday, executives said that Barbie sales fell about 4 percent, representing the third quarterly decline during 2012. That trend has set off efforts by Mattel to generate interest in Barbie and address challenges like the sluggish economy and the growing interest among children in electronic toys.

Recent examples of Mattel initiatives include a campaign, predominantly in social media, to reunite Barbie and her boyfriend, Ken, after a seven-year separation; a Web video series, “Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse,” that can be watched on barbie.com/dreamhouse and YouTube; and cruises with Barbie themes on Royal Caribbean International ships.

“Over all, we’re pleased with the position of Barbie in the marketplace,” said Stephanie Cota, senior vice president for girls’ brands worldwide at the Mattel Brands division of Mattel. “No. 1 is a good place to be.”

Still, “it’s our job that she remain top of mind,” she added, and “we are at our best when we recognize the cultural relevance of Barbie.”

The campaign is being introduced amid signs that the battered American housing market is healing, like an acceleration in groundbreaking for new homes and a spate of prominent ads by national realty companies that included a commercial for Century 21 during Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday. Those may be indications that consumers are ready for a lighthearted campaign about a doll’s foray into the real estate market.

Barbie is “a fun brand, an iconic brand, to partner with,” said Ken Shuman, head of communications at Trulia in San Francisco. The location of and high asking price for Barbie’s home fit with the focus of a Trulia blog “on luxury celebrity properties,” he added.

Besides, “we’re a Silicon Valley company, technology-focused,” Mr. Shuman said, “and Silicon Valley has embraced Barbie, voting that computer engineer be her next career” in 2010.

Mr. Altman, who works frequently with Trulia, is also getting into the spirit of the campaign. He said he would be glad to show Barbie new homes “anywhere on the planet” because “she speaks God knows how many languages.”

“And Ken is fine with whatever she wants to do,” he added, laughing.

After suggesting that he might advise Barbie to buy “a skyscraper in Manhattan,” Mr. Altman ended the conversation by declaring: “This is Barbie on the other line; I’ve got to go.”

All the nontraditional elements of the campaign make it difficult to determine spending. Ms. Cota said it would be comparable to Mattel’s spending on Barbie in recent years.

According to the Kantar Media unit of WPP, Mattel spent $11.6 million to advertise all Barbie products in major media in the first nine months of last year, compared with $8.4 million in the same period of 2011. Full-year spending was $18.4 million in 2011, $17.2 million in 2010, $23.7 million in 2009 and $31.7 million in 2008, Kantar Media reported.

The campaign is being led by an internal agency at Mattel, which is working with Attention, a digital and social media agency, and, for public relations, the HL Group, part of MDC Partners.


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Barbie, Monopoly and Hot Wheels for iPad Generation

Not anymore.

Classic toys are becoming much less classic because of upgrades meant to entertain technology-obsessed children. Where they once tried, unsuccessfully, to compete with digital devices, toy makers are co-opting them.

Monopoly money can now be counted by a tablet computer. Hot Wheels cars can zoom across iPad screens. And Barbie? She’s become a digital camera.

“We know that kids are going to play with technology, with iPhones and iPads and Android devices,” said Chuck Scothon, senior vice president for marketing for Mattel’s North America division. “Our job is to not necessarily avoid that, but if you can’t fix it, feature it.”

The souped-up classics reflect the growing reality that children, like their parents, are loath to spend time without their devices. More than a third of children 8 years old and younger use mobile devices like iPads or smartphones, a recent study from Common Sense Media found, and about a quarter of children ages 5 to 8 multitask with their digital devices most or some of the time.

While toy makers have tried to modernize their products for years, this is the industry’s most aggressive integration of tech. 

The upgrades are also a direct response to the toy industry’s funk. Retailers are desperate for something new, and most toy makers had a disappointing 2011. In the fourth quarter, when toy companies make most of their sales for the year, sales at the two biggest companies, Hasbro and Mattel, fell by 2 percent domestically (Hasbro’s figures include Canadian revenue).

And the main item retailers could not seem to keep in stock last year was a tablet computer for children, the LeapFrog LeapPad Explorer.

“Kids like to play with the gadgets that they see their parents using, so I think it makes sense for toy makers to find a way to freshen up,” said John Alteio, director of toys and games for Amazon, which will carry several of the tech-enhanced toys.

Mr. Scothon said Mattel has studied how children spend time on various activities, including digital devices, and found that a lot of playtime was revolving around the gadgets.

So Mattel’s new Barbie has a lens in her back; children point the doll at an image, and press a button on Barbie’s belt to take a photo. The image then appears on the front of Barbie’s T-shirt. The photos can also be downloaded to a computer.

“The future of play is trending towards a seamless integration between a physical toy and digital add-ons,” said Laura Phillips, senior vice president for toys and seasonal merchandise at Walmart, in an e-mail. “This innovation is extremely important to keeping kids engaged and keeping toys more relevant.”

Toys like spy glasses and laser tag sets have been transformed. Now, because of the addition of technology that records daytime and night vision video, the spy glasses made by Jakks Pacific, called Spy Net Multi Vision Goggles, could actually perform serious surveillance. And Hasbro’s Laser Tag of yore, when children ran around and pointed toy guns at one another, has been replaced by children pointing iPhones instead. Players place the iPhone in a gun, and the iPhone display — via an app — shows live video of whatever is ahead overlaid with graphics. When the trigger is pulled, lasers appear.

Mattel is introducing a line of games called Apptivity for classic brands, including Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price and Barbie. Using free apps, children pull up a game on the iPad. But instead of using a virtual car or avatar, children move small plastic toys with sensors around the iPad.

The makeovers have extended to tech versions of board games, too. In Game of Life, the plastic spinner has been replaced by a tablet, which shows a picture of the spinner and makes the spinner’s sound. In Monopoly, a tablet or smartphone counts everyone’s money and, when a player lands on Chance or Community Chest, it starts a short digital game, replacing the cards that told people to go to jail, go directly to jail.

“While parents might want certain things, kids enjoy their mobile devices,” said Hasbro’s chief marketing officer, John Frascotti. “This allows parents not to have that confrontation with kids.”

Gadgets that make the link between the virtual and the actual world can be helpful to children, said Sandra L. Calvert, director of the Children’s Digital Media Center at Georgetown. Though children need time away from devices, “any kind of link that you can be drawing between different environments, and seeing that they’re somehow linked together, is useful,” she said.

However, given that the digitally linked games are more expensive (the Barbie with a camera, for instance, is $50, more than twice as much as a plain Barbie) and that many require expensive iPads or smartphones to work, analysts say their potential is limited.

“IPhones and iPads, while extremely popular, are still very limited in real numbers — they’re expensive, they’re adult products, and yes, kids take them and use them, but you have to ask yourself just how far they will go,” Lutz Muller, a toy analyst for Klosters Trading, said. The Common Sense study found that low-income families were unlikely to have downloaded apps for their children’s toys, for instance, which many of the new toys require.

While real-world toys are adding a virtual aspect, some companies are taking the opposite tack. Moshi Monsters, which started out as an online-only game, started selling plush toys shaped like monsters late last year.

“We don’t want a world where kids are just staring at a screen for their play constantly,” said Michael Acton Smith, chief executive of Mind Candy, which makes the toys.


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Elliot Handler, Co-Founder Of Mattel Toys, Dies at 95

The cause was heart failure, his daughter, Barbara Segal, said.

Mr. Handler helped introduce Barbie, helped design the talking doll Chatty Cathy and popularized Hot Wheels toy cars.

He began Mattel in 1945 with his wife, Ruth, and a short-term partner. Until the Handlers were forced out of Mattel in 1975, they oversaw a toy empire that is among the largest in the world today.

Elliot Handler was born April 9, 1916, in Illinois. He was a struggling art student and designer of light fixtures when, in 1939, he began making costume jewelry and dollhouse furniture in his garage in Southern California. Eventually, he designed a realistic-looking miniature piano that caused a furor at the New York toy fair. Stores ordered more than 300,000 of them — but the Handlers had mispriced the toys, losing about a dime on each one.

They fell into debt until a music arranger approached them with an idea for a new way to manufacture cheap, tiny music boxes. Previously, such musical devices were luxury items manufactured almost exclusively by European artisans. The Handlers started putting the devices into jack-in-the boxes, plastic ukuleles and dolls. The products were an almost immediate hit, earning millions. Eventually Mattel released a talking doll — Chatty Cathy — that tutored generations of children in the lilting intonations of “I love you,” and “May I have a cookie?”

Ruth Handler drove Mattel’s business decisions while her husband nurtured new toys. When Mrs. Handler said that Mattel needed to develop a plastic doll that looked like a mature woman — with a small waist, long legs and a bosom that could put an eye out — her husband and others demurred. She insisted, and named the product after their daughter, Barbie. Later came Ken — named after their son, who died of a brain tumor in 1994.

Years later, Mr. Handler became focused on die-cast toy cars. The company recruited designers from auto companies like General Motors, and perfected a manufacturing process for plastic wheels that could spin fast. Since then, more than 10,000 different Hot Wheels models have been manufactured, including “King ’Kuda,” “Evil Weevil” and the “Beatnik Bandit.”

“He loved coming up with new cars,” said Sid Handler, his brother. “He loved the design part, and Ruth loved the business. It worked pretty well. He was a quiet, kind man. I think that’s why he liked toys so much. They make people happy.”

After retiring from Mattel, Mr. Handler devoted himself to painting, particularly in the photorealistic genre. His wife died in 2002. Mr. Handler is survived by his daughter, his brother and five grandchildren.


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Iran Attacks an Old Enemy: Barbie

TEHRAN (AP) — The police have closed down dozens of toy shops for selling Barbie dolls in Iran, part of a long crackdown against “manifestations of Western culture,” the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported Friday.

The doll, which was officially banned in the mid-1990s, is often sold in swimsuits and miniskirts in a society where women must wear head scarves in public, and men and women are not allowed to swim together.

The Mehr report quoted an unidentified police official as saying that the authorities were confiscating the dolls from stores in Tehran in a “new phase” of the campaign.

In 1996, a government-backed children’s agency called Barbie a “Trojan horse” for sneaking Western influences, like makeup and revealing clothes, into the country.

The authorities started confiscating the dolls from stores in 2002, denouncing what they called the toys’ un-Islamic characteristics. The campaign was eventually dropped.

That year, Iran introduced its own dolls — Dara and Sara, twins wearing modest clothing — but they failed to stem the Barbie tide.

In 2008, the judiciary warned against the “destructive” cultural and social consequences and “danger” of importing Barbie dolls and other Western toys.


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donderdag 19 september 2013

Silkstone Barbie Dolls

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Dusk to Dawn Giftset
2001 Dusk to Dawn Giftset
(See on eBay - Amazon)
Continental Holiday Barbie Giftset
2002 Continental Holiday Giftset
(See on eBay - Amazon)
Fashion Insider Ken Giftset
2003 Fashion Insider Ken Giftset
(See on eBay - Amazon)
A Model Life Barbie Giftset
2003 A Model Life Giftset
(See on eBay - Amazon)

2004200420062007
45th Anniversary Barbie and Ken Giftset
2004 45th Anniversary Barbie and Ken Giftset
(See on eBay)
Spa Getaway Barbie Giftset
2004 The Spa Getaway Giftset
(See on eBay - Amazon)
High Tea and Savories Barbie Giftset
2006 High Tea and Savories Barbie Giftset
(See on eBay - Amazon)
Hollywood Hostess Barbie Giftset
2007 Hollywood Hostess Barbie Giftset
(See on eBay - Amazon)
2000200020012002
Garden Party Fashion
2000 Garden Party Fashion
(See on eBay - Amazon)
Lunch at the Club Barbie Fashion
2000 Lunch at the Club Fashion
(See on eBay - Amazon)
Blush Becomes Her Barbie Fashion
2001 Blush Becomes Her Fashion
(See on eBay - Amazon)
Black Enchantment Barbie Fashion
2002 Black Enchantment Fashion
(See on eBay - Amazon)
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Boulevard Barbie Fashion
2002 Boulevard Fashion
(See on eBay - Amazon)
Country Bound Barbie Fashion
2002 Country Bound Fashion
(See on eBay - Amazon)
Midnight Mischief Barbie Fashion
2003 Midnight Mischief Fashion
(See on eBay - Amazon)
Skiing Vacation Barbie Fashion
2004 Skiing Vacation Barbie Fashion
(See on eBay - Amazon)
- See more at: http://www.fashion-doll-guide.com/Silkstone-Barbie-Dolls.html#sthash.KdXLQgo1.dpuf