From the makers of the popular NERF blasters comes the revolutionary LAZER TAG system, combining the power, precision and excitement of live-action blaster battles with the high-action, strategic, augmented reality game play of traditional video games.

Players download the NERF Lazer Tag app and then slip their iPhone or iPod Touch into the slot on the NERF Lazer Tag blaster. The App uses augmented reality to give users virtual targets to shoot via lazer, as well has a heads up display for tracking remaining power/rounds, scores, and health. There’s single player and two player mode and the lazer has a virtual range of up to 250 feet. There’s also a world wide virtual leaderboard that ranks each player’s profile and, with every successful mission, players will gain in-game access to upgradeable attacks, missions and gear.

The blasters will run about $40 a piece or $70 for a two blaster set. The App is fee for download at the iTunes App Store. Available late summer/early fall. Ages 8 and up.

Hat Tip – Engadget

There are two track sets that will be available in the UK later this year – The Death Star Attack and the Battle of Endor. The Death Star Attack has highly detailed X-Wing and Vader’s TIE fighter which race along a figure 8 track that uses the box as a tunnel and has poster style figures painted on the track infield of Luke and Lord Vader. The fighters are raised off the actual “business end” of the racer and they slide around dog fight style. And what’s really cool is that the fighters glow in the dark, so you can turn off the lights and they look like they’re really flying around in space battling each other. And because the fighters are a bit too big for the track, catching up from behind enables knocking the other off the track – thereby shooting them down.

The Battle of Endor set has speeders which go along a T-shaped track that winds it’s way through a cardboard forest from the Moon of Endor, with ATATs and Chicken Walkers looking from above and rebel Ewoks ready to reign down doom in their unbelievably low-tech fashion.

Ages 5 and up. Should be out by fall.

Hat Tip – Pocket Lint

The idea is pretty simple. Physical toys and game sets are set up with special QR codes affixed to them. Then you download the WoWee AppGear app from either iTunes (for iOS) or the Android marketplace (for Android) and then you let the play begin. The toys will come to life while you interact with the environment and start shooting up the joint.

Doesn’t that look like fun? And rather than kids just sitting like a lump on the couch playing, they actually end up moving around, which is always a good thing. WoWee is planning six different games and apps for 2012, including Alien Jailbreak, Zombie Burbs, and Elite Commander, with a price ranging from around $10-20 (probably for the actual toy sets).

I’m telling you, this augmented reality thing really has no end to it. As an old school Dungeons and Dragons player, I’d love to see a bunch of friends gatehred around the old map, drawn out on plotting paper, and seeing battles actually come to life when you input a dice roll number on your iPhone. Or, as my son loves YuGiOh, seeing the monsters come to life and fight it out like it does in the TV show. That’s the future my friend!

Hat Tip – Our sister site, COOLEST GADGETS

Family Fun Magazine has named Hot Wheels Wall Tracks Toy of the Year for 2011. Other honorable mentions for the year include Meon Deluxe Animation Studio (which uses animation strips and light to create art), Perplexus Epic & Rookie (rotating puzzle balls), LEGO Alien Mothership set #7065 and the Razor BoGo PogoStick.

Our kid testers loved reconfiguring the obstacles and tracks while tester moms appreciated that the brackets adhere with 3M Command Strips, which don’t damage walls and can be easily replaced when the stickiness wears off. – Staff of Family Fun Magazine regarding Hot Wheels Toy Tracks

The Hot Wheels Wall Tracks Starter Set won appreciation from both kids and moms for it’s ease of construction, near infinite combinations, and simple cleanup. And at a price of $30 for the starter set and $17 for add on sets, Wall Tracks is a very affordable way to start your Hot Wheels collection or add to an existing one.

I think this is an excellent choice (although the color-able cardboard pirate ship has a certain play with the box vibe I like) for Toy of the Year, but I think they should break out into sub categories of girls toy of the year and boys toy of the year. As it stands, the top 10 toys (which also include the LeapPad Explorer Learning Tablet, and Richard Scarry’s Airport) are all very male centric. Although I also am surprised that the Hot Wheels Video Racer didn’t crack the top ten, either.

What do you think should be the 2011 Toy of the Year? Leave your thoughts in the comments below! And HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Nielsen conducted the survey and they found that the number one “toy” that children aged 6 to 12 want for Christmas is the iPad 2. Kids 13 and up also asked for an iPad. All told, a whopping 44% are asking Jolly Ole St. Nick for Apple’s miracle tablet. But they’re electronic tastes also extend to other technology …

Thirty percent of children want an iPod Touch, 27% want an iPhone (that’s 101% if you’re paying attention – Cupertino), then followed a computer, an Android tablet, Nintendo 3DS, Kinect for Xbox 360, Nintendo DS/DSi/DS Lite, Playstation 3, television set, and Android smartphone (non iPhone). At the end of the tike tech list, came a Blu-ray player. And the same tech obsessions don’t abate as a child gets into their teens.

All told, kids really want technology for Christmas. And that means games. It seems that kids have jetisoned the tired old vibe that imaginative play is the best thing for a kid. The heck with that. Who wants imaginative play when Call of Duty and Skyrim are out? Who wants to imagine G.I. Joe storming a machine gun nest when kids can lob a pair of Angry Birds overheard?

But there’s a slight disconnect as the economy seems to show that while kids are asking Santa for hi tech toys, it’s more likely that the ripe Jolly Ole Elf and Mrs. Claus either won’t be able to afford it, or will go deeper in debt to keep visions of sugar plums dancing in their kids heads.

Hat Tip – Sound and Vision Magazine

The Marines have been collecting Toys for Tots since 1947. Semper Fi!

And it’s grown far beyond and extra curricular activity for off duty Marines. In 1995, the Secretary of Defense approved making the annual Toys for Tots drive an official mission of the Marine Corps Reserve. Over the last 62 years, the US Marine Corps Reserve have distributed over 400 million toys to more than 188 million needy children and the Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation has added to the toy collections by purchasing nearly a half billion dollars in toys to insure that no child gets left behind at Christmas.

And this year, as with any year, the campaign needs your help. You know the mission – pick up an unwrapped toy for a boy or girl and look for one of those dashing jarheads sitting next to a collection box near the entrance to the store. Or, you can Swing by http://www.toysfortots.org/ to make a cash donation to the Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation. While at the site, you can find more information on a toy collecting center in your area.

Semper Fi and Merry Christmas!

The kit is supposed to be the last surviving Cyberman who has been dismantled after an attack by local natives near Stonehenge – it’s part of the lore set up by the two-part Pandorica episode from series 5. Anyway, with the included circuit boards, kids can reanimate the head of this cyberman and have it respond in three different modes. These include Infra Red mode you can activate it with a universal TV remote; Object Sensitive mode it will activate when it detects movement; or, in Light Sensitive mode where a flick of a light switch will turn it on. It runs on AA batteries and we think it’s ideal way to introduce children to electronics through imaginative play with one of their favorite science fiction characters. But what I don’t get is that they didn’t fix it to where it could activate with a Sonic Screwdriver. What’s up with that?

Cost is about $50 (£24.99 in the UK) from FireBox. Ages 8 and up.

The first one is a kit called Snap-Circuits. With Snap Circuits, kids get 80 parts with which they can build over 750 experiments, including a sound activated switch, lie detector, adjustable light controller, am radio, rechargeable battery and more. Parts included: photoresistor, power amplifier, variable capacitor, analog meter, solar cell, computer interface, full color manuals. Snap-Circuits have received the Awards from the National Parenting Center, Creative Child, the Toy Industry Association, and Dr. Toy. Cost ranges from $20-80.

Next is the littleBits Starter Kit by Spark Fun. littleBits is a collection of circuits and diodes that can be connected via magnet and can be used to create from simple to complex electronic circuits. Kids can even use them to prototype their own ideas! Each “Bit” is a piece of an electronic circuit. The bits are color coded and divided into 4 categories: power, input, output and wire. By combining the modules in different ways (by simply “snapping” them together magnetically) you can quickly create any number of interactive electronic projects.

Finally, for older or more advanced kids, there’s Arduino from Adafruit Industries. They are a great way to teach kids how to build complex electronics through the use of home built arduino processors, which is very popular right now in the Maker movement. Arduinos are used for making everything from perisistance of vision signs to complex robotics.

And if you want to see what a kid can do with all this stuff, check out Sylvia’s Super Awesome Maker Show!

The concept is simple. The vehicles, which sell 2 for $20 at the Disney Store and online, have Bluetooth circuitry in them which enable them to pair up to the iPad or iPad 2 and allow it to control the virtual world of Radiator Springs like it was cruising around on a real town street. Kids can stop by Flow’s Cafe, barrel through mudd puddles, and even knock other virtual cars off the road or shoot them with missiles. And kids can customize their cars with unique effects like horns, colored exhaust, and more by trading in their hubcaps.

Just on it’s face you could guess that Steve Jobs is on the Disney Board. And you’d be right. So this type of synergy makes sense. But really, what parent in their right mind would hand their kid a hard plastic toy and allow them to bang it around on their $600 iPad screen unless they had a bullet proof screen protector on it? And even then I’m not so sure. Which is why I think this has the allure of a parent waking up one day and realizing that beautiful iPad screen is scratched up and Dad needs a new toy. I wonder if the Disney Store will start selling iPads online?

Hat Tip – KTR

OK T’Former fans, heads up. The official Target Transformers: Dark of the Moon DPCI list is out, so get ready to print! For those not in the know, a DCPI number is Target’s internal the DCPI number. This is Target’s proprietary inventory tracking number – for an item. If you know the DCPI number, you know not only if Target has it in stock, but where it’s located. That way, users can call Target and give them the number beforehand to find out if that toy they need for their collection is in stock. The DCPI is nine digits, and is formatted similarly to a SSN – XXX-XX-XXXX or XXX XX XXXX. So here’s the list of all Target’s Dark of the Moon Toys:

* 087-06-0794 Walkie Talkie Transformers 3 $14.99
* 087-06-1059 Transformers MV3 Ark Set $24.99
* 087-06-1530 Robo Power Battle Mask $9.99
* 087-06-1531 Mech Tech Optimus Prime $79.99
* 087-06-1559 Star Wars Transformers Class I $39.99
* 087-06-1630 Transformers Optimus Prime Helmet $29.99
* 087-06-2287 Transformers MV3 Activators $8.99
* 087-06-2288 Transformers MV3 Go Bots $9.99
* 087-06-2289 Transformers MV3 Revving Robot $19.99
* 087-06-2290 Transformers MV3 Megaverse Basic $4.99
* 087-06-2291 Transformers MV3 Megaverse Pl $7.99
* 087-06-2292 Transformers MV3 Cybertech Voyager $19.99
* 087-06-2293 Transformers MV3 Cybertech Deluxe $11.99
* 087-06-2294 Transformers MV3 Cybertech Leader $44.99
* 087-06-2309 Transformers MV3 Robo Fighters $9.99
* 087-06-2310 Transformers MV3 Bashbots Set $14.99
* 087-06-2311 Transformers MV3 Cyberverse Ac $14.99
* 087-06-2312 Transformers MV3 Human Alliance $29.99
* 087-06-2313 Transformers MV3 Basic Human Alliance $9.99
* 087-06-2314 Transformers MV3 Energon Shock $14.99
* 087-06-2321 Star Wars Transformers Class I $7.99

When you get to Target, find a red Target price checker/scanner with a functioning number keypad on it. Enter the DCPI number of the toy you want on the number keypad. Press enter. The price scanner will give you a snapshot listing of the inventory for that item and whether there’s any in the stockroom, or out on the floor somewhere.

Armed with this information, even the most junior Transformer fan can find that missing toy their kids want! So go forth! Autobots, let’s roll!

Hat Tip – Seibertron