6 NEWS ANALYSIS
Laser Pegs ready to evolve with 3D design app
Is this the first ever construction app toy? New technology bolsters popular line by Lewis Tyler
OWNERS OF the next generation of Laser Pegs toys will be able to control the illuminating lights on their creations using an app.
Due on December 1st, the app also features a 3D construction kit. Using the drag-and-drop interface, users will be able to build without limitation, and then order their design to receive it in the mail. Speaking to ToyNews, Jon Capriola, CEO at Laser Pegs said: “The most important aspect, which no one has ever done, is the modelling. You can design whatever you want to design – any shape, any size – that’s so awesome.” Users will be able to share their creations via Facebook and Twitter. Construction manuals can also be
The company has introduced new
Lego-style bricks – promoting integration with other construction kits – and other items like wheels. Capriola said: “With the new line we’ve worked out a lot of kinks. Previously we had connection issues – when you put one item into the next, sometimes the connection would fail, or it would be loose, so we made the tolerance level perfect. The blocks are also clearer.”
CAPRIOLA: “With this app we’re helping kids learn skills they can take into the real world”
compiled and shared. Capriola also said that Laser Pegs is considering holding design contests for kids. “We’re trying to make a community,” he continued.
“We’re trying to make a culture where kids play and challenge themselves and learn. We’re trying to do that into the virtual world and tie it into a toy.”
Capriola concluded: “Right now, where it sits, we’re a lighted abstract model kit. That’s one play pattern. But with this app we’re helping kids learn spatial relations and geometry that they can take into the real world.
Goldfish & Bison distributes Laser
Pegs in the UK. Goldfish & Bison: 020 8568 6398
EDF Energy Zingy toy to launch next year?
Figure from TV ad could still arrive on retail shelves “There’s no doubt it’d be a best-seller,” says Wow Stuff by Dominic Sacco
THE LITTLE yellow blob from EDF Energy’s TV commercials could be made into a toy after all. The hugely popular ‘Zingy’ character shares similarities with the dancing Keepon toy, which is supplied by Wow Stuff in the UK, but up until now a dedicated Zingy Keepon hasn’t hit shelves. However, that could all change
next year, with Wow Stuff hinting at the possibility of a 2013 launch. Wow Stuff CEO Richard North
told ToyNews: “I can confirm that if it were to come out, there’s no doubt it would be a best selling toy. I can also confirm we have massive consumer demand to bring the item out as a toy. “However, I can neither confirm nor deny whether we have or we
NOVEMBER 2012
haven’t been in deep discussions with EDF, the original inventor of the Keepon Pro and whether it’s likely or unlikely to be launched in March or October 2013.”
EDF Energy previously said it
doesn’t have any plans to create a Zingy toy (ToyNews June 2012). It said if it did, it would be for its own
customers first, and be used to engage the public in commercials and
competitions. Wow Stuff: 0870 054 6000
WOW CONTINUES TO FIGHT THE FAKES
FOLLOWING TOYNEWS’ report into counterfeit toys in August, Wow Stuff’s CEO Richard North says he will spend ‘as long as it takes’ prosecuting unscrupulous toy suppliers.
He is pushing for a ‘fast-track’
legal process to prevent counterfeiters from delaying court action. North has met Wolverhampton MP Emma Reynolds and is working with her on a dossier looking how the current process works, which can eventually be taken to Downing Street in order to improve the law against toy fakes. Wow has been blighted by firms
importing fake Air Swimmers toys, and has already spent hundreds of thousands of pounds in taking to them court. ToyNews has agreed to join the cause and will be printing the names of illegal suppliers and retailers who stock fake toys.
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