What is WikiBear? WikiBear is a plush talking teddy bear by Commonwealth Toy that is bringing soft and plushy to the technology toy market. It’s slated to be priced around $60. (WikiBear, talking teddy bear video).
Introduced at the NYC Toy Fair 2014, WikiBear uses a wifi connection (bluetooth connecting to whatever device is running the App and has the Internet connection) to access the Internet through the App. It searches online for answers to your questions and uses what it finds to verbally “interact” with the family. WikiBear talks, answers questions, and, like his big sister Siri (no company or corporate relation), WikiBear can be a wee bit sarcastic in its answers as well. Finally, the Internet put into something that’s soft and cuddly!
WikiBear is paired with an App (smart phone, tablet, etc.) which is where most of searching work is done (as far as we can tell). In some ways that makes the talking stuffed bear more of an extension, but it’s easy to assume the whole thing will be integrated into one talking bear by Christmas season.
WikiBear can tell jokes, answer questions, tell you up-to-date sports scores and team standings… an hopefully actually teach kids a thing or two. The WikiBear toy could be the perfect study partner for a kindergartner.
Video of WikiBear at the Toy Show from ChipChick:
What does WikiBear do? / How does WikiBear work?
WikiBear scans the internet (searches wikipedia and other websites) to answer questions.
WikiBear can “chat”, start conversations, and tell jokes (kid safe ones… we hope).
You can turn off WikiBear (always a good thing) by disabling its bluetooth, in which case it’s a normal teddy bear.
Apparently WikiBear Talking Teddy Bear can also remember names and “learn” about the people with whom it interacts. This learning helps build a personality… that part is a bit intimidating, but a claim nevertheless.
WikiBear Improvements
Before its release, Commonwealth Toy plans to improve WikiBear’s voice (make it more kid friendly), and continue to improve the software to improve responsiveness. With the entire summer to improve, it’s pretty clear WikiBear could be a top toy if those who are branding it “creepy” don’t take over the conversation. I don’t even like teddy bears, and I think it’s sort of cool. Whenever you need an answer, rather than looking up in Wikipedia, all you have to do is as a talking teddy bear… we have to admit that’s pretty cool.
For parents: if you’re a bit of a geek you’ll like WikiBear for your kid(s). If, however, you’re more the sort of parent who thinks internally, “When it comes to my child I know better than everyone else, no matter what.” (you know who you are), then you probably won’t like WikiBear. Most parents who “diss” WikiBear are helicopter parents, while everyone else seems to like or are at least warm to the idea. Oddly, that criteria has proven a predictable determining factor in parental approval of WikiBear.
There are some assumptions we have to make on content, like having appropriate filters on the content… and what happens when the typical teenager who knows more about computers than most adults overrides those filters. Late night TV shows have done parodies of what would happen if WikiBear “got crude”, but nevertheless… it should be interesting it makes it onto enough shelves. Since the average kid talks to their teddy bear on a daily basis, it certainly seems smart in a technological society to have one talk back in a way that might teach as well as entertain.
