Top 15 Tech Toys

Today's silicon-loaded toys have come a long way from the days of the pet rock and hula hoop.

It’s funny (funny ironic, not funny ha ha) that some of the most serious technological innovations are advancing the funniest (the other funny) products. Here are 15 of our favorite tech-powered toys.

Star Wars Force Trainer, $130

You’ll be able to spend not-so mindless hours with the Star Wars Force Trainer to help learn the ways of The Force. Due this fall as part of the Star Wars Science series from Uncle Milton Toys, the Trainer is a cross between the Krell mind expander from Forbidden Planet and the ping pong ball blowing endurance test from The Right Stuff.

Your job is to make a decorated ping pong ball float up the Training Tower tube via a fan in its base. You make the fan whirl using your brain waves transmitted via a headset. Really.

According to Uncle Milton, "the wireless headset reads your brainwaves through proprietary dry EEG technology. This chip inside the headset uses an algorithm to interpret your level of Beta wave activity…The Training Tower receives this data and translates it into physical action."

Whether you believe this elucidation or not, the Trainer somehow works, whether or not The Force is with you. You simultaneously relax and concentrate, while recorded Star Wars characters cheer you on – and, amazingly, the ball floats. There are 15 skill levels from Padawan to Jedi Master to learn the ways of The Force.

Just don’t hang upside-down and try to levitate your toy light saber to slash your stuffed wampa.

Rubik’s TouchCube, $150

A lot of new high-tech toys are updates of older mechanical playthings. For instance, Techno Source will add a touchscreen and accelerometer to update the Rubik’s Cube this fall. Dubbed Rubik’s TouchCube(duh), you simply touch it to move the colors around. You can save unfinished games, and the rechargeable battery will last around two frustrating hours.

BluePlay, $60-$70

Along the same lines, BluePixo will update the Etch-a-Sketch this April with its 3.2-inch LCD touch-screen BluePlay, on which you can draw and paint with the included stylus. You can mix your own colors, and inside is 2 GB of memory to store your masterpieces. Unfortunately, there’ll be no way to output your doodlings until the next generation BluePlay, which is due to include a USB jack so you can connect BluePlay to a printer.

BluePlay

Scene It? DVD Games

Adding a new twist to existing tech, Screen Life Games has expanded its Scene It? line of DVD games with geek-friendly Star Trek and Simpsons versions. They allow you to test your knowledge of the cult-favorite shows with a trivia game that plays through an ordinary DVD player.

Scene It? Star Trek Edition

Green Screen Toys

Several companies are using motion capture to take you out of the real world and into a virtual world with a green screen and camcorders. Yoostar, coming this spring, can put you into famous movie scenes, while XD Productions uses three Web cams included in its Animakit software package ($150) to turn you into a cartoon character.

Tracksters, $16-$20

Speaking of virtual worlds, 10Vox Entertainment lets you race cars online without an Xbox 360 of PS3 – for free. You buy a Hot-Wheels-like model car, enter the included code at Tracksters.com, then locate the online 3D version of said car. You can pimp your 3D ride online, or soup up your virtual gas-guzzler by buying parts cards, packs of seven baseball card-like trading cards ($4.95) with scratch-off code numbers for redeeming.

Once your ride is pimped and souped-up, race it online on one of an ever-increasing number of tracks against time, against your computer, or against up to seven of your connected Tracksters friends.

The physical car you bought? Let the dog chase it.

Solar Toy Cars, $10-$15

This Spring, Hybrid 2 will release a series of five solar-powered vehicles, including a train engine, a Hummer and an F1 racer. As long as the sun shines on their solar panels, the little guys will roll all day. Only shade or clouds – or your dog – can stop them.

RobotiKit, $20

You don’t need the sun for Owikit’s variety of need-to-be-assembled solar-powered vehicles in its RobotiKit, which includes a boat, two planes, a windmill, a car and a puppy. All you need is a bright light to spin, twirl or whirl whatever moves the model.

RobotiKit

Power House: Green Essential Edition, $90

To learn all about alternative energies, including solar, build the Power House: Green Essential Edition, the latest build-it-yourself science kit from Thames & Kosmos. You can build a solar oven, a solar-powered refrigerator and even a salination plant. The two alkaline batteries you see are for back-up, in case the lights are out.

Hex Bug Micro Robotic Creature, $10

If you don’t consider batteries ecologically evil, and you want to drive your dog really batty, two button cells run the fourth Hex Bug Micro Robotic Creature, an ant ($10) that skitters across wood floors and carpeting at cockroach-like speeds, 10 times faster than previous Hex Bugs.

Hex Bug Robotic Creature

Spykee Robots $20-$200

Coming this summer from Erector are five rolling and dancing Spykee robots. Each answers to different command sources, including your voice, or communications from a cellphone. A Spykee with a built-in webcam can be controlled and accessed via WiFi from any PC, anywhere, to let you peer around your crib when you’re not home. As befits the name of the company, assembly is required.

Spykee Robots

Live In Concert Boom Box, $130

If watching your static living room on a remote PC screen sounds only slightly more exciting than watching paint dry (unless you use Spykee to watch the babysitter and her boyfriend on the sofa), watch four holographic go-go girls dance on stage in Awesome Toys’ Live In Concert boom box. The girls dance together, as a trio, as a pair, or solo to whatever music you jack into it, even your own warbling via the included karaoke microphone. Cartridges featuring holograms of well-known performers in concert will come in the fall.

Premier 3MP HiROCAM, $50-$190

While it’s not a plaything, the Premier 3MP HiROCAM makes homework a lot more interesting by replacing the eyepiece of any DIN-compatible microscope with a webcam. The HiROCAM comes in .3 MP ($50), 1.3 MP ($150) and 3 MP ($190) versions that let you view your slides on a PC screen via a USB connection instead of squinting.

Premier 3MP HiROCAM

Pumgo, $300

Use leg power to get you where you want to go with the Pumgo. Short for "pump and go," Pumgo is an aluminum-alloy scooter with three wheels and two pedals that you "pedal" up and down rather than around. It’s not really high tech, per se, but it’s great for the legs, as you can see.

Gentle Giraffe, $24-$26

After a day of hard play, you’ll want to take a nap. To help you – or, more appropriately, your play-weary child – to reach R.E.M., curl up with Gentle Giraffe, the latest Cloud B sleep-assisting plush toy. Like the company’s AA battery-powered Sleep Sheep and Dozy Dolphin, the soft and furry Giraffe emits four different soothing sounds to send you to snoozerland.