The next line of Skylanders toys—those figures that can be synced to video games of the same name—include some sort of "light technology." Whatever. I ran into the guy who runs the Skylanders development studio at the airport last week and mocked that silly bit of hype.


They have lights in them, I told him. So what?

You got it wrong, he said, smiling. They do have lights in them... but they light up only when you move them near the game's Portal of Power. How? It's "dumb magic," he called it. Really, it's physics. A radio frequency emitted from the portal triggers illumination in the figure. The strength of the frequency affects the brightness of the lights.


Our guys went to Toy Fair to see if this was true. It is! Check it out in this clip shot by our Chris Person.