Today I went in a toy shop to buy some presents and I stumbled across this very curious Spy Gear by Wild Planet Toy, among I others I noticed: The Spy tracker system: "Set up three secret spy trackers, draw a map on your control panel showing where each one is, and you will know where and when intruders (e.g., little sisters or parents) have entered the secured zone (...) Track movement up to 75 feet away. Includes cool tracking headquarters case with light-up display, audible warning signals and 3 remote motion sensors. Works indoors and out. ". Better than the follow-your-kids-with-a-GPS, it's a "be-tracked-by-your-kids". Note the vocabulary deployed: "you will know where and when intruders (e.g., little sisters or parents) have entered the secured zone " (well of course there is the spy rethoric). Now, things are reverse, there are location-based services for kids!

There are also an eavesdropping device in the form of a pair of glasses or of a little car or as a pod. Besides, the night vision goggles looks cool. My favorite is definitely the Eye-Link Communicators: a headset display and arm-mounted keypad to transmit silent messages to other "agents".

Finally, while venturing around on the web to find these toys, I was amazed by the comments/reviews, see for instance: "The worst part is that the batteries are EXPENSIVE and kids NEVER remember to turn it off because the switch is so small and almost hidden. The batteries ran down after about an hour of play and about an hour of sitting in the room before he remembered to go turn them off", "This is a frustrating toy because it looks cool, and might even be worth the price if it weren't so easy to forget to turn off and had a bigger switch that is clearly marked "on" and "off."", "A Kid's Review: I go this for my birthday. It works poorly, and i can barely hear any better than i can without it"... Of course some are less pertinent but funny: "I am a twenty-year-old professional secret agent, and was delighted to find this ultra-cool-looking piece of equipment at such an affordable price"...