Meet the 2017 Nominees for The National Toy Hall of Fame

IS A MAGIC 8-BALL SUPERIOR to Matchbox cars? Is toy food more fun than the paper airplane? Is sand a more enduring source of joy than Risk? These are just some of the questions posed by this year’s nominees for inclusion in the National Toy Hall of Fame.

The Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, has just announced the finalists for 2017 induction. The 12 playthings up for consideration are the games Clue, Uno, and Risk; brand-name classics Matchbox cars, My Little Pony, Transformers, and PEZ dispensers; vintage holdovers the Magic 8-Ball and the Wiffle ball; and a few broader categories of toys—play food, paper airplanes, and sand!

The National Toy Hall of Fame, curated by the Strong Museum, currently recognizes 62 other toys from over the years, including Etch-A-Sketch, LEGO, the ball (all of them), Star Wars action figures, and the Slinky. In 2016, both Fisher-Price Little People and Dungeons & Dragons made the cut. The museum, billed as the National Museum of Play, has special exhibitions of the selected toys, which are chosen for their ability to inspire imaginative play and wonder over generations.

This group of finalists all seem like heavy hitters, but at most a handful will be chosen for induction, so it’s anybody’s guess. Transformers and My Little Pony have high modern profiles, but neither can match the simple, universal appeal of the paper airplane or a Matchbox car. And it’s hard to imagine any more basic and primal toy than sand (maybe the first toy?) with which kids can excavate pits, build castles, or bury their parents.

The honorees will be announced in a ceremony on November 9, 2017, but until then, let the playground arguments commence

The Lessons Of Fidget Spinners

YOU can spin it on your nose, chin, finger or tongue. Some include LED lights, others resemble a ship’s wheel, or even a skull and crossbones. The fidget spinner has three paddle-shaped blades attached to a central, weighted disc containing ball bearings. Flick a blade and it spins, for anything up to 12 minutes in an advanced version from Japan. It was originally designed to help calm children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder or autism, but swept the world earlier this year as a toy that everyone can play with.

Retail sales have undoubtedly slowed recently, says Mark Austin of ToyWorld, a trade publication—good news for the schools that have banned it as too distracting for pupils. But the spinner has created a new “fidget” category of toys. And the global toy industry, which was surprised by its success, has learned lessons.

The fad started in America in February. By May, all 20 of the top-selling toys on Amazon, an online retailer, were either fidget spinners or fidget cubes, a close relation. There have been many such crazes—who can forget the great loom-band mania of 2014?—but none that spread as fast. Frédérique Tutt, an analyst of the global toy market for NPD, a data company, says that it took just three weeks to cross the Atlantic and go global. No one knows exactly how many have been sold but NPD estimates that at least 19m were sold in the 12 rich-world countries that they track (including America and the biggest European markets) during the first six months of this year. Others put the figure at over 50m.

Big toy retailers, the usual arbiters of what sells, were initially caught flat-footed. Fidget spinners were a plaything that children themselves discovered and shared on social media, particularly on YouTube and Instagram. No person or firm had a patent on spinners, so with no patenting or licensing fees to pay, anyone was able to make one. They are produced in huge quantities in China, often by businesses that previously manufactured smartphone accessories. Others were made using 3D-printing. That has been a boon for small shops, which have been able to stock these unbranded goods from wherever they can find them.

Andrew Moulsher, managing director of Peterkin, a firm that imports toys into Britain, calls it a “watershed moment” for the business. Big retailers usually plan their inventory as much as 18 months ahead of peak seasons such as summer or Christmas; schedules are often tied to toy-filled films such as the Star Wars and Cars franchises. This is where most of their attention, as well as their marketing and advertising budgets, go. So it was easy for big retailers to miss the eruption of fidget spinners on the internet. (Subsequently they reacted as well as they could, says Mr Austin, ordering spinners in by air freight.)

Developing and manufacturing a toy can take even longer than inventory planning—up to three years. But now there is pressure to spot new fads and bring products to market far more quickly. After the fidget spinner, both manufacturers and retailers know they must respond faster to signals from social media. A Californian company, MGA, which was founded in 1979, spotted that children were watching YouTube videos of other youngsters opening presents; to take advantage of this “unboxing” trend, it managed to produce the L.O.L Surprise! doll, which contains several layers of gifts, in just nine months. It has been another best-seller.

The successor to the spinner may be the roller, an oblong-shaped object weighted at either end. Mr Moulsher started importing Japan’s Mokuru brand of rollers into Britain in July. He has sold about 40,000. Learning from the fidget fad, he is hoping that the return of schools this month and a smart social-media strategy will see sales rocket. Teachers, be warned.

Justice League Talking Toys & Action Gear Revealed

Justice League toys are finally stocking the shelves of most major retailers, and some of the newest reveals from Mattel include the new Talking Heroes and Action Gear series. When it comes to toys, most of the recent focus has been on Star Wars thanks to the recent Force Friday II, seeing the official launch of hordes of new collectibles for a galaxy far, far away, and while DC’s merchandising power is nowhere near the behemoth that is Star Wars toys and collectibles, there will no doubt be a variety of tie-in merchandise to purchase before the movie is released.

We’ve already seen a number of items from Mattel, including the full Justice League roster that comes with pieces of a larger Steppenwolf figure, and those figures all appear to sport high-quality movie accurate paint work and versatile articulation, but the Talking Heroes figures diverge from that a bit, offering more restricted motion in the joints, a far more simple paint job, and a giant battery bulge, instead highlighting the built-in speaker that plays iconic catch phrases from each character.

Unfortunately, anyone expecting Superman to utter something spoilery like “I hope you like my black suit,”  “sorry I was evil when you resurrected me,” or “let’s team up with Green Lantern to fight Darkseid!” is in for a letdown. The phrases are unfortunately far more simplistic with Superman saying things like “I’ll use my heat vision,” and Batman resorting to familiar lines like “I’m Batman.”

While those lines are fairly boring, the figures also have some “interactive” dialogue options where they refer to other figures near them (utilizing an IR sensor). Unfortunately, these lines are just as generic, and Superman even says “Batman, join the Justice League,” which we know (with a fair amount of certainty) is now how the plot of the movie plays out.

The other toy line, Action Gear, is targeted at a much younger audience. Meant for ages 4 and up, the Action Gear is inspired (fairly loosely) by the armor and gadget of the league. Each character has a basic Action Gear set that includes a character mask and themed disk thrower. In the case of Aquaman, the thrower is a small trident, while others are less canonically concerned, usually taking the form of some sort of baton, or even separating into two separate batons in the case of Batman and The Flash.

In addition to the basic disk throwers, each character has a separate gear pack that includes a themed utility belt, Justice League communicator, and other character themed gadgets. It’s not exactly the makings of the next big thing for cosplayers, but when it comes to fighting parademons in the backyard, it’s probably exactly what most little DC fans want.

Winnie-the-Pooh Heads To V&A For Big Winter Exhibition

Pattering in the footsteps of David Bowie and Pink Floyd, the Bear of Very Little Brain is heading for the Victoria and Albert museum (V&A) to star in its first exhibition celebrating the most famous bear in literary history, Winnie-the-Pooh.

The museum has been on a roll, with record visitor numbers for the giant rock music exhibitions, but Winnie-the-Pooh: Exploring a Classic will be the first in the main museum targeted at families with young children. It will have playful settings by Tom Piper, the designer whose torrent of red ceramic poppies brought crowds to the Tower of London in the centenary year of the first world war.

The exhibition will be the largest to date on the bear and his friends from the 100 Aker Wood, and will bring together loans from other collections including a Winnie-the-Pooh tea service presented to the young Princess Elizabeth, coming from the Royal Collection, original illustrations, letters, photographs, manuscripts, and the museum’s own delicate pencil sketches by EH Shepard for the beloved characters, which are so fragile they have not been exhibited for 40 years.

There will of course also be hunny from very distinguished bees – from the hives on the roof of the museum.

The museum’s director, Tristram Hunt, said the V&A, which houses the world’s largest collection of Shepard drawings, was the perfect home for the exhibition. “This is our first exhibition specifically for younger families and we look forward to welcoming another generation into AA Milne’s magical, intimate, joyous world,” he said.

The museum will look at the links between Milne’s characters and the real world, most famously his own son, Christopher Robin, whose life was haunted by his alter ego. In adult life he recalled that he hated the girlish clothes and long hair his mother kept him in, that he learned to box to cope with bullying at school, and that his father – apart from the stories – was “not good with children”. He died in 1996.

Winnie-the-Pooh was inspired by bedtime stories about Christopher Robin’s bear Edward, and Shepard studied the toys and the trees in Ashdown Forest near their home to create his enduring images. When We Were Very Young, a collection of poems, came out in 1924 soon after Christopher Robin’s fourth birthday: the initial edition was 5,000 copies, but it had to be rapidly reprinted as 44,000 copies sold in the first eight weeks. Winnie-the-Pooh followed in 1926. Together with the second book of poems and The House at Pooh Corner, the books have since sold millions of copies in every language including Latin and Esperanto.

The exhibition will also feature many objects drawn from 90 years of merchandising, including toys and games, ceramics and textiles, and from the Walt Disney animations that almost overshadowed the originals. Many self-help books have appeared inspired by the bear’s apparently simple approach to life: one aphorism, captured in a Shepard illustration in the museum collection, is “When you go after honey with a balloon, the great thing is not to let the bees know you’re coming”. In one poll the public voted Winnie-the-Pooh the greatest philosopher of all time, and the 19th anniversary of his creation was marked with a talking “Thotful Spot” bench installed at sites including the real wood and near the statue of Confucius at King’s College London.

Milne, already a successful playwright, first met Shepard when they were both working on Punch magazine. The origins of their most successful joint creation lay in the teddy bear bought from Harrods by his parents for Christopher Robin’s first birthday, but the final version of Shepard’s drawings looked more like his own son’s bear, a Steiff teddy called Growler. The name Winnie-the-Pooh (always hyphenated) was inspired by Winnie, a bear at London zoo that fascinated the child, and the setting for the stories came when in 1925 the Milnes bought a large house, Cotchford Farm, on the edge of the 500 acres of Ashford Forest.

The house has a bleaker fascination for a very different group of fans: it was later the home of Brian Jones, a founder member of the Rolling Stones, who drowned in the swimming pool there in 1969.

Popular Toys Linked with Safety Hazards

A U.S. government agency is warning of the safety hazards linked with the widely popular toys called fidget spinners.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has released new safety guidelines for fidget spinners on Aug. 10, after receiving several reports of children choking on fidget spinner pieces, as well as reports of battery-operated spinners catching fire.

"Fidget spinners can be fun to use, but consumers and companies should be aware of some of the safety concerns associated with this product," Ann Marie Buerkle, acting chairwoman of the CPSC, said in a statement.

Plastic and metal fidget spinners may break and release small pieces that can be a choking hazard, according to the guidelines. For this reason, children younger than 3 years old should not use fidget spinners, and children of any age should not put fidget spinners in their mouths. (Some reports of choking have involved children as old as 14, the CPSC said.) [Beyond Fidget Spinners: 10 Ways to Help Kids Concentrate]

In addition, there have been some reports of fires involving battery-operated fidget spinners, the CPSC said. For example, a woman in Michigan told NBC News that her Bluetooth-enabled fidget spinner caught fire after charging on her counter for less than 30 minutes.

The CPSC recommends that consumers be present in the room when their fidget spinner is charging and that they always use the cable that came with the toy. If the spinner didn't come with a cable, consumers should make sure to use a cable that has the correct connections for charging the device. Once the device is charged, consumers should unplug it immediately, the CPSC said.

If the fidget spinner is made for children 12 years and younger, it must meet certain testing, labeling and other requirements, according to the CPSC.

'Lego emergency': Italian cancer hospital flooded with toys

A pediatric cancer association made a plea to the world to help children "pass the time and allow the spirit to travel." Days later, hundreds of boxes of Legos arrived at the hospital, making kids' dreams come true.

Earlier this week, an association working with a pediatric cancer hospital in northern Italy made an earnest request on Facebook to help children undergoing treatment.

"We have a Lego emergency," said the Ageop Ricerca association in Bologna on Sunday. "At any age, building a car, robot or space shuttle is always a wonderful way to pass the time and allow the spirit to travel. Can you help us?"

Ageop Ricerca Director Francesca Tesoni, who made the plea for Legos, said due to health reasons, the children could only play with new toys.

Within days, the Sant'Orsola hospital, where Ageop Ricerca operates, received 500 new boxes of the toy building bricks.

'So beautiful'

On Friday, Tesoni took to Facebook to express her thanks to the people who donated the new Legos to the children at the hospital.

"How fulfilling it is to be able to choose a child and give him what he wants. Thank you world," she said in a post.

But not only were the children delighted with the new gifts. A mother of a child receiving treatment at the hospital told Tesoni that the amount of Legos donated filled her heart with joy.

"It's so beautiful knowing that so many people think of our children. These toy bricks make it clear to everyone that we exist," the mother said, according to Tesoni's post.

Target Is Betting On Dog Toys To Help It Stave Off Amazon's Charge

Target has announced that it will start carrying products from Bark, the pet company behind the pet subscription service Barkbox, starting Sunday. This is the first time that Bark’s products will be sold at retail stores.

While the partnership allows Bark to expand beyond its subscription roots and have a brick-and-mortar retail presence, the bigger story is Target’s ongoing attempt to lock arms with a growing list of e-commerce natives as they grapple with Amazon's growing dominance.

Indeed, the Bark deal comes on the heels of similar partnerships for Target, including the men's shaving brand Harry’s and the disruptive mattress startup Casper respectively.

"Recently, we’ve recognized our unique ability to provide a home for some great digital and subscription-based brands who understand they need a physical space to reach more customers. These partnerships are a win for the brands, for Target and for our guests," a Target spokesperson told Business Insider. "Brands see incremental growth and access to new customers, Target gets the benefit of adding newness to our product assortment and learning from highly entrepreneurial partners, and most importantly, our guests get convenient access to these exciting new brands as part of their regular Target run."

Target isn't alone. Retail incumbents have been coping with the ongoing shopping disruption by making internal investments in digital and e-commerce, going the acquisition route like Walmart with Jet.com, or investing in exclusive retail partnerships with digital natives, like the Bark pact.

"In today’s age, you have to keep innovating," Jason Goldberg, senior vice president of commerce and content at ad agency SapientRazorfish, told Business Insider. "This is Target’s way of making sure that it is on the cutting edge of innovation and digital, and is far more economical than making a direct acquisition or building it organically from scratch."

"Retailers must show consumers continuity through an ‘omnichannel’ strategy, unifying online, mobile and in-store," said Curt Thornton, CEO of Provision Interactive Technologies. "This unification between brick-and-mortar and e-commerce is one of the key strategic aims behind Target’s announcement."

It is also an opportunity for Target to attract a younger and higher-income group of shoppers, which traditional retailers like itself have been struggling to do for years, said Goldberg. Since launching in 2012, Bark has carved a niche for itself in the $69 billion pet industry, becoming one of the fastest-growing brands with 500,000 subscribers and reaching over $100 million in sales last year.

Moreover, it has done that on the back of data. The company has built its toys and treats based on consumer data it has gathered from shipping 50 million products. This is an attractive bet for Target as it gets access to this goldmine of data.

"Almost 70% of our guests have pets at home," Christina Hennington, senior vice president of essentials and beauty at Target, said in a blog post. "So we saw an opportunity to become their ultimate pets destination by offering new and exclusive pet brands they can only find at Target, alongside everyday must-haves they need, saving guests time and money with every Target run."

There is also much more to be learned from these partnerships. Harry’s, Casper and Bark have all upended their industries, by offering a subscription services that sell blades, mattresses and pet products for a fraction of a price compared to their competitors and by successfully building direct-to-consumer brands. They have aced social media, using it to not only market but also sell their products.

On the other end of the spectrum, it is an equally important bet for the upstarts to land in traditional retail stores. While they can initially afford to bypass stores, they ultimately have to look to Target and its competitors to help expand their reach and scale.

"These digitally native brands struggle to get past a certain size if they're only selling via digital," said Goldberg. "But you’re not going to get to a billion dollars that way, there just aren’t enough cheap eyeballs to buy through digital."

Matt Meeker, co-founder at CEO at Bark, agrees.

"While BarkBox continues to thrive, the subscription model isn’t a fit for every dog parent. This launch gives us another accessible channel for reaching pups and introducing Bark to new audience," he told Business Insider. "Target’s nationwide network of stores helps us to reach more pups and their parents with Bark's original toys and treats."

The Target partnership also helped Casper expand its footprint, allowing it to reach new customers including those who prefer to try products out first. The company has frequently set up pop-up stores to appeal to the same audience.

"Since our launch in 2014, we have seen a strong demand from consumers to experience Casper products in the physical world," Taryn Laeban, Casper's chief commercial officer, told Business Insider. "Our strategic retail partnership with Target has allowed us bring Casper to over a thousand locations across the country."

The Bark partnership was one of the several pet-related announcements that Target made Wednesday. The retailer has revamped its own Boots & Barkley pet line with over 200 new items for cats and dogs and will also partner with St. Paul-based style blogger Kate Arends of Wit & Delight for a pet clothing and accessories line.

Roblox Toys Wave 2 Hits Store Shelves This August

Wave 2 of toys based off the hit MMO and game development platform Roblox will be hitting store shelves in mid-August, a PR contact for the game told Heavy.com via email.

The toyline is coming to Toys “R” Us, Target, Walmart, and Best Buy and will feature toys based on some of the most popular games, characters, and developers in Roblox, according to a PR contact. Each toy will come with a code that can be redeemed in Roblox for in-game items.

To bring the toys to life, Roblox partnered with Toy Developer Jazwares who also worked on toys for Mega Man and Sonic the Hedgehog according to their website.

Wave 2 includes six new Core Figures: Phantom Forces: Ghost, Hunted Vampire, Blue LAZER Parkour Runner, MeepCity Fisherman, Queen of the TreeLands, and Skybound Admiral. Each toy comes with the figure, some accessories, and a code.

Also coming is a Prison Life Game Pack, which comes with two figures, accessories, and a code. According to the website for the toyline, the pack is based off of the Prison Life game on Roblox which has over 519 million visits since its release on May 1, 2014.

A new playset is also coming called Zombie Attack, which includes four figures with platforms and accessories to play with. It should pair nicely with the Apocalypse Rising 4X4, a vehicle that includes a figure. The vehicle was based off of Apocalypse Rising on Roblox, which has over 139 million visits since its release on April 1, 2008.

You can also nab one of the Series 2 Mystery Figures. Each blind box comes with a random figure and a code.

Finally, there’s a 6-pack assortment of Legends of Roblox figures. Each figure is based off a popular game developer on roblox: Litozinnamon, Gusmanak, Merely, TheGamer101, Seranok, and Loleris. Many of the creators in this set has attracted millions or even hundreds of millions of players to their games. Seranok is the winner of the Player of the Year Award in 2012.

Wave 1 of Roblox toys were officially launched on February 1, 2017. The PR contact told Heavy.com that while she couldn’t get any specific numbers for sales of Wave 1 toys, she does know that it launched as top selling toys at Toys “R” Us and were sold out the majority of the time during the initial launch. They were even placed in the “Hot and New” section at the front of the store. They were also a top seller in Target and a top selling toy in the boys aisle.

Todd McFarlane Not Planning Toys For New Spawn Movie

When the Spawn announcement hit San Diego Comic-Con, fans assumed a new toy line would likely follow suit. You might be surprised to learn then that no such toy line exists.

ComicBook.com's Jim Viscardi had the chance to chat with Spawn creator Todd McFarlane about the Spawn reboot, and when asked if the film would get an accompanying toy line, McFarlane gave a surprising answer.

"No, actually here's the funny thing. I own a toy company, so again all my sales people, I remember I had to calm them down but they were all like "Oh my gosh Todd's going to finally do something!" This was a few months ago and I had to sit them down going "You know how I said I think we're going to get pass the hurdle, we're going to make this movie? I didn't write a story that was gonna make toys."

It's hard to make a toy of a figure that is constantly seen in the shadows, and that will heavily be the case in the horror focused reboot.

"It's a horror movie," said McFarlane. "It doesn't have anything other than the shadow moving, and you can just see that they were like "Oh we're going to run into K-Mart, Walmart, and Target and say we've got the hottest toys from the hottest movie!" and it's like "no".

It was important for McFarlane to keep the focus on the story, and not get caught up in making the plot fit marketing and toy plans, something that has come to backfire on other films of Spawn's ilk.

'I've always felt like when I come up with an idea that you don't let any tail wag a dog. So when I was coming up with the idea I'd go "I don't want to worry about whether someone's going to buy the comic book or someone's going to buy the toys or if someone's going to buy the novel." I'm going to write something for moviegoers, and moviegoers as you know, can simply go to a movie, enjoy it, and go home, and never have to buy a hat, shirt, or a toy. They don't have to. They just go "hey that was a cool movie. What movie are we going to next week?", and they move on with their life."

Now that doesn't mean there won't be toys and accessories further down the line, but McFarlane just wants to make a well-rounded film first and foremost.

"To me, I just wanted to make a movie for moviegoers that like sort of dark creepy stuff and I'll just let the other dominoes fall around it. I'll worry about those as we go."

Spawn will be coming from Blumhouse, makers of The Purge, Paranormal Activity, and The Belko Experiment. The budget will be in the $10 million range, and no release date has been announced.

These clever toys will help spark your kids' curiosity

Gone are the days when Lego was enough to cure childhood curiosity. From toys that teach kids about the principles of robot construction and coding, to paper planes you can pilot, WIRED selects the smartest educational toys in the box.

PowerUp FPV

At last: a paper plane you can pilot - just download the PowerUp app, reach for your Google Cardboard and enjoy a different view of the world. PowerUp has engineered an 80g paper-aeroplane motor with a built-in wide-angle camera, microphone and Wi-Fi connectivity with a range of 92 metres. Tilt your head to control its movements, and - depending on the design - your sheet of 120gsm can reach speeds of up to 32kph.

Table Pong Project

YouTuber Daniel Perdomo has taken the classic 70s video game and turned it into a real-world proposition. With no previous technical knowledge - the paddle controllers are made from old hard drives and engineering principles picked up online - Perdomo and his team have made the virtual tangible, without diminishing the game's appeal.

Maglev Model Train

The concept for the magnetic levitating train dates back to 1902; the first commercially usable track opened in Birmingham in 1984. While we're all waiting for the hyperloop to take the idea to the next level, here's a small-scale version for your kids to play with. Build your own smooth-running, high-speed maglev track (above), albeit one that fits in your living room.

Lini Cube

With 105 ways to plug one cube into another (a typical LEGO brick manages just nine), Lini Cube is a versatile building block allowing for true 3D model-making. In a smart development, it adopts Selinko's internet of things technology: each pack of cubes features an NFC chip, which helps tackle toy counterfeiters, who account for an annual sector loss of £1.25 million.

Jimu Robot TankBot Kit

Jimu TankBot teaches robotic construction and coding. By using its free iOS app, kids can follow 3D instructions to program movement of the tank-treaded toy by its six servo motors. The kit's 190 interlocking pieces allow you to build the pre-designed TankBot, then modify it. It also includes an infrared sensor that tracks lines and senses objects to manoeuvre around or pick up.

Infantino B Kids BV Sensory Discovery Robot

Winner of Best New Toy at the 2017 Toy Fair, the Discovery Robot beeps, flashes and pulls funny expressions as your baby bashes, yanks, chews and generally abuses it. Rotate its head and hear clicking, press the hand and its eyes spin, then push and pull its feet for more visual and sonic stimulation.

Retailer Mothercare under fire for vintage housewife child ads

British retailer Mothercare is facing a backlash after advertising its range of cleaning toys with young girls dressed as 1950s housewives.

With her hair tied in rollers, one young girl wears a polka dot swing skirt while pushing a vacuum cleaner.

Under "features and benefits," it lists "introduces children to real life."

The same images are used to advertise toys, including a cleaning trolley, on the Early Learning Centre site, which is owned by the same company.

The photos met a slew of livid parents and advocates on Twitter.

In a statement to CNN, Mothercare said:

"At Mothercare, our aim is to offer a wide range of toys to appeal to the many different tastes and play interests of little ones. We feature both boys and girls playing with many different toys."
The company added: "In the 'Playing House' section of our website we feature both boys and girls playing with a range of household items."

Mothercare depicts a couple boys within this toy line, but they're all dressed in contemporary clothing.

Notable UK-based campaign "Let Toys Be Toys," which calls for the end of gender-based toy and book limits for children, tweeted a photo criticizing the items.

"No, not retro toy ads from the 1950s, but Mothercare/ELC, 2017," the organization added.
British celebrity supernanny Jo Frost slammed the products, too.

"How disappointing, i guess nxt week it will be boys with toolbelts& hard hats on. This is not exactly the Early Learning i can appreciate," she tweeted.

While some shamed the marketing team behind the idea, others threatened personal boycotts.

"I love @MothercareUK and #elc but after seeing this I will have to go to somewhere else for toys," said one woman.

One woman posted a side-by-side comparison of this ad next to a 1979 ad for Mothercare homemaker toys, showing close to nothing has changed overall for little girls since then.

Studies outline a distinct role that toys play in the psychology of young children. Kids base their future aspirations on what they perceive as available to them.

The industry has grown more gendered in recent decades, research shows.

Exploiting the myth of gender-specific colors, labels, and roles kindles a self-fulfilling cycle. It's bit of a cop out that also ends up backfiring, says Bjorn Jeffrey, who co-founded a company that makes digital toys for kids 3-7.

It makes ethical as well financial sense to offer a genderless choice as the market is twice as large, he says. The open choice also encourages more creativity.

"Kids get a lot of ideas early from play about what they can do, what they like and what they can aspire to," says psychology professor Deborah Tolman of the Hunter College School of Social Work in New York. "By making those themes gender specific, it leaves out a whole range of possibilities."
Reinforcing these gender limits goes hand in hand with fueling derogatory attitudes toward other identities, like sexual orientation and sexuality.

"If kids are coming into social situations with more constrained ideas about what boys and girls should be from playing, you can see how that would contribute to the negative reinforcement of ideas about identity and sexuality," says Tolman.

Shocked parents tweeted their hope that the Mothercare images were a spoof. However, as of Tuesday morning they were still on Mothercare's site.

How good were these childhood crazes

“MUUUUUUUMMMMMM! Can I have a fidget spinner?” my six-year-old daughter asks for the third day in a row.

“No,” I say.

“Why not? Sally has one and Ruby has one.”

“Because you can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because there’s enough crap in our house.”

And then suddenly, I get a flashback of my own childhood. Of smashing shiny conkers hung from strings together when we lived in London. Of jumping over elastics on the hot asphalt. Of being cornered by a group of boys in the schoolyard of Farrer Primary, Canberra, and bullied into swapping my huge and gorgeous cat’s eye marble for a crappy, chipped pearly one — and crying in my bedroom later that afternoon.

Yes, my friends. The fidget spinner is just the latest in an endless list of childhood crazes.
Remember these beauties?

JACKS OR KNUCKLEBONES

Knucklebones originally came from sheep but modern versions are made from plastic or metal. The game usually involves throwing them up in the air and catching them in various different ways.

According to Wikipedia, the game of Jacks is as old as the hills: “Both the [Homer’s] Iliad and the Odyssey contain allusions to games similar in character to knucklebones.”

Vicky, 66, says: “You had to have a set of five, if they were really smooth and white even better. We would trade two or three dirty ones for a nice shiny one. Boys just had them in their pockets but girls tied them up in their hankies.

“We played at play time and lunch time. I didn’t know they were Jacks until I was older and wiser, I then thought those weird metal jacks were for poor unfortunates who couldn’t get real knucklebones.

“Writing this I can almost feel them landing on the back of my hand — and the last time I played was in the heat and dust of St Augustine’s Primary School, Wodonga in 1963. The nuns used to roll up their sleeves and play too — they were champions! Oh happy days.”

MARBLES

Every time the marble craze comes around, kids think they are brand new. In fact, examples of marbles go back centuries — to ancient Egypt and the region that, once-upon-a-time, was known as Mesopotamia, in the Middle East.

There’s a massive range of marble games and lingo — terms like: quitsies, clickies, tick-tack-toe, keepsies, knuckle down and knock out. Different types of marbles have their own alluring names, too: galaxies, tonks and tronks, grandmas and grandpas … the list is endless.

Simon, 39, is the oldest of three boys. When they were kids, he got out of sharing a room with his middle brother, Paul, by using marbles to bribe his younger brother, Michael.

“Michael had his own room. He swapped a solo room for my marble collection! That’s how valuable they were at the time. Mind you, he is dark about it to this day!”

ELASTICS

Generally this game involved jumping in and out of a long loop of taut elastic held at each end around the ankles of a couple of friends. Everyone chanted rhymes and the elastic got higher and higher. Here’s a cute home video demo.

Rachel, 45, recalls playing elastics — especially the rhyme “England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Inside, outside, inside out.”

She says: “Remember you went ankies, kneesies, thighsies and then necksies? I hate to say it, but I was the school champ in elastics.”

YO-YOS

“I never seemed to be able to do all the tricks that others could,” muses 49-year-old Megan.
Personally, I relate (always was hopeless with a yoyo.)

The yoyo — made from two disks and an axle with string tied to it — became popular in the 1920s, before making a huge resurgence in the 1990s. However, you can spot yoyos in Greek paintings dating back to 440BC. Who knew yoyos were that old?!

There’s even a World Yo-Yo Contest. This year it will be held in Reykjavik, Iceland.

(Some people see so-called “circus diabolos” as being related to the yoyo.)

FRIENDSHIP BANDS

When I was in primary school, I gave myself a repetitive strain injury from making so many friendship bands. (As outlandish as this seems, it’s true.) My mother, a physiotherapist, bandaged my wrist to help it heal. And she forbade me from making more bands!

Normally, the bands are made with thread and are given to others to show friendship. Creators use different combinations of colours and knots to create attractive patterns. Sometimes beads are added too. Here’s a simple guide if you’re keen to get started or show your children how.

(To me, other trends like loom bands and “Scooby Doo” knotting techniques are just variations of the same idea.)

It’s not you – solving a Rubik’s cube quickly is officially hard

If you thought solving a Rubik’s cube was difficult, you were right and maths can back you up. A recent study shows that the question of whether a scrambled Rubik’s cube of any size can be solved in a given number of moves is what’s called NP-complete – that’s maths lingo for a problem even mathematicians find hard to solve.

To prove that the problem is NP-complete, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers Erik Demaine, Sarah Eisenstat, and Mikhail Rudoy showed that figuring out how to solve a Rubik’s cube with any number of squares on a side in the smallest number of moves will also give you a solution to another problem known to be NP-complete: the Hamiltonian path problem.

That question asks whether there is route that visits each vertex exactly once in a given graph consisting of a collection of vertices connected by edges, like a triangle, pentagram, or the vast connections in a social network such as Facebook.

It’s reminiscent of the travelling salesperson problem, which aims to find the shortest route that visits several cities only once, probably the most famous NP-complete question of all.  “It’s very clever. The description of how it works is very clean,” says Jeff Erickson of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

NP-complete problems are easy to check, if you’re given a proposed solution, but the amount of time it takes to solve them explodes as the number of inputs goes up, at least with the algorithms we know about today. On the other hand, problems that have algorithms that run their course in a more reasonable amount of time based on the number of inputs are called P.

Researchers are still unsure whether algorithms exist that can solve NP-complete problems faster. This question, often called the P vs NP problem, is one of the most important unsolved maths problems and will net the solver a $1,000,000 prize from the Clay Mathematics Institute of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

So if you’re frustrated about how long it’s taking you to solve a Rubik’s cube, it’s not just you. “You have the excuse now: Rubik’s cubes are legitimately hard,” Rudoy says. You’re not going to figure it out quickly, so you might as well sit back and enjoy the puzzle.

Playing God

Every standard 3x3x3 Rubik’s cube can be solved in a maximum of 20 moves from any starting position, no matter how scrambled. In 2010, programmers found that 20 is the colourful puzzle’s so-called “God’s number”, a name they selected to suggest that even a deity couldn’t solve a Rubik’s cube any faster.

A year later, Demaine, Eisenstat and their colleagues devised a formula to solve a Rubik’s cube with sides of any length and found that the number of moves required for a cube of side n is proportional to n2/log n.

Finding God’s number for a cube with n=3 took several years of computing time and Demaine estimates that the n=4 case would take billions of times longer. “I conjecture it will never be fully solved,” he says.

God’s number is the upper limit for the most scrambled cubes, but many cubes will not take that long. Figuring out whether any given configuration of a cube will take fewer moves is tricky. “We know an algorithm to solve all cubes in a reasonable amount of time,” Demaine says. “But if I give you a particular configuration of the cube, and then you want to solve it with the fewest moves for that configuration, that’s really tough.”

Demaine started working on the question after seeing it in a post from Erickson on a computer science forum, although Erickson says the question had been floating around for a while. “It’s nice to see it finally closed off,” he says.

Film review: ‘Transformers 5: The Last Knight’

Michael Bay films are now mostly about the experience of watching a Michael Bay film. His latest is “Transformers: The Last Knight,” the fifth installment of a franchise that increasingly serves as a pyre on which their director burns money — in this case, $217M.

Like the great silent films of the past, Bay’s movies ought to be almost wordless — the corny jokes are as relentless as the fireballs. The heart of “Transformers” is vast orchestrations of CGI, actors against green screens stretching their necks back to look wonderingly around at objects in a sky they’ll never see.

This “Transformers” screenplay actually impresses, if you believe the writers were forced to plot the entire film in one night while shooting tequila every time a new Transformer was introduced (there are more than 30). The complete narrative summary must be Googled to be believed but it begins, as you would expect, with the knights of the Round Table.

Arthur and co. are losing a muddy battle while waiting on Merlin (Stanley Tucci!). The sozzled wizard is supposed to visit a crashed alien ship, convince an ancient Autobot to give him a staff of great power and conjure a three-headed dragon Transformer to save the day. Happily he does, and the Autobots go on doing favors for humans down the ages — we learn, for instance, that they also helped out with the Underground Railroad, which was nice of them.

But Earth has enjoyed the staff long enough. Quintessa, a purple space sorceress trailing squid tentacles, is going to bring it back to the Transformers’ home planet, Cybertron. To do so, she enlists the always duplicitous Decepticons and hoodwinks good guy Optimus Prime into doing her bidding — his eyes turn from true blue to a lustful violet color.

This is a real downer for Prime’s human chum Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg, occasionally donning glasses because he’s playing a genius inventor) and Sir Edmund Burton (Anthony Hopkins) the last in a line of an English royal house that protects the secret of the Transformers. Amid the bombast, it’s a small pleasure to watch Hopkins call Wahlberg, “duuuuuude.”

Bay’s gender politics remain mind-blowingly retrograde, as exemplified by Viviane Wembly (Laura Haddock), a polo playing descendant of Merlin with a doctorate in English lit and proclivity for skin tight attire. Burton conscripts her to track down the staff, but she’s sexualized every second in spite of her qualifications as a doctor.

Nevertheless, Bay’s view of posh England is tremendous, like the most basic tourist brochure: Big Ben, Stonehenge, the white cliffs of Dover.

The contrast to America is useful as Yeager and the Autobots are chased across South Dakota by Decepticons and Colonel Lennox (Josh Duhamel) of the Transformers Reaction Force. Bay’s Badlands, unlike Terrence Malick’s, are ruin porn par excellence: broken windows, dirty puddles in which we see the reflections of flying things, tumbleweeds. As one Decepticon mutters, “This planet is hell.” But he hasn’t been to England yet!

Michael Bay — the man with “Bayhem” stitched on his custom sneakers — generates a bewildering but consistent amalgam of fiery crashes and rainbow lens flares and tears in the eyes of beautiful people. There have been five “Transformers” films and a less vulgar auteur would have left the direction of the later installments to a younger man.

New theory over origin of Andy’s dad in Toy Story sparks debate after alleged report

Pixar and Disney are no stranger to fan theories about canonical anomalies found within their films’ universes, but the newest is causing a bit of controversy online.

It all started with a YouTube video. Mike Mozart, an artist and longtime toy reviewer, conducted a two-and-a-half-hour livestream where he spoke about his friend, the late Joe Ranft. Ranft is best known for being one of the writers on Toy Story, earning him an Academy Award. Ranft is also, according to Mozart, the only one who could answer a decades-old fan question: What happened to Andy's dad?

The story, according to Mozart, is pretty sad. Mozart sat down with the Super Carlin Brothers, a YouTube channel dedicated to theories about different movies, and detailed the untold story. The simple explanation Mozart gave, based on what Ranft allegedly told him, was that Andy’s dad had polio when he was a child. As a result, all of his toys had to be burned in order to protect himself and others, but before his family and doctors had a chance to kill Woody, a toy given to him by a cereal company, Andy Sr. managed to save Woody from being destroyed.

Andy Sr. eventually got better, enough to lead a full life and have a beautiful family — introducing us to Andy Jr., the young boy we know from the films. As time wore on, however, Andy Sr. developed post-polio disease. The family had to move into Andy Jr.’s grandparents house so Andy Sr. could be taken care of, according to Mozart.

Throughout all of this hardship, however, Woody never left the family’s side. While on his deathbed, Andy Sr. gives his son a key to a chest being kept in an attic. In the chest are a few of his favorite toys, including Woody, who now continues to live on through Andy Jr. They don’t realize that Andy Jr. isn’t the same boy they grew up with, now dying in the room next door, but they do get to love and cherish the human child they now sit in the arms of.

It’s a heartbreaking story, which is on par for Pixar movies, but there has been some debate as to whether or not this is actually true. After the video was published and the story gained traction online, Andrew Stanton, another writer on Toy Story, called it utter bullshit.

This leads to a couple of important questions: Was Mozart lying? Did Ranft tell Mozart but keep it a secret from the rest of the team? Was this all just a concept that Ranft came up with after the movie was finished?

Unfortunately, none of these questions will be answered. It’s a classic case of he said, she said that we’ve seen time and time again in Hollywood.

What’s even more interesting than the possible answer Ranft has given, however, is just how many other theories seem to fall into place. Why doesn’t Woody remember the “popular” show he was on called Woody’s Roundup? It was cancelled right after he was created. Different handwriting examples on Buzz and Woody’s feet exist because they were written by two different people.

It’s even led to a theory that Up and Toy Story exist in the same universe. As fans have pointed out, what if Emma Jean, the wife from Up, was the secretary who sent Woody to Andy Sr.? The basis for the theory is pretty farfetched, but it does play into the universally understood theory that every movie in the Pixar universe is somehow connected.

The story of Andy’s dad my be an argued mystery — and theory — for the rest of time, but for those looking for a little bit of closure may find some in Mozart’s answer.

Barbie, are you ready for man-bun or Dad-bod Ken?

Last year when El Segundo-based Mattel unveiled a bumper crop of new Barbies, including curvier, taller and more petite versions of its flagship fashion doll, one social media commenter quipped, “But what about #dadbod Ken?” referring to the perfectly chiseled abs and molded plastic hair of Ken Carson, Barbie’s longtime arm candy companion.

The other very tiny shoe drops today as Mattel starts selling a cornucopia of new Kens that includes two new body types dubbed “slim” and “broad” (the latter of which, with its slightly thicker middle, invites Dad-bod comparisons), six new molded hairstyles, including cornrows and an on-trend man bun, and seven skin tones.

It’s certainly not the first time the 56-year-old boyfriend of Barbie has switched up his look. (Who could forget 1993’s Magic Earring Ken?) However, it does mark the most diverse Ken squad to date. Mattel frames it as a natural progression, coming the year after the Barbie diversity push, but this is just as much, if not more so, a business decision for the toy company that’s been trying to turn around its core Barbie business.

Mattel doesn’t break out sales of Ken dolls but includes them in its overall Barbie sales.

Last year, after the new Barbies were added, the Barbie line’s sales rose 7% from the previous year, to $972 million. That accounted for 18% of Mattel’s total worldwide net sales of $5.46 billion.

But in this year’s first quarter — as Margo Georgiadis, a former Google executive, took over as Mattel’s chief executive — sales of Barbie and other Mattel merchandise suffered as retailers cleared out excess inventory left from the holiday season. The Barbie line’s sales alone dropped 13% from a year earlier to $123.4 million.

Having the new crop of Ken dolls is “definitely going to help,” said Jim Silver, chief executive and editor in chief of TTPM.com, a toy-review website. “I’m not going to say it’s a game changer, but is it a piece of the puzzle? Yes. The play pattern is that for every six to eight Barbies [a child] has, they generally have one Ken. So if you have a Ken kids aren’t interested in, that could affect sales. What’s happening needed to be done. They needed to do this. It’s the next step.”

But some Wall Street analysts said the Ken redesign was unlikely to have a significant effect on the doll’s popularity.

“Is it going to drive more sales? I doubt it,” said Keith Snyder, a stock analyst with the investment firm CFRA Research. “It’s not going to have a big impact on their financials.”

Linda Bolton Weiser, an analyst with the investment firm DA Davidson, likewise said the change mostly was “a regular marketing progression to modify your line.”

Mattel’s broader problems include competing with toys that have tie-ins with blockbuster movies, such as Hasbro Corp.’s “Star Wars” franchise, and youngsters shifting from conventional toys to mobile devices, video games and other electronics, Snyder said.

Like the various permutations of Barbie old and new, the latest additions are still doll-like, with longer legs and bigger heads than a scaled-down human. And because the body tweaks are compared against the original Ken silhouette, these changes are most noticeable when the dolls are standing next to each other.

In addition to a slightly larger — but still not big — belly, “broad” Ken’s arms are wider at the pecs and wrist, while “slim” Ken is more petit in both those areas, with the fluctuations in waistline most obvious when Ken is less than fully dressed.

Apart from the skin tones, which range from pasty Goth teen pale to dark brown (with sprinkle of freckles along the way), the most instantly noticeable change comes by way of Ken’s coif. The smart side-part styles that defined decades of classic Ken have been joined by close-cropped hairdos: the shaggy-on-top/faded-on-the-sides styles, fashionable cornrows and the love-it-or-hate-it hipster hairstyle, the man bun, with a molded button of hair at the back of Ken’s crown.

For what it’s worth, giving the classically handsome Ken a man bun makes him look like a miniature David Beckham. Also, one version of Ken comes with a pair of silver sunglasses, while another wears spectacles.

Although there aren’t any bearded Kens, bald Kens or tattoo-sporting Kens, that doesn’t mean there won’t be more Kens to come. “We want to do beards,” said Robert Best, senior director of Barbie Design. “Facial hair is definitely a thing. There’s going to be changes that we keep pushing, but you have to launch with something. It’s progress, not perfection.”

A total of 15 new and diverse Kens debut today, enough to form three tiny basketball teams, which brings up one obvious omission from the Ken lineup.

“We wanted to add a taller dude,” Best said. “That’s one signifier where you’re really able to see a difference. Height adds variety in a very visual way.”

The challenge , Best said, wasn’t vertical-height bias but merchandising. “It’s actually a stupid packaging/manufacturing limitation. Currently, we have to fit into store shelving, and shelving limits how tall we can go. That’s a real thing.”

Did you know there is a toy and model car museum in Ipoh?

For those of us who were once little boys, there’s a memory which is inextricable from our first experience of playing with a toy car. We’d likely have seen the real thing before the miniature version, so, that tactile sensation of feeling its contours, opening doors (where possible) and gauging the authenticity of its detail, remain life-long imagery.

Elvin Chew believes in constantly reliving that moment. But, in his case, his purchases eventually amounted to the installation of a museum.

Dream Big World houses a curious collection of toy/model cars, model aviation and miniature replica cities. It is located on one of Ipoh’s most fabled roads, Concubine Lane. Amidst the tourist attractions there, somewhere in the middle of the lane, a brand new sign catches the eye … Toy Car Museum, fetchingly juxtaposed against a backdrop of pre-war buildings.

Chew’s original plan for Dream Big World was a conventional one – selling model kits and toy cars, just retail merchandising … something sustainable.

“Then I thought of turning it into a museum, and also selling models, a two-in-one sort of place. With the magazines and books I’ve collected, I’ve succeeded in introducing an educational element as well,” explained the founder and manager of the museum.

By Klang Valley standards, Perak’s capital may have been viewed as a sleepy hollow in the last few decades. However, interest in the once-rich tin-mining hub has been reignited recently, courtesy of the many colonial buildings in the old town area getting face-lifts and repurposing jobs.

“This whole area has been revamped and is now a tourist attraction,” concurred the 40-year-old.

The lot was once a bookstore, and the wallet-friendly rent spurred him to do something for his home state by starting this SME, which opened last December.

The toys housed in Dream Big World are all part of Chew’s own collection, amassed from the time he was a kid, purchases made possible by savings from pocket money.

“I used money I got as birthday presents and ang pow,” he intimated. His mum may not have been elated he was spending money on toys, but she was at least pleased he was a good kid (an only child) who didn’t mix with bad company, stayed at home, and the worst he got up to was building model kits.

Back in the 1980s, when a number of emporiums (they weren’t called malls or shopping complexes then) stood tall, the likes of Beauty, Crescendo, Angel, Ipoh Garden Plaza, and of course, the venerable duo of Super Kinta and Yik Foong, all serving Ipoh’s community, Chew poked his head into the toy sections of all these places to get his eager mitts on the wares of the day.

With online retail and auction sites now in full bloom, purchasing methods have evolved, with Chew reaching out to hobby stores in Japan for his fix. He still travels to buy toys, making at least two trips to Hong Kong yearly.

At Dream Big World, his prized possessions include models from the makers of Ferrari, Mercedes, BMW, Rolls-Royce, Bentley and Lamborghini. The museum comprises a cornucopia of the best of the auto industry, and what is quickly apparent is Chew’s attention to detail in having as many models as possible within each car make.

“I have almost the entire fleet of Lamborghini cars. I’ve always prioritised two things: historical value, which amounts to the significance of a car; and, aesthetic value, meaning its popularity. I’ve always targeted completing each range of a car brand.”

Authenticity is key, and Chew is always meticulous: “I focus on toy cars that look as real as possible … stuff with a museum feel.”

The cars in the museum are immaculate, looking like they rolled off the assembly line yesterday, hence, no restoration work has been necessary.

“I used to play with the toys when I was younger, but as I got older, I built model kits and placed them on display thereafter, which is how I’ve kept them in great condition,” Chew explained.

More than 500 cars, worth around RM500,000, are contained in this fascinating museum, and while he loves them all, some stand out.

For instance, his RM10,000 resin model La Ferrari is the apple of his eye. Only 30 were made, and his is serial numbered at No.11. At the time of this interview, he was expecting the imminent arrival of a Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG 6×6, the German car maker’s largest SUV to date.

Anyone wishing to traverse this road of a make-believe world should arm themselves with the right knowledge, he cautions. “You have to have a basic interest in cars. Start by reading up and knowing the history, models and evolution. Find out more with every purchase,” he said, sharing his accrued wisdom.

He was also forthcoming with some simple do’s and don’ts: “Look for something you like and don’t be too ambitious. Don’t go for something too high-end. Start with a current series, because you’ll only need to pay market price. That gets your collection going at least, then later, by all means, go for older models.”

Automotive obsessions aside, Dream Big World also has an aviation section, with a variety of airliners on display, from the Boeing and Airbus stables, among others. There’s also a section with miniature cities, all of which contribute to the educational element, which Chew is actively promoting, especially being the child of teacher parents. A trip to the museum caters to a visitor learning about car engine operation, physics, history, geography and his own special area of interest – rotary engines.

The mechanical engineer may have the greatest fascination for coveted automobiles, but when it comes to his personal choice of wheels, a Perodua Kenari and an old Mazda 323 do just fine.

“I’m a Point A to Point B kind of guy,” he said, beaming.

And with a RM5 price of admission for adults and RM3 for kids (three to 12 years old), Dream Big World has made itself quite a must-see attraction in Ipoh.

BANDAI’S NEW STAR WARS MODEL KITS ARE CRAZY-DETAILED

It would appear, much to the surprise of nobody, that Bandai‘s line of insanely detailed Star Wars model kits (that can be put together by anyone from amateur to expert) was a success. Who’d have thought, right? And you know what that means: more! Toy Fair’s coming in a couple of weeks, but Bandai’s U.S. distributors at Bluefin couldn’t wait, so they want you to check out every little detail right now.

The second wave includes a 1/72 scale Y-wing, TIE fighter, and Darth Vader’s TIE advance; 1/48 scale Snowspeeder and AT-ST Scout Walker; and 1/144 AT-AT, Slave I, and Millennium Falcon (Episode VII version).  Each vehicle kit is sold separately, and some of the special features include choices of alternate canopies, moving parts, detailed display bases, laser effects (I believe the technical term is “pewpewpews”), and more! Check out the tiny li’l Boba Fett and frozen Han in the image above to really appreciate the level of detail and thought put into this.

And this AT-AT may be the first ever toy version that can be posed in the slumped forward position post-tripping. (!!!)

Best of all, Bandai’s color-injection molding process means you don’t have to paint these kits if you don’t want to; if you’ve never put together a kit before, you can enjoy them just as much as the customizers who will want to add their own additional details. They do recommend you buy a nipper or sprue-cutter to fully separate the pieces from the frame, but no glue is required.

Check out the extensive gallery below for all the minute detail each vehicle sports. Prices range from $28 (TIE) to $50 (the Falcon), and the instructions will be printed in English for the American market. They’ll be released throughout the months of March and April.

Are you ready to play with Star Wars in a whole new way? What vehicles should they do next? Give us a comment below and tell us your faves.

Fidget Spinners On Fire, And We Mean That Literally: Electronic Versions Explode While Charging

Fidget spinners are the latest craze among kids of all ages, with their popularity catching fire over the past few months. Unfortunately, "catching fire" is no longer just an expression.

Following the trend set by a couple of popular products, electronic versions of fidget spinners were reported to have burst into flames while they were being charged. Here we go again.

Fidget Spinners Explode, Catch Fire

In two separate incidents, one from Fenton, Michigan and the other from Gardendale, Alabama, a Bluetooth-enabled fidget spinner burst into flames while being charged.

In both reports, the family was able to put out the fire before the burning fidget spinner was able to deal significant damage. However, the message was clear: fidget spinners are now fire hazards.

Regular fidget spinners do not come with electronic components, but there are some versions of the toy that come with LED lights and can connect to a smartphone through a Bluetooth connection so that they can play music while they spin.

Fidget spinners have been around for a while, but the massive jump in popularity pushed businesses to try to grab a share of the cash being spent on them. Innovations are required to have products stand out, which is probably why electronic fidget spinners suddenly flooded the market.

Unregulated devices with batteries, such as hoverboards, and products rushed to the market, such as Samsung's Galaxy Note 7, present considerable risks for such failures. These two products are infamous for exploding batteries and catching fire, and fidget spinners have now joined the notorious list.

Hoverboards, Samsung Galaxy Note 7, And Fidget Spinners

Hoverboards, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, and fidget spinners now share the distinction of massively popular products that carry the risk of bursting into flames. A previous Tech Times report listed two reasons behind explosions of lithium-ion batteries, which power most electronic devices in the market.

The first reason is a short circuit, which could happen when a battery is punctured by the device being dropped or due to metallic particles found in cheaper batteries.

The second reason is heat, which is the suspected reason for most cases of exploding lithium-ion batteries. High-quality batteries come with safety features to prevent overheating, but cheaper batteries or faulty ones will not prevent this from happening.

How To Keep Yourself Safe From Exploding Fidget Spinners

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has now launched an investigation into the two incidents of exploding fidget spinners, in addition to an investigation into the toys being choking hazards. In the meantime, the CPSC issued recommendations for users with electronic fidget spinners, and for battery-powered devices in general.

The CPSC said that people should never charge a battery-powered product overnight, and that people should follow the instructions and use the official charger for devices. Unfortunately, both points do not apply to fidget spinners, as the two reports claimed that the spinners exploded only after a short while since being plugged in to charge and did not come with instructions nor a separate charger.


It would seem that the only way to protect yourself from exploding fidget spinners is to keep an eye on them while they are charging, and check every once in a while if the toy is getting too hot. You could also opt to purchase a non-electronic fidget spinner, which might not be as cool as the LED and speaker-equipped ones, but would certainly not carry the risk of burning your house down.