Tip Sheet.(interactive toys)(hot chocolate)(perfume worn my Marie Antoinette)(combatting seasonal affective disorder)

Byline: Ramin Setoodeh, Erin Zaleski, John Barry, Sandy Lawrence Edry

Technology: When Toys Talk Back

By Ramin Setoodeh

You'll be tickled by what Elmo can do now. This fall Fisher-Price will introduce a new talking plush toy based on the "Sesame Street" character that says your child's name, counts down to his birthday and lets him know when it's time for lunch. The technology is made possible through a memory card in the doll's stomach that receives information from parents.

By now, adults have learned all about interactive toys like the virtual pet Tamagotchi. But the latest kids' gadgetry, unveiled last week at New York's American International Toy Fair, involves even more sophisticated technology, like motion detectors and sound recognition. The idea is to create toys that look, feel and act like living creatures. Critics say such toys can stifle creativity, but kids love them. The generation who grew up playing with their parents' cell phones and iPods expect their toys to be just as wired. "By 2010," predicts Jim Silver, the editor of Toy Wishes magazine, "they're going to have a toy dog that does everything but poop." Until then, here's the lowdown:

Walk this way. One of the biggest draws in 2005 will be the new lines of robots from WowWee, which found a hit last year with the Robosapien. This year, the manufacturers say, the robots are more "autonomous"--they act on their own once you put down the controller. The Roboraptor ($120, available in August) comes with sonar vision and hearing. Based on noise or movement, and programmed moods like "playful" and "hunter," it will come over and nudge--or bite--you.

Chatterbox. The Robosapien V2 ($250, December), a robot with infrared radar vision, will not only pick up a soda, play catch and shake your hand, but it'll ask, "Where are you going?" if you walk away. Hasbro's new Furby ($40, fall), so packed with technology it's twice the size of the original, comes with a voice-recognition chip. If you continue to say one of hundreds of programmed words like "love" and "friend" the Furby will learn it and repeat it back to you. Comes in English, German, French, Spanish, Japanese and Italian.