Date: Fri 22-Jan-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

iinfo-Furby-BRand

Full Text:

INTERNET INFO FOR REAL PEOPLE: Hacking Furby

By Bob Brand

This story is vintage Internet fare. All pieces in this seamlessly constructed

Net-mosaic produce a snapshot of the Internet circa 1998.

In early 1998 the giant toy-maker Hasbro, through its Tiger Electronics (TE)

subsidiary, created the successor to the wildly popular Tickle Me Elmo (TME)

craze. Its name? Furby.

Sporting various exteriors that make them look like mechanized baby owls,

these cloth-covered toys hide plastic gears, sensors and high-tech digital

brains. The interactive pet, selling at retail for $25 to $35, quickly became

all the rage.

In spite of the best efforts by TE to ramp up production to over two million

Furbies, shortages ensued. Popularity of the toy among collectors was not

dampened by a New York Post expose that showed the cuddly creatures are

manufactured by workers in southern China under appalling conditions for low

pay.

Furby enjoys "special" Net status often reserved for rock stars and Monica

Lewinsky. Furby chic was further enhanced when it was banned by government

"spooks" (the NSA) in Fort Meade, MD. Driven by the hype, thousands of

Furbyesque websites now populate vast international expanses of cyberspace.

Over 20 Furby web rings now dot the Net. The largest, Furby Flock, contains

over 139 websites alone. As so often happens on the Net, a 13 member

anti-Furby web ring, dedicated to the destruction of the Furby race, coexists

amidst Furby-groupies.

eBay Activity

Every day Furbies are bought, sold and swapped at frictionless exchange

markets - the cyber auctions such as eBay, Haggle and many others. In

mid-December '98, Hasbro paid Warner Bros. what was rumored to be a

seven-figure sum because of the strong resemblance between Furby and a Warner

property, Gremlin.

The overheated market for Furbies suddenly went super-nova as Hasbro agreed to

change the appearance of Furby. The toy was instantly elevated to collector

status.

Currently, prices for a single Furby, as reported on eBay, range upwards of

several hundred dollars. Case lot (12) sales of new Furbies are commonplace.

Prices keep rising. Warning: scams abound. Beware of Grecian Formula dyed

so-called "rare Furbies."

It Talks, Sneezes,

Sleeps And More

The allure of this 6«" techno-gizmo result, in large measure, is due to its

talking vocabulary of nonsense English phrases (Furbish) and Pavlovian

characteristic of learning from its environment. It burps, passes gas and

reacts to its surroundings. The toy is full of surprises; many are

undocumented (called Easter Eggs) in the instructions.

It comes as no surprise to seasoned net-sters that a 20-something-year-old

programmer has undertaken a project to reverse engineer (hack) Furby's

personality. His name is John Tokash.

The process starts at the Furby Autopsy website. Here, in coroner-like detail,

instructions direct amateur Dr Quincy wannabees on how to remove the skin,

take apart the gears and insert probes into the integrated circuit brain.

Tokash has taken the process to a whole new level. Using a "Techno-morgue"

website, Tokash instigates an army of probing enthusiasts who point television

remote scanners at Furby. As the infrared beams bounce off the creature,

changes to the Furby personality are accurately recorded on the website in

tabulation form. The results are interesting. Undocumented actions continue to

be discovered. The most widely reported Easter Egg ricocheting around

Fur-babia: feeding him three times followed by a pat on the back will expel

eight burps.

Tokash reports Furby's actions are controlled by an EEPROM (electrically

erasable programmable read-only memory) buried deep in its interior. This

means Tiger Electronics has left an open door to "genetically" alter Furby via

reprogramming Furby "in the field."

Performing this feat with micro-electronic surgery will require the efforts of

a highly skilled technician, at least initially. It is not out of the question

for a cottage industry launch whereby Furby Intelligence Centers (FIC) emerge.

FICs would allow an owner to bring in the toy and increase its intelligence or

vocabulary. Stay tuned.

Keeping In Touch

Tokash maintains a Furby-announce list. Now both amateur and professional

Furby geneticists are notified by e-mail when important secrets to Furby are

uncovered. It leaves you with the warm feeling that we can look forward to a

world of genetically engineered children playing with genetically altered

toys. The Internet takes you up close, brings it live and makes it personal.

URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) of interest:

http://www.game.com/furby/index.html

http://www.homestead.com/hackfurby/

http://www.ebay.com/

http://www.nypost.com/news/8183.htm

http://www.netwebsites.com/furby/

(This is the 138th of a series of elementary articles designed for surfing the

Internet. Next, Jesse Ventura in Lewinsky-Land is the subject on tap. Stay

tuned. Until next week, happy travels through cyberspace.

Previous issues of Internet Info for Real People can be found at

http://www.thebee.com. Please e-mail comments and suggestions to

rbrand@JUNO.com or editor@thebee.com.)