ReadWriteWeb

Over the last few years, web-connected toys quickly moved from being novelty items to relatively standard fare in a lot of kids' bedrooms. As of now, however, there are no standard platforms for web-connected toys. Disney plans to change this later this month. The company plans to announce a set of industry development and technology standards for these kinds of toys at the Engage Conference and Expo in Santa Clara, CA later this month.

Science fiction author and Wired blogger Bruce Sterling passed along the interesting augmented reality video embedded below. It's an iPhone app from the Japanese company Sazanami called Amazing3D that lets users augment still photographs with playful 3D objects which they can then interact with. While it's not the most amazing example of augmented reality (actually it is pretty fun to play with), it did remind me that there have been several great kid-friendly AR applications developed recently. As augmented reality evolves and finds its most successful niche markets, toys, games and children could be some of the most efficient avenues to success.

If you think augmented reality is just a bunch of hype with no usable applications as of yet, think again. Major toy manufacturer Mattel has just announced a new line of products tied to the upcoming 3-D adventure movie "Avatar" directed by James Cameron. While normally we wouldn't cover toys here at ReadWriteWeb, there is something special about this new lineup: these toys are integrated with augmented reality. By way of a 3-D web tag which can be scanned with any computer's webcam, the new toys are linked to an online world of content which makes them "come alive" in an entirely new way.