Furby: kind of sneakily an AI story.

The third season of Version History kicked off this weekend, and I can confidently tell you it’s the first time that research has required me to spend several hours on Geocities. Such was the toy world in 1998! Furby is a story of technology, of toys, and of human-gadget philosophy. It’s a really fun episode — subscribe wherever you get podcasts, or watch the full episode on the new Version History YouTube channel.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-Q8lC4VDCs

The cute and cursed story of Furby

How Furby became the hottest toy of 1998, and how its inventors used cutting-edge tech to make a toy that seemed to understand the world.

The Verge