The cute and cursed story of Furby
The hottest toy of 1998 was sort of adorable, and sort of annoying. It couldn't do much - couldn't do anything, really - but it could look at you, it could say some nonsense phrases, and it seemed uncannily aware of the world around it. That's all Furby needed to pretty much take over the world.
The story of Furby is filled with technical achievement. The fact that the furry little guy worked at all, ever, was a bit of a surprise to a lot of people involved. But Furby also represents a different way of thinking about our relationships with technology, a different idea about human-computer interaction, and maybe even a path worth following f …