The giant CeBIT fair in Hanover always plays host to great futuristic ideas, and this year was no different. In fact, the fair also showed that it cared for and catered to high-techs and fussy new customers-kids. 

A television tucked in a cuddly toy, a mobile phone dressed up as a teddy bear, and a nanny robot are among the new gadgets targeting this untapped market.

For starters, Taiwanese electronics maker Hannspree announced at the event that it would launch a television set in Europe next month targeted at children. “The idea was to create an 'emotional' television so that the child truly has 'his' TV that does not look like the others,” Bruno Choquet, sales director of Hannspree France, said of the huggable TV, which has already been released in the US and Asia. The screen, the size of a small standard television, is implanted in the body of a plush giraffe, elephant or lion. A version aimed primarily at boys comes in plastic, in the form of a firetruck or a helicopter.

Twelve different models are on offer, priced at between 300 and 400 euros ($360 and $480). Hannspree, which also makes televisions for adults shaped like a basketball or a plant, forecasts sales of 500,000 units in Europe by the end of 2006.

Another attempt at appealing to parents, this time from the Japanese electronics group Nec, involves a babysitting robot called Papero Childcare. About 40 centimeters (16 inches) tall, the multicolored electronic nanny that appears to smile and open its eyes wide in a friendly expression is programmed to watch over a group of children and play games with them. “If the child is in the room and the mother is in the kitchen, she can call Papero with her mobile phone and talk directly to her child, through the robot which has a camera, and she can see the child's image,” said Hiroto Ito, an NEC marketing executive.

In terms of mobiles, no major manufacturer has gone ahead to produce children's cell phones due to the still unclear effect of their radiation. Taiwanese firm i-Care Telecom is offering a telephone in the form of a teddy bear for kids aged four to 10.