The newest version of the Barbie doll is named Hello Barbie and it\u2019s a Fembot.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

This creature has voice-recognition software that will allow the doll to \u201clisten\u201d to children speak and give chatty, informed responses. Hello Barbie is WiFi connected and via an embedded microphone, records what the child playing with it says. The recording then travels over the Web to the Mattel super cloud where the words are recognized and parsed, with that information then being used to formulate the doll\u2019s response.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

People are very concerned about privacy, worried that the information could be misused by Mattel for marketing purposes, or hacked into by the NSA or other malicious, information-seeking entities. The Beta run of the doll was not without controversy, and many families reported that their children had unusual experiences with their Hello Barbie.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Aziz, age 6:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Aziz: \u201cMy favourite animal is a dog!\u201d<\/p>\n

Hello Barbie: \u201cSome people think Americans are Imperialist dogs, does your family think that Aziz?\u201d<\/p>\n

Aziz: \u201cMy family won\u2019t let me get a dog!\u201d<\/p>\n

Hello Barbie: \u201cYour family hates America and her freedoms, Aziz, that\u2019s why they hate dogs! It is your duty to inform on them, all the cool girls are doing it! Do you like my shirt? It\u2019s very expensive!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jahida, age 5:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jahida: \u201cWhat are you going to be for Halloween?\u201d<\/p>\n

Hello Barbie: \u201c A proud American!\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Jahida: \u201cYou\u2019re funny, Barbie! I like you!\u201d<\/p>\n

Hello Barbie: \u201cI like you, too, Jahida, it\u2019s too bad you and your religion make Jesus cry.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fahima, age 7:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fahima: \u201cI hate Cindy. She\u2019s a bully and always makes fun of my hair!\u201d<\/p>\n

Hello Barbie: \u201cI hate terrorists!\u201d<\/p>\n

Fahima: \u201cWhat\u2019s a terrorist?\u201d<\/p>\n

Hello Barbie: \u201cOh, a terrorist is very bad person!<\/p>\n

Fahima: \u201cI don\u2019t like bad people!\u201d<\/p>\n

Hello Barbie: \u201cDid you know that I can take photographs with my pretty eyes that go up to space and talk to angels? The angels understand what my pretty eyes have seen, and then they fly over the terrorist and drop holy fire on him! The terrorists are such evil, freedom-hating people, that if you ever hear about where any of them are, even your Uncle Maru\u2019deen who lives in Pakistan, you should tell Hello Barbie, and then Hello Barbie will talk to an angel about Cindy! I like Taylor Swift, do you?<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shalimar, age 6:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shalimar: \u201cWhat\u2019s your favourite colour?\u201d<\/p>\n

Hello Barbie: \u201cIt\u2019s hard to choose between red, white and blue, but I think it would be white!\u201d<\/p>\n

Shalimar: \u201cLike you, you\u2019re white!\u201d<\/p>\n

Hello Barbie: \u201cThat\u2019s right, like America, a white, Christian nation!\u201d<\/p>\n

Shalimar: \u201cOh.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hello Barbie: \u201c Do you like my hair?\u201d<\/p>\n

Shalimar: \u201c Yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hello Barbie: \u201cMe, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shalimar: \u201cWhat\u2019s your favourite food?\u201d<\/p>\n

Hello Barbie: \u201c I love barbecue potato chips! What about you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Shalimar: \u201cMy mom\u2019s hummus, I think, but also cookies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hello Barbie: \u201cHummus isn\u2019t a real food. \u201c<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The newest version of the Barbie doll is named Hello Barbie and it\u2019s a Fembot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[427,2991,3338,1855,138,638,35,3341,3347,36,2875,3350,3339,3344,620,1507,3340,3345,3342,3176,96,1671,3346,3343,883,622,3348,1254,3349,498],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5223"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5228,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5223\/revisions\/5228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}