Even my Furby knows it: our love affair with shopping is over | Zoe Williams
I'm worried that I'm the only one who watches enough telly to see what's going on here: the toy industry - and if that sounds niche, remember that this close to Christmas it stands as a proxy for production as a whole - is having some kind of systems collapse. Games that should never have made it past the planning stage - a plastic dachshund that craps yellow pellets and forces you to scoop them up with a shovel - stagger into their fifth year. Over-engineered, nylon-furred tat, going by the name Furbies, take an antisocial glee in the vexation they provoke. The Clever Keet is a plastic bird that mimics the experience of having a live pet, except it doesn't in any way: it was designed with the unimaginable customer in mind who prefers it when the air is filled with banality.
Related: Black Friday sales fall 10% from last year
Related: Meet Spot the dog, Boston Dynamics' cutest robot yet
Continue reading...