On top of them just being really fucking annoying, especially in a cube farm, they're also small battery powered devices with a speaker. AKA: a perfect listening tool hider. If you have classified projects of course security is going to ban them
this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2025
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Not just a speaker, but a microphone as well. They would record what you said then play it back in the furby voice. That's how they "learned to talk."
IIRC, that's a misconception. They had no microphone (although a speaker can technically be one). They did not have the ability to record new information, and were preprogrammed to seem to "develop" knowledge of the local market's language. They didn't actually learn to talk, because they lacked the necessary hardware.
There is indeed a microphone in them, and they definitely recorded things. One of the main functions of the toy was repeating back what you said to it, by using the microphone to record your voice, and then playing it back pitched and sped up. They specifically used a CZN-15E omnidirectional mic.
Okay, so looking into this more, there was a microphone, but it was not capable of recording things, at least not the original ones.
In actuality, Furbies couldn’t learn or record anything. Dave Hampton, the creator of Furby, even demonstrated that the puppet’s microphone didn’t record any sounds, and could only hear a single, repetitive beep if a noise was made close to the Furby. No waveforms or words could be made out at all. (source)
So, not exactly capable of recording your voice. They simply did not have the build quality or technology in the 90's version.
You can literally make just a loud noise, not speaking words, and it will play back the sound, pitched and sped up. Have you ever even had one?
Yes, I have, and in my experience, the originals did not replicate any speech, sound, or otherwise. The creator literally had to prove it to the NSA and did so (it was a huge scandal at the time), so I'm not sure why you're insisting otherwise. Did you have a newer one? Those do have the capability you're talking about.
This is a 90's toy company we're talking about here, do you think they really would have been able to make this functionality profitable? It is far cheaper (at the time, especially) to preprogram "words" from the local language into them than bother dealing with circuit design and updatable storage. There is someone in this very comment section that says the Spanish translation was incorrect and so they were confused by it as a child. Because it was preprogrammed with this mistranslation. There is literally no other explanation for that type of issue, other than the toy having the words baked in.
Since I provided the creator's own words, do you have anything at all that would back up your claim, other than the scandal that the OP is about that turned out to not be an issue? Or do you think that the NSA dropped this issue because they wanted to allow the toys with recording devices into the building as they were cute and fun?
I can't even find any listings or technical documentation for the czn-15e mic prior to 2017, and I kind of doubt the current iteration of that mic existed in the 90's at a cheap enough price to pair with some kind of onboard storage. Where did you get the idea that this specific microphone (which likely did not exist in 1998) was in it?
Further, how do you explain this fan made page of what words they could say with which actions if they made their own on the fly? https://official-furby.fandom.com/wiki/Furby_(1998)/Sensor_speech_mapping#%3A%7E%3Atext=This+is%2Cknown+Furby
All of this really seems to go against your claims, I'd be happy to be proven wrong if you have anything concrete.
This is a 90's toy company we're talking about here, do you think they really would have been able to make this functionality profitable?
You mean the same functionality of a TalkBoy? Another wildly popular 90s toy?
can't even find any listings or technical documentation for the czn-15e mic prior to 2017, and I kind of doubt the current iteration of that mic existed in the 90's at a cheap enough price to pair with some kind of onboard storage. Where did you get the idea that this specific microphone (which likely did not exist in 1998) was in it?
Because I have repaired a few of them.
The original mic was not a czn-15e, but yes, in modern repairs, you can drop that one in. It did not exist in 1998. You still haven't provided anything concrete, and I wish you would so we could be putting even amount of effort into finding the facts instead of you insisting something, and then me looking into it only to be a dead end. Since you claim to repair them, can you show me the wiring diagram of where newly recorded information is stored, and how that functions?
The talkboy is a different product, in price, size and design. So no, it wouldn't have been profitable for the creator to put actual recordability into them with a not-yet-invented microphone when people were already convinced otherwise (apparently, yourself included, even when I've provided the creator's own words, and a wiki page outlining exactly how to get them to respond, because they didn't record anything and were preprogrammed). You're gonna have to try harder than that, and provide evidence if you want people to believe the disproven (more than 25 years ago) claim that you are making.
Why did the NSA drop this ban if they were recording new data? Are they stupid?
Are you going to keep avoiding my question about concrete details?
They also "learned" and had the ability to repeat back some of what it hears, not so good for protecting secrets
Common misconception, they didn't repeat anything. They just gradually spoke more of whatever language they were in. The only thing that was kind of like learning is they could react to is other nearby furbies
Just to common sense check this: around this time the video games Seaman and Hey You! Pikachu came out with dedicated microphone accessories, had a video game console to power them, and they barely functioned. You think a $35 plastic toy will pull it off?
At the time Furbies were popular, there were other stuffed animals that did the recording and talk-back thing. Dont seem reliable enough for spy work, though.
Yak bak
I had a yak bakwards. Which at least had some kind of toy function, in that you could play the 3 or 4 second recording forwards or backwards. That was minutes of entertainment.
I had both and would use the original to "back up" my clips
Recording and playing back absolutely could be done, but learning words the way people said they were at the time was probably too tricky
The original ones had just a potato-tier 8-bit CPU (a 6502, IIRC) and no wireless capacities, but it would not have been beyond the KGB (or indeed the CIA) to make one with a chip that looks identical to the 6502 but contains a second, more powerful, processor and a radio transceiver. And they probably had practical examples of this.
Doing something like that would probably actually have been outside the capability of Russia at that time. There is a reason the Commodore 64 was still popular in Eastern Europe in the 90s. Basically in the late 70s Russia, who’s technology was largely electro-mechanical, stopped trying to innovate and started covertly importing. By the time the Soviet Union collapsed they were completely reliant on western technology.
There is a museum of Soviet era “video” games that I have always wanted to go to because their tech was so different than ours, we never had any games like them.
Soviet military technology, whilst behind the west, was considerably more advanced than what trickled down to the consumer (mostly because consumer expectations were kept low; the USSR only started manufacturing toilet paper in the mid-1970s, for one, and so wasn’t about to launch its own ecosystem of 8-bit home computers).
You are right… They started with a 16-bit machine.
Though given that they cost 4 months’ wages, they were a consumer product only in theory
I also think you may be misunderstanding the technologies that were available to Soviet citizens. I highly recommend you check out the book How Not to Network a Nation.
KGB was disbanded in 1991. The FSB was the eventual successor. But also during the late 90s russia was being stomped economically. It's unlikely they would have been able to come with a device like that.
Yeah it didn't have any kind of modem.
The NSA??
Lmao, they would get absolutely devoured with their souls strapped for a play-dessert type of thing (it's a furby thing).
Anything short of a rehearsed SCP raid of skilled operatives stands no chance.
hell yeah
I don't remember these models but I love them
It's their memetic effect that makes you believe both those things. Chanting random Latin verses also happens sometimes, they are hella catchy.
I remember having one as a kid. I get that the gimmick was that it was supposed to learn human language progressively, but I kept wondering why mine never improved. Turns out that the translation for Spanish was so awful that it was often downright confusing to use.
"Ruido abajo, por favor" does not mean "keep noise down" but "(make) noise below, please." 🙃
Pretty sure this was an answer on Jeopardy! last week.
Papa Meat also did a furby video recently.