Celeb Chung on Life Forms

They brought toy inventor Celeb Chung to the PopTech stage this year, best known for his creation of Furby and more recently Pleo, an incredibly life-like dinosaur. He had always wanted to replicate a real dinosaur -- in the form of a toy, using biomimicry.

He feels that all life forms must feel and show emotion and they must be aware of themselves and their environment. The third law is that all life forms must evolve over time: adapt, evolve and change. "Bringing Pleo to life was all about bringing science and art together," says Celeb.

"Science makes it work but what we really react to is the emotion," he says, and adds "you need a dynamic balance of science and art for real innovation. Toys are a good example of where this can happen in a significant way. I've always had love for bringing things to life and really love making dinosaurs."

Caleb Chung began his toy invention career with Mattel in 1985, and since then has consulted to Fisher Price, Brandai, Hasbro, Disney, Tiger Electronics and Microsoft. In addition to Furby and Pleo, he has sculpted innovation around Barbie and games.

Obviously not tired or bored of showing Pleo to audiences over and over again, I saw him quietly chuckle on the right hand side of the stage when Pleo came onto the screen in a promotional video, as if he/Pleo was an old friend. A real life form.

On top of being an incredible inventor, he has a lively and addictive sense of humor. As he finally brings Pleo out for the audience to oooh and ahhh over, he stuffs a $20 in Pleo's mouth who decides that the note is more than delicious.

I've seen Pleo before -- it was either at TED or another event focused on innovation, so have had an opportunity to pet his very life-like skin and see how he responds to human contact. Pleo is worth spending time with. He gives us an update on availability and apparently he will be available this Christmas. Price not yet finalized but somewhere in the $350 range.