Top toys for 2012 in video from London Toy Fair
We tip the top high-tech toys coming to a shelf near you in 2012.
With just 46 shopping weeks until Christmas, we've been getting a sneak preview of the toys coming soon to a shelf near you. And we're not talking hoops and sticks or boring old board games.
Today's toys are high-tech, smart phone-enabled, Internet-connected affairs that would confuse the bejeezus out of anyone over the age of 25. We've been at the London Toy Fair in London's Kensington Olympia exhibition centre, where the movers and shakers of the toy industry come to hawk their wares. Hit play to see our tips for the top toys of 2012.
We like the Zeon Tech TARDIS Smart Safe, a lovingly rendered replica of Doctor Who's Police Box, which is unlocked with your mobile phone. Instead of using it to travel through space and time, you can keep your valuables safe from prying siblings.
Elsewhere in the show, the kids online game phenomenon Moshi Monsters is no longer confined to your computer. Instead it's wriggling its way on to your living room floor in the shape of Bobble Bots Moshi Monsters Moshlings -- tiny plastic versions of your favourite Moshlings that vibrate their way around brightly coloured environments.
Moshlings creators Innovation First were also showing off new additions to their Hexbug range of jittery robots. You can now buy creepy robotic larvae and scarab beetles to amuse your friends and terrify your parents.
And if playing make-believe with mechanical bugs doesn't get you swiftly booked into a few sessions with the school counsellor, asking for a 'Deadstone Valley' playset just might -- it's a graveyard full of corpses, complete with online tombstones and epitaphs you create. To see all these toys in action as well as the world's dodgiest Prince Philip lookalike, click play on the video.
Do any of these techno toys float your boat, or are you far too mature for all that stuff? Tell us in the comments below, or on our Facebook page.