Not quite your traditional gaming, but with 600 responses to user actions at least as complex as some interactive computer games I’ve played.

[Image description: two new Furbies]

  • mobyduck648@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    The original '90s furby is unironically a fantastic platform for a hardware hacker, because they were so cheaply made the whole thing runs off a single motor and a clever arrangement of cams. It would be reasonably straightfoward to pull out the ‘guts’, fit a motor controller and a Raspberry Pi Zero, put a camera where the IR and light sensors go, put a better mic and camera in, then hook the bastard up to GPT-4! There’s a cam position sensor too so you could modulate its speech cycle by counting the syllables in the GPT output as well as move its ears, eyes etc.

    Other improvements could include high brightness RGB LEDs behind the eyes to indicate mood, an ultrasonic sensor with a second motor so the furby can turn around and make eye contact with people entering a room, and using one of the pi’s GPIO pins and a suitable piece of wire as an FM radio transmitter (use a low pass filter because doing that shits out harmonics quite badly) to hijack nearby radios.

  • Onii-Chan@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    These are actually pretty cute, but again with the fucking app and online connection. I’d never have one of these in my house, let alone give one to my kids to play with unless I’ve disabled any network connectivity (but the simplest solution would be to just not buy one.)

    • flicker@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      @Onii-Chan@kbin.social

      I think you misread the post friend. The app says that they introduced that garbage 10 years ago, but in a misleading move, they didn’t clarify that this new iteration of Furby does not have either.

      It’s a super dishonest way of writing. I hope this helped!