Hello Barbie! This New Toy Records Your Children’s Private Moments — Buyer Beware

In February, Mattel announced that it would be releasing a “smart” version of its popular Barbie doll; the new toy can listen to a child speak and respond accordingly. When a child speaks into a microphone on the doll, the doll records the child’s voice and transmits the recording for processing to a cloud-based service called ToyTalk. Once analysis is complete, an appropriate audio response is streamed back to the Doll which then “speaks” to the child.