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A Retired And Rare, Vintage Electronic From the '90s
1999 RADICA GIRL TECH PASSWORD PHONE
DETAILS:
Voice Recognition Telephone!
From the creators of the Password Journal and the Keepsafe Box, Radica Games Ltd. brings you a telephone with real voice recognition, the Password Phone. Setting up your password protected landline telephone is easy — simply record your password and your friend list into the Password Phone by following instructions and using your voice. Then when you need to talk to a close friend all you have to do is unlock your phone (say your password) and say their name into the Password Phone and it will automatically ring them up. The Password Phone can store up to 10 phone numbers — who will make it to your top 10 list? Includes a 6 foot telephone cord. Requires 3 "AA" batteries to operate (not included). The Girl Tech Password Phone doesn't just recognize your voice it keeps your phone protected from intruders and sneaks.
• Eaves Drop Alert
If someone else in your house picks up another phone while you are on a phone call, your Password Phone will let you know by sounding an alarm.
• Intruder Alert
If someone else has tried to use your Password Phone or access your phone list while your
phone was in the Password On mode, you will be informed of it the next time you turn your phone on and speak your password.
• Password ON/OFF
Pressing this button will switch your Password Phone between Password ON and Password OFF modes. Each time you press this button you will be prompted for "Your password please". Only you can switch your Password Phone between Password ON and Password OFF modes. In the Password ON mode, all of the features of your Password Phone are password protected so that nobody, other than you, can even dial a number manually to place a call. In the Password OFF mode, anyone will be able to manually dial and answer your Password Phone. The phone list and password features will not be accessible.
NOTE: The emergency number, "911", and the operator number, "0", will never be disabled. Anyone needing to call these numbers will be able to dial them from your Password Phone without a password.
• Ringer
Each time you press this button your Password Phone will switch between one of three ringer options. Your options are: Ringing sound, Hello sound, and Silent with flashing Ring indicator light.
• Flash
Press this button to access a call waiting call when you are on another call.
Retired, Rare, And Collectible!
Substantial online research provided very little in regards to information on the Password Phone, leading us to understand how rare this Girl Tech product is and has become. It appears just one model of the Girl Tech Password Phone was created, manufactured only in 1999 and sold until supplies lasted. The lack of online information proves production runs of the Password Phone never passed the year 1999 and a second model was never put into production. After final production completed the Girl Tech Password Phone was retired and it soon became a must-have collectible for spy-tech toy fans — today it is a very rare find especially new in package.
Makes A Great Gift For All '90s Kids!
The Password Phone makes an wonderfully unique present for the vintage electronic toy enthusiast, spy-tech fanatic, or collector of all things 1990s related. Even young girls can enjoy this blast-from-the-past that came before their time — it's a gift and a lesson in telephone history.
CONDITION:
New with package wear. Though this Password Phone is sealed in package it has acquired a couple of very light scuffs to the silver coloring to the right of the red "Talk/Off" button and above the purple "Ringer" button (the photos make the scuffs appear worse than they really are). Packaging has some storage wear. Please see photos.
To ensure safe delivery all items are carefully packaged before shipping out.
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*ALL PHOTOS AND TEXT ARE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF SIDEWAYS STAIRS CO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.*
"Janese Swanson (born 1958)[1] is an American inventor and software developer. Swanson co-developed the first of the Carmen Sandiego educational games, and founded the company Girl Tech,[2][3] which creates products aimed at making technology more interesting for girls. She has developed award-winning curricula, electronic toys, and books that encourage girls to explore technology and inventions. Her toy inventions include the Snoop Stopper Keepsake Box, Me-Mail Message Center, Zap N’ Lock Journal, and Swap-It Locket. Her publications include Tech Girl's Internet Adventures, Tech Girl's Activity Book, and Girlzine: A Magazine for the Global Girl.
Biography
Swanson was raised by her mother in San Diego, California, after her father was killed in the Vietnam War.[4] She graduated from Orange Glen High School in 1975, and while in high school, she worked a part-time job at Sears. Not only was she the youngest, she was also the only female salesperson in the television and sound system department and she received awards for her work in sales.[5] She earned a bachelor's degree in liberal studies in 1981 from San Diego State University, and went on to work as a teacher, a flight attendant and a model.[1] She convinced a computer company to donate laptops, and taught her mainly female fellow flight attendants how to use them during their spare time.[6]
She also continued her studies, eventually earning a total of seven academic degrees[3] including a doctorate in organization and leadership, with a doctoral thesis on gender issues in product design, play patterns and gender preferences.[2] Swanson received her Ed.D. in Organization and Leadership Technology in 1997 from the University of San Francisco.[4]
In the late 1980s, Swanson was hired by Broderbund Software as a product manager, where she helped develop The Treehouse, The Playroom, and the Macintosh edition of the game Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego?.[7] She invented gadgets for her daughter, including a voice recording device that she hoped to install in Jackie's daycare cubby and in her own office. She said, "I missed her so much that I used to call my home answering machine to hear her voice, and I thought this would let me talk to her during the day."[1] In 1992, she left Broderbund to develop technology for electronically altering a voice's pitch and modulation; started her own company, Kid One For Fun, for developing and licensing Yak Bak to Yes! Entertainment and Talkboy F/X+ to Tiger Electronics.[1][6]
In 1995, Swanson decided that she wanted to create toys aimed specifically at girls, and founded Girl Tech as an independent company with headquarters near her home in San Rafael, California.[6] Products included the "Friend Frame" talking picture frame, the Snoop Stopper "Keepsafe" Box storage box with a remote-controlled lock, Me-Mail Message Center, Zap N’ Lock Journal, and Swap-It Locket, and a remote listening device called "Bug 'Em".[6] Swanson claimed that her vision for the company did not match the expectations of existing toy distributors: "For two years after I founded the company, toy store buyers would say, 'Can you make it pink?' 'Can't you make it for boys?' And I would say, 'No, this is what girls like to play with.'"[1] This company also publishes books on technology for girls, works with community groups, and developed a technology curriculum for Girl Scout councils.[6] She later sold the company to Radica Games, now a division of Mattel, for $6 million.[1] She has also licensed her technologies to Hasbro and Sega.[8]
Swanson worked as Education Coordinator at the United States Mint, and was a founder at The Art Apprentice.[9] She is now an art teacher in the Del Mar Union School District, and uses computer technology to encourage students' creation of art work.[8] Her students' work has received an "Innovative Video In Education" (iVIE) award in 2008 from the San Diego County Office of Education,[10] and she was the education chair of SIGGRAPH in 2007." (wikipedia)
"Radica Games Limited was a Hong Kong[1] company that produced electronic games, founded in 1983. It began by producing electronic souvenir games for casinos.[2] In the late 1990s, it became known for its Bass Fishin line of games.[1] On October 3, 2006, Mattel, Inc. announced the completion of their acquisition of Radica.[3] While Radica produced electronic handheld games based on casino or card games, it has branched out into toys, board games, and video game accessories.[4]
Products
Product lines under Radica, past and present, include:
Stealth Assault - electronic motion sensor game where player tilts the device to fly a stealth plane shooting down jets
PlayTV - examples include PlayTV Football, Skateboarding, Baseball and Golf
PlayTV Legends - formerly known as "Arcade Legends", the line includes plug-n-play systems featuring video games licensed from Sega and Taito, as well as Tetris
Skannerz
20Q - electronic toy version
Cube World - electronic toy featuring stick people as characters on black-and-white LCD screens, 2005 - 2008, each cube has contacts on top, bottom, and sides, 3 push buttons, and an internal motion sensor. Not to be confused with the game of the same name.
Series 1 Cube Types: 'Scoop' Orange, 'Slim' Purple, 'Whip' Yellow, 'Dodger' Red
Series 2 Cube Types: 'Mic' Pink, 'Hans' Light Blue, 'Handy' Dark Blue, 'Dusty' Light green (as pictured ->)
Series 3 Cube Types: 'Chief' Blue, 'Toner' Gray, 'Dash' Green, 'Sparky' Brown.[5]
Series 4 Cube Types: 'Slugger' Light Red, 'Kicks' Green, 'Slam' Orange, 'Grinder' Tan
Series 5 Cube Types (with mods): 'Dart' Purple, 'Hip Hop' Black, 'Splash' Blue, 'Sci-Fi' White
Series Jumbo Cube Types: 'Block Bash' Yellow-Orange, 'Global Getaway' Blue
U.B. Funkeys - August 26, 2007 - 2010
Talking Buzz Lightyear
Loopz
Nascar Racer - 1998
I-Combat - a 3D game that is worn over the head
Big Screen Sudoku game
Blackjack 21
Poker-Blackjack Lite
Solitare
Color Screen Uno - backlit color Uno card game
Fijit Friends
Word Scramble
Pocket Slot - 1999" (wikipedia)
"The Girl Tech Password Phone (often referred to as the Radica Girl Tech Password Phone or simply Password Phone) was an electronic, voice-activated toy released in 1999 by Radica, designed to appeal to girls aged 8–12 with "spy-tech" style, "so cool. so connected" branding. It was part of a line of privacy-focused, non-pink electronics invented by Janese Swanson to encourage girls to engage with technology and STEM.
Key Features & Functionality
Voice Recognition: The phone used voice activation to secure its functions, allowing the user to set a password to "snoop-proof" their secrets....
Design: It featured a retro, brightly colored plastic design (often orange, lime green, or purple) typical of late 90s technology.
Target Audience: The product was created for girls, intended to provide a sense of privacy and adventure rather than traditional, passive play.
Model Information: The 1999 Voice Recognition Model G8067 was a prominent version.
Context within "Girl Tech" Brand
Inventor: The company Girl Tech was founded in 1995 by Dr. Janese Swanson, an educator and former Broderbund software developer, who wanted to create technology gadgets for her daughter.
Radica Acquisition: In 1998, Radica Games acquired Girl Tech for $6 million, expanding the line.
Similar Products: Other popular Girl Tech gadgets included the Password Journal (a book-sized, voice-activated diary), the Door Pass (a motion-activated alarm for room security), and the "Bug 'Em" remote listening device.
Legacy
The Girl Tech line is recognized for challenging gender stereotypes in the toy industry during the 1990s by promoting technology-based play for girls, rather than stereotypical "pink" toys." (google)
"Speech recognition (automatic speech recognition (ASR), computer speech recognition, or speech-to-text (STT)) is a sub-field of computational linguistics concerned with methods and technologies that translate spoken language into text or other interpretable forms.[1]
Speech recognition applications include voice user interfaces, where the user speaks to a device, which "listens" and processes the audio. Common voice applications include interpreting commands for calling, call routing, home automation, and aircraft control. These applications are called direct voice input. Productivity applications include searching audio recordings, creating transcripts, and dictation.
Speech recognition can be used to analyse speaker characteristics, such as identifying native language using pronunciation assessment.[2]
Voice recognition[3][4][5] (speaker identification)[6][7][8] refers to identifying the speaker, rather than speech contents. Recognizing the speaker can simplify the task of translating speech in systems trained on a specific person's voice. It can also be used to authenticate the speaker as part of a security process." (wikipedia)
"A telephone, commonly shortened to phone, is a telecommunications device that enables two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into electronic signals that are transmitted via cables and other communication channels to another telephone which reproduces the sound to the receiving user. The term is derived from Ancient Greek: τῆλε, romanized: tēle, lit. 'far' and φωνή (phōnē, voice), together meaning distant voice....
The essential elements of a telephone are a microphone (transmitter) to speak into and an earphone (receiver) which reproduces the voice at a distant location.[3] The receiver and transmitter are usually built into a handset which is held up to the ear and mouth during conversation. The transmitter converts the sound waves to electrical signals which are sent through the telecommunications system to the receiving telephone, which converts the signals into audible sound in the receiver or sometimes a loudspeaker. Telephones permit transmission in both directions simultaneously.
Most telephones also contain an alerting feature, such as a ringer or a visual indicator, to announce an incoming telephone call. Telephone calls are initiated most commonly with a keypad or dial, affixed to the telephone...." (wikipedia)
"A landline, or fixed line, is telephone service provided to a subscriber via cable or wire, i.e. metal conductors or optical fiber. The term differentiates a telephone service from the now ubiquitous wireless service. A landline allows multiple telephones to operate simultaneously on the same phone number. It is loosely described as plain old telephone service (POTS).
Landline services are traditionally provided via the outside plant of a telephone company, consisting of analogue copper wire originating from a telephone company's central office, or wirecenter. Landline service often includes services that use Internet Protocol via broadband services.[1]
The outside plant comprises tiers of cabling between distribution points in the exchange area, so that a single pair of copper wire, or an optical fiber, reaches each subscriber location, such as a home or office, at the network interface. Customer premises wiring extends from the network interface ("NID") to the location of one or more telephones inside the premises. ...
Usage and statistics
In 2003, the CIA World Factbook reported approximately 1.263 billion main telephone lines worldwide. China had more than any other country, at 350 million, and the United States was second with 268 million. The United Kingdom had 23.7 million residential fixed home telephones.[2]
A 2013 International Telecommunication Union report showed that the total number of fixed-telephone subscribers in the world was about 1.26 billion.[3]
In many parts of the world, including Africa and India, the growth in mobile phone usage has outpaced that of landlines. In the United States, while 45.9 percent of households still had landlines as of 2017, more than half had only mobile phones. This trend is similar in Canada, where more than one in five households used mobile phones as their only source for telephone service in 2013." (wikipedia)