Electronic toys more than playthings

TOY store owners and buyers for the mass market and educational retailers were crowded wholesale accessories in the VTech booth last week wearing the brightly coloured Bananas in Pyjamas lanyards and badge holders that admitted them to the 2011 Australian Toy Hobby & Nursery Fair.
A marketing manager for toy distributor Modern Brands was demonstrating the Storio, an electronic reader for children, set to debut in Australia starzmart in June or July. There were only a handful of production samples at the convention centre in Melbourne.
''So, it's like a Kindle for kids,'' a shopkeeper from a South Australian toy store mused to herself. Another visitor asked if the software that helped parents upload new talking and animated books through a USB cable was similar to Apple's iTunes Store.