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High-tech Kiddie Customers

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DQI Bureau
New Update

The giant CeBIT fair in Hanover always plays host to great

futuristic ideas, and this year was no different. In fact, the fair also showed

that it cared for and catered to high-techs and fussy new customers-kids. 

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A television tucked in a cuddly toy, a mobile phone dressed

up as a teddy bear, and a nanny robot are among the new gadgets targeting this

untapped market.

For starters, Taiwanese electronics maker Hannspree

announced at the event that it would launch a television set in Europe next

month targeted at children. “The idea was to create an 'emotional'

television so that the child truly has 'his' TV that does not look like the

others,” Bruno Choquet, sales director of Hannspree France, said of the

huggable TV, which has already been released in the US and Asia. The screen, the

size of a small standard television, is implanted in the body of a plush

giraffe, elephant or lion. A version aimed primarily at boys comes in plastic,

in the form of a firetruck or a helicopter.

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Twelve different models are on offer, priced at between 300

and 400 euros ($360 and $480). Hannspree, which also makes televisions for

adults shaped like a basketball or a plant, forecasts sales of 500,000 units in

Europe by the end of 2006.

Another attempt at appealing to parents, this time from the

Japanese electronics group Nec, involves a babysitting robot called Papero

Childcare. About 40 centimeters (16 inches) tall, the multicolored electronic

nanny that appears to smile and open its eyes wide in a friendly expression is

programmed to watch over a group of children and play games with them. “If the

child is in the room and the mother is in the kitchen, she can call Papero with

her mobile phone and talk directly to her child, through the robot which has a

camera, and she can see the child's image,” said Hiroto Ito, an NEC

marketing executive.

In terms of mobiles, no major manufacturer has gone ahead

to produce children's cell phones due to the still unclear effect of their

radiation. Taiwanese firm i-Care Telecom is offering a telephone in the form of

a teddy bear for kids aged four to 10.

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