It appears that the 2008 Toy Fair in New York has brought out the best in everyone, including Playskool. This year, the famous preschool toy company has unveiled the KOTA, a soft walking Triceratops dinosaur that very little kids can actually ride.

Not only can it walk, but it can talk. Apparently, it can make “authentic” dinosaur roars, but I’m not sure how Playskool knows what an authentic dinosaur roar sounds like. (Have they been around that long?) Needless to say, there are eleven areas on the KOTA body that will cause a reaction in the head, tail, or horns.

Children can hold on to a handle on the back of the head as they ride, and I’m assuming its OSHA approved and KOTA doesn’t travel at high speeds. KOTA will even make “fun jungle sounds” as it walks. To add to this fun, the kid rider can flip a switch on the handle to hear adventure-themed songs.

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I guess if you wait around long enough, all technology shrinks. Even things that probably shouldn’t be shrunk get shrank.

Take Guitar Hero, for example. I’ve recently purchased this game for the Wii and it has quickly become my newest addiction. There is something about strumming and hitting those frets while those streaming spots go by that make me feel like a legit rock star.

A company known as Basic Fun has created a portable version of this fun with the Guitar Hero Caribiner, a Guitar Hero that fits in your pocket. It is only 3 x 7.5 inches in measurement, and the chord buttons or “frets” are not located on the neck of this contraption, but the body itself.

Beyond that, the gameplay is the same the regular version as the LCD screen displays the notes the player needs to play. There is even a miniature version of the whammy bar, and some of the more popular songs from Guitar Hero I and II are included.

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I guess reindeer don’t quite make the cut for Santa any more as he is sick of flying second class.

Fly Santa right into your living room with this neat 2CH RC helicopter. It is made of a unique material that withstands crashes, and also it is very lightweight. It comes with auto stable and precision speed technology which makes it easier to fly. The Santa Mini RC Helicopter comes with an internal 3.7v 60mAh Li-Poly battery, the newest in RC battery technology. It comes with a full function super wide infrared controller which allows you to go up, down, left, and right. You can even fly with your friends with 3 different frequency bands. This Santa Mini RC Helicopter comes Ready-to-Fly right out of the box, all you need is 6 AA batteries.

The Santa Infrared Mini RC Helicopter can be an (extremely) early Christmas present for $29.95.

Everyone knows Sesame Street’s Elmo, and that red colored furry creature has seen his fair share of (monster, pardon the pun) sales in the past especially during the holiday seasons of yore where parents were frenzied enough to line up outside toy stores just to pick up a Tickle Me Elmo for their kids. This year, Elmo is back with a vengeance from Fisher-Price, whom the latter touts the former to being the most engaging and entertaining Elmo to day. Known as Elmo Live, this feature plush ups the ante where realistic, interactive play is concerned.

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Every once in a while, somebody takes two of my favorite things and manages to combine them together in happy unity. Case in point: Electric Arts (EA) new advancements in Nerf and Wiimote technology.

EA plans to release this Nerf/Wiimote combo in tandem with a new game called Nerf N-Strike. This contraption that you see to your left doesn’t yet have an official name, but it is a Nerf shooter as well as a Wiimote for first person shooter games.

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We’ve raved about the PicooZ R/C helicopters before, I also bought my self daughter a pair of the battling helicopters for Christmas (they are still very cool), this next release from PicooZ looks to continue the coolest R/C toy tradition, the Tandem Z, a remote control Chinook.

The helicopter has super wide infrared control, a built-in Li-Poly battery, trim control and durable body. It has sophisticated gyroscopic effect for stability and twin rotor blades that work in Tandem. It also has a unique roto-blade system for steady take off and it’s a 3 channel helicopter (forwards, backwards, left, right, up and down).

A normal charge of 20-25 minutes should give you a flight time of around 10 minutes, and this is done directly from the remote control (requires 6xAA batteries).

The only thing lacking is you can’t shoot down other Chinook’s maybe that’s planned for the next release (hopefully), you can buy the PicooZ Tandem Z for £40.00 (~$82) from Red 5.

According to the coast watchers over at Engadget, Apple Inc. may be getting into the gaming hardware business and then some.

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If you want to rear a dog without having to clean up after it, then you ought to consider the SEGATOY robotic dog which is capable of responding to various stimuli like touch, voice commands and even boasts the ability to track you as you move around it. This robotic pooch can move various parts of its body such as eyes, mouth and head, tail and even shake its paw while responding to voice commands just like a real dog would. Too bad it can’t be trained/programmed to fetch my morning newspaper - maybe future versions will see it come with an LCD display on its body that downloads the latest RSS news feeds via a WiFi network. This nifty little toy retails for $270 a pop.

Source: Technabob