Toys that makes me go wow

When I was a young boy my passion among other things were airplanes. Big ones, small ones, fast ones & slow ones. It didn’t really matter as long as they contained some kind of innovation. Sadly most of my favorite ones were military jets. As with many other fields the army were heading the pack in terms of innovations due to the cold war. Today this is not really the case. Of course the military innovates, but the time for wow innovations seems to be over and in the field of military jets it’s the F16, the Apache and the F117 that rule, the same ones I was keeping track of when I was 15 years old.
When it comes to gadgets my focus has instead turned otherwhere. Lately I’ve been amazed with gadgets coming out of the toy industry. These guys are on a innovation spree. Of course they’re after my money but if they continue the way they’re being going lately I’m all for it.  Here are three toys that show you what I mean and that you should know about.
The Star Wars trainer – use your force!
This company called Uncle Milton Industries are about to release a set of games where you can learn how to use your brainwaves and control objects.


So far they’ve only released information about the Star Wars Force trainer, a game where your brainwave data is translated via computer chip to a fan inside the base of the Force Trainer, which is what actually lifts a ball. Your brain waves control how high the ball goes or how much it moves. As you move through the 15 different levels, you will activate Yoda’s training tips and other sound effects.
The Mind Flex will get your mind sexy.
Another exiting new toy called Mind Flex was introduced by Mattel at the CES 2009.

This games, like the Force trainer, lets you control things with your mind and it seems even cooler than the Star Wars one. No gaming controls, no keyboard, no buttons – only your brain and a ball that is supposed to travel through an obstacle course.
CBS got more on the story:

The Stiftables – intelligent blocks from intelligent students.
David Merrill and Jeevan Kalanithi at the MIT Media Lab (keep a look at these guys) has created a new product called Stiftables. Siftables are cookie-sized computers with motion sensing, neighbor detection, graphical display, and wireless communication. They act in concert to form a single interface: users physically manipulate them – piling, grouping, sorting – to interact with digital information and media.
David Merrill explaines further at Ted 2009.

 
Any conclusions from this?
Tons, but one is that I do hope that someone soon invents the mind reading keyboard so that I can blog about things 10 times faster. But then on the other hand you all might be able to subscribe to my RSS feed with your brains…or your brain as we have discussed before.