The Smart Toy Industry
Market research company, GfK Australia, found that parents are spending record amounts on electronic and interactive toys.
Mark Allen states that the greatest impediment to the further growth of the smart toy industry is the lack of development of artificial intelligence and speech recognition. At their present stage of evolution smart toys really can't learn so they are limited to predefined actions and speech. Present artificial intelligence capabilities are too expensive to implement in a toy, but this will change as computational power and speed come down in price. Eventually this will result in cheaper technology, enhanced functionality, and a richer play experience. Some toy designers think it could be five years or more before the technology is cheap enough to be widely available.
Others have cited the high cost of MEMS-based sensors and actuators as a factor constraining the rapid development of smart toys. These costs are expected to come down eventually also, thereby helping toy companies to hit their price targets.
According to figures from the NPD Group, at the end of 1999 the smart toy segment made up 2.5 percent of the $23 billion toy market.
The smart toy industry grew out of several other product categories, which include children's software, electronic toys, and video games. A 2001 Forrester Research study projected that the smart toy segment would grow to more than $2 billion by the year 2003 . Factors enhancing the growth of the smart toy segment include the greatly more sophisticated tastes of children today as well as the spread of home PCs.
A 2005 market research study by Tangull America LLC of New York, NY indicated that toys with embedded information technologies—that is, nano, bio and cognitive technologies—are growing over 15% annually, and will grow to sales of US $146 billion by 2015. As an example, one of the "smart toys" the study cites are "interactive puppets" that become "real playmates" through the combination of artificial intelligence and ultrafine sensors. The latter can measure changes in facial expressions, movements and environment and the puppets react accordingly.
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