'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.)