Top Toy: Dance, Robot, Dance!
Dancing robots have been around since automation’s dawn, but few have captured the world’s imagination like Keepon, whose videos have notched up a disturbing 4 million views on YouTube. Now the droid, which was designed to aid children with autism (and resembles two stacked yellow snowballs with eyes) will soon be available as My Keepon, a $40 toy that you can take home.
Created by BeatBots, Inc. (makes of the $30,000 professional version) in conjunction with novelty manufacturer Wow! Stuff, My Keepon bounces, bops and gets jiggy to a variety of tunes. Available later this year, the droid’s tastes in music don’t appear to be half bad either, with earlier appearances showing a marked fondness for tracks by the band Spoon.
But despite having been called to a higher purpose, e.g. entertaining overgrown kids and providing demented parents with another tool with which to torture innocent children, My Keepon hasn’t forgotten its humble roots. A portion of all profits from the sale of these devices will, apparently, be funneled back into providing therapists and health practitioners with research-grade units instead. All of whom, presumably, can also rock the hell out of “We R Who We R.”