Meet teddy bear 2.0

When I was a kid the ultimate in 'robotic' toy technology was the 'Big Trak' programmable vehicle, which you could 'sort of' programme to perform a limited range of manoeuvres.. It was rubbish but, as an eight-year-old, I 'd have killed for one.

In the nineties, the gibberish-talking, blinking, purring Furby was (inexplicably) the robotic toy of choice. Resembling a sort of inbred love child of a Mogwai and little Darrell's Guinea Pig and blessed with a burlesque artist's eyelashes, the Furby managed to sell in astonishing numbers – 40million in three years