Senior Toys
Monday, 14 March, 2005
This is so sad:
According to a recent Associated Press story, Japanese “toymakers are designing new dolls . . . not for the young but for the lonely elderly.” These dolls are “companions which can sleep next to them and offer caring words they may never hear otherwise.”
The dolls, called Yumel in Japanese, have a vocabulary of 1,200 phrases. The makers are marketing Yumel not as toys but as “healing partners” for elderly Japanese.
Since their limited introduction three months ago, more than 6,000 Yumel have been sold. Some of the customers are so taken with their dolls that it bothers them when they can't answer the doll's “questions,” such as, “Why do elephants have long noses?”
(Source)
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
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Hmm, this is especially sad as the elderly in Japan traditionally live with their families, do they not? Several generations caring for each other under one roof. So this might indicate one of the sad effects of westernisation.
I love westernisation, you can live totally alone, only relate to machines and no-one cares. Such freedoms.