High-Tech Toys Week is back, and airs on Discovery Canada beginning Monday, December 5th through Friday, December 9th at 7pm. Discovery’s hit flagship program explores a week full of boundless innovation and imagination, from a life-size Transformer car to a high-tech slingshot, and even air hockey on a climbing wall. Co-hosts Ziya Tong and Dan Riskin are filling Santa’s sleigh with the season’s most exciting, outlandish, and coveted high-tech toys from around the world. Here’s what the hosts had to say about their favourite tech toys and this year’s action-packed special.
CraveOnline: What can viewers expect from this edition of High Tech Toys?
Dan Riskin: High Tech is the Daily Planet version of the NHL playoffs. It’s what we prepare for all year, and we play harder than at any other time. We’ll have all kinds of great stuff in studio, from see-through TVs to flying battle-bots, to 3D printers that make customized pancakes. We’ll also be traveling the world to see the most outrageous inventors and inventions. From stocking-stuffer ideas to dream yachts, we’ve got something for everyone.
Is there one particularly toy that is featured that really impressed you?
Ziya Tong: I love the Climball because I often have to get tricked into doing exercise, and this is one very clever way to do it. Basically, it turns you and your game partner into a human version of the game Pong. The climbing wall tracks your movements with a computer and lights up, projecting a virtual ball right on to the wall so that you compete against another player. It blends gaming and sport together in an incredibly futuristic way, and certainly takes climbing indoors to a whole other level.
What is on your own personal wish list for the holidays?
Riskin: I’m pretty keen on the “Lunicycle.” Every year I love the rideable stuff, and this year there are a few things for me to fall off of. But riding unicycles has always eluded me, and this invention promises to help me finally pull it off. Somehow it keeps my center of gravity lower than a conventional unicycle, and that, they say, will make the difference. If you’ll let me pick another, I think the giant lego excavator, which actually works, would be pretty fun to build with my kids. I’d just have to stop them from trying to eat their cereal with it.
Tong: As a privacy nerd, I’ve already ordered myself a little Christmas present and it’s a great piece of tech called Cyborg Unplug. Essentially it sniffs the air and alerts you if there are any secret spy cams in the vicinity. These days there are so many hidden cameras that stream to the internet: wearable devices, cameras hidden in smoke detectors, eyeglasses that record video and instantly send on the feed. Cyborg Unplug detects these devices and lets you kill the feed.
Do you remember getting a specific gift that was tech-savvy as a kid that stands out in your mind today?
Riskin: Lego has always been an outlet of creativity to me, but I look at the toys available to kids nowadays, from Arduinos to camera drones, and I just drool. The fun still comes from being inventive, and obsessed, and from sharing your creations with other people. It’s just that today there are so many other opportunities. In fact, that’s where a lot of the high tech toys we’re featuring come from – creative young people. For example, we’re showing off a 120 kph drone invented by a 19-year-old! The helicopter I once built out of lego was pretty cool, but I think kids today have me beat.
Tong: I remember getting a figure 8 RC racetrack that I built and spent hours playing with my dad. These days though, kids have so many RC options: from high speed drones, like the Teal Drone that goes 120 km/hr to the RC surfer which is brand new. At just over 30 centimeters tall, the board and rider ride along the tiny waves that lap along the beach shore. It looks hilarious actually, because it shifts your perspective, the tiny surfer looks like it’s cruising through massive barrels!
