This hologram Barbie can tell you to brush your teeth
This fully animated Barbie can sit on a nightstand like a fairy, waiting on your child's commands.
First came Hello Barbie the doll in 2015. Now Barbie is ready to move and talk on her own -- but instead of a robot, she's a hologram.
Mattel is showing off the Hello Barbie Hologram this weekend at the New York Toy Fair. The animated Barbie hologram lives inside a box and waits for a child to ask her a question or invite her to dance.
Like the original Hello Barbie doll, she responds to a variety of voice commands with characteristic peppiness.
"Hello Barbie, what's the weather?" a demonstrator asked during a Friday morning demo.
"72 and sunny, sounds like flip flop weather to me," she bounced back. (She was commenting on the weather in Malibu, not New York.)
She can also remind a child to clean their teeth, popping up with her toothbrush to ask if they're ready to start brushing.
If you want to change Barbie's look, asking the hologram to "Change my Barbie" will bring in a different character from the Barbie universe. You'll have a variety of ethnicities, skin tones and body types to choose from. But you'll have to wait a little longer if you want to chat with a holo-Ken, as there are only female characters to choose from at this stage.
The Barbie hologram can dance to preprogrammed music or to music that's played by a child. Parents will be able to use a mobile app to save specific details such as the child's birthday and her location, which will be used to give weather reports. Mattel hasn't yet confirmed how much information the hologram will remember, but we know she'll be able to take reminders.
The box will also work as a Bluetooth speaker.
Mattel is delaying the release of Hologram Barbie until 2018 "due to additional testing of the platform," a spokeswoman said, having previously aimed for a fall 2017 release. Pricing information is not yet available.
Update Nov. 1, 2017: Added comment from Mattel over delay.
CNET Magazine: Check out a sampling of the stories you'll find in CNET's newsstand edition.