The Barbie Video Girl Doll ($50, Mattel, for ages 6 and up) seems just like a regular Barbie, but a closer look reveals a camera in her pendant and a stamp-size color screen on her back, framed by her jacket.
“Creepy!” said nearly every boy a reporter showed her to; “cool!” said the girls, who immediately got the idea of the toy to make movies from Barbie’s point of view.
Powered by two AAA batteries (one in each leg), the doll can record up to 30 minutes of webcam-quality AVI video, with a three-button interface. Kids can watch the recordings right away on the doll’s screen, but with no audio (“Hey — there’s no sound!” the testers complained). Or they can be transferred to a computer with the included mini-USB cable.
Because the doll can be posed, she doubles as a pretty good tripod. One problem: We drained two sets of batteries by accidentally leaving the recorder on. Mattel estimates just over an hour of recording time per set.
