Toymaker Mattel has upgraded Barbie's house with a host of technological features. It's now Wi-Fi-ready and comes with an app access so that kids can control the house using a mobile device.
Barbie's Hello Dreamhouse, which was launched at the New York Toy Fair in mid-February, is a six-bedroom mansion that also comes with a working elevator, mood lighting, spinning chandeliers and a working pre-heating oven. In its usual purple, pink and orange theme, the features can be synched to the Wi-Fi, and the house could also respond to voice prompts, according to The Atlantic.
The concept behind the house reflects how smart homes operate in reality. However, some of its features - such as the transforming stairs, which become a slide for when Barbie is hosting a party - have yet to be invented in real life, according to Vocativ. The toy costs about $300 and will be out in stores in the fall.
This isn't the first Wi-Fi-enabled toy that Mattel has released. In 2015, it came up with the Hello Barbie Doll, which can respond to voice commands similar to Siri. The updates on these Barbie toys are raising a security concern as some worry that it could make kids' privacy vulnerable to online hackers, as HNGN previously reported.
"You can take that information and find out a person's house or business. It's just a matter of time until we are able to replace their servers with ours and have her say anything we want," according to security expert Matt Jakubowski.
While Mattel hasn't responded to the criticism, ToyTalk's Oren Jacob, whose company created the apps for Barbie, stated that, "no user data, no Barbie content, and no major security nor privacy protections has been compromised to our knowledge," The Guardian reported.
