AfriGadget

AfriGadget is nicely populated with some pretty amazing things. This video, from this post, exemplifies the innovative toy designs that kids put together.

Blobjects

I think there's a lot of research behind this sort of thing...and I'd like to know about it.

From the post:

The instruments provoked an unexpected outcome of universality during testing: subjects kindredly selected the same objects to express similar emotions (e.g., a spiky object to express anger or fear).

dolphins and whales at play

Lego Minecraft

Yep.

I don't claim to be any sort of clairvoyant genie, anyone could see this coming, but I have been predicting this since the first moment I learned about Minecraft, recognizing that Lego missed the obvious ball on creating a digital building space.

A bit more info here.

Toy Talk

Imagine a children's toy designed by the people behind the Toy Story and Finding Nemo movies but connected to the web and chock full of artificial intelligence. Then add in visual tracking, speech recognition and massive network scalability. It appears that's what San Francisco startup ToyTalk is building, based on conversations and information available online.

That's the intro paragraph from this article.

Cubelets

These look great. Another example of a path not (yet) chosen by Lego. My question about this video: where are the blank, empty cubes? I'm assuming they also offer lots of cubes that serve no purpose other than building, and then the smart cubes can be built into designs? They don't show that in this video.

Takanori Aiba

omm......wow.

via io9, more pics and link to artist's site there.

Totem Tree and MakeDo

I like this totem tree from Dutch designers KidsOnRoof.

(They offer much more awesomeness, but they need a treehouse!)

I'm also reminded, by the use of cardboard, of the really pragmatic MakeDo. They are truly tools for play in a pure sense, and allow for re-use of so many different types of every day materials.

Wild and Crazy Action Figure!

This doesn't actually exist.

But it should.