Following in the footsteps of the Walkie Bits toys, here is another one from Takara Toys called Cubee.  These little plastic boxes are another example of technology without a purpose.  These don’t walk around your desk, the don’t really do much of anything, all they do is sing a cute little song.  Each Cubee is a different animal and has a different song.  When they sing their mouth flaps open on beat as if they were actually singing.  What makes them technological is the built in awareness of the other Cubee blocks they are stacked on.  I say awareness, but that really isn’t true, they have sensors built in to the top and bottom of the cube that allow them to transmit information to each other when stacked properly.  Why do they talk to each other you ask, what is the grand scheme here?  Nothing worth jumping up and down for, but they will make you smile the first time you see what happens!

Stack the Cubees as you would a pyramid, and watch them sing.  The top Cubee in the pyramid will sing lead, and every other Cubee below it sings backup!!  Here is another toy I am dying to play with. Thankfully the guys who programmed the website for the Cubees included a little interactive section that allows you to build a virtual Cubee pyramid and it will play the song and backup as if you actually had the toys right in front of you.  Hover over the cow and it will say lets play!  I probably spent 30 minutes at the site playing with the interactive demos and looking around at everything else I could figure out to click on.

The only think I can’t figure out about the Cubees is the baby Cubees inside, there is a small Cubee box, and another smaller Cubee in that box.  I can’t read the site, so I am assuming you can make mini pyramids that don’t do anything.  Cute, but even more useless than the actual toy.

Honestly the first time I saw these I thought COOL, but unlike the Walkie Bits, the amusement factor has worn off and I don’t even have one yet.  I may have wanted one more if they didn’t have such a great demo on the website.  They aren’t quite as interactive as the Walkie Bits, but it is another example of a decent amount of technology packed into a very small package.  I looked these up on eBay to see if I could find any to purchase.  To my dismay the only one I found was the cat, which doesn’t give me much of a backup choir.  To my surprise however there are quite a few Disney Cubee characters including Nemo and Squirt.  Currently they run about $10 to $15 each and about $4 shipping.

Have a useless but amusing toy you want me to review?  Contact me !