Marvin’s Magic fans’ performances do the trick

On the opening episode of the new series of Britain’s Got Talent, 13-yearold Cillian O’Connor, from County Meath in Ireland, wowed the judges with a confident performance, securing his place in the semi-finals with four ‘Yes’ votes from Simon, Aleshia, Amanda and Bruno.

Cillian is a huge Marvin’s Magic fan and won the 2021 Argos/Marvin’s Magic competition following the Xmas Magic TV campaign. In various subsequent TV and national press interviews recently, he has credited Marvin Berglas and Marvin’s Magic as big influences and key to getting him started.

Cillian is a current Junior Ambassador for Marvin’s Magic and has appeared at various Marvin’s Magic events alongside seasoned demonstrators within FAO Schwarz at Arnotts in Dublin. His Britain’s Got Talent performance has gone on to rack up 155m views on social media.

A few days after Cillian appeared on TV, 25-year-old John Duffett from Redbridge beat five other finalists to win the coveted Magic Circle Close Up Magician of the Year. John is a current member of the Marvin’s Magic demonstration team at Hamleys of Regent St and cites his ‘flight time’ demonstrating Marvin’s Magic and regularly interacting with the daily crowds as instrumental to his success.

Coincidentally, both Cillian and John grew up with autism and each said that magic was a positive channel for their talents and helped them to develop their social skills and confidence.

Tonies explores AI content generator in test

The company is conducting a test with an AI-based content generator which allows users to create stories in a playful way and listen to the audio file on the Toniebox in an instant. The company’s approach reflects both the need for caution and responsibility, as well as curiosity, about this new technology. Selected users will therefore be guided through a pre-set form to provide input for their stories and will also participate in a survey to share insights and reflections from this test.

Patric Faßbender, co-founder and co-CEO, commented: “With cautious excitement, we dip our toes in the AI water and explore the ways in which kids – along with their parents – can properly use AI to tap into their unlimited creativity and keen sense of storytelling. At Tonies, it has always been our mission to provide kids with access to technology in a responsible and child-friendly way.”

Tonies will launch its AI-based content generator in Mytonies, its digital user interface. Testing began in May with up to 1,000 users in the United Kingdom as one of Tonies’ core markets. Specially selected users have been granted access to the new feature that allows them to create their own stories together with their children. They generate stories or documentaries by providing input via drop-downs and text fields such as the names of the hero and companions, the theme of the story (e.g., friendship), its tone (e.g., magical, comical), and the age of the listener for appropriate vocabulary. The pre-set input mask supports customers and gives them guidance and ideas to invent exciting stories while also leaving enough room for their children’s creativity and imagination.

As output, the AI-based generator creates a script which users can record themselves or convert into an audio file based on text-to-speech technology – both can then be assigned to a Creative Tonie to enjoy the story right away on the Toniebox. As a responsible company serving children, Tonies has also implemented several restrictions and taken measures to mitigate risks for inappropriate words and infringement of trademark or licensing rights. Tonies is leveraging an interface to OpenAI (ChatGPT) to generate the script, together with an interface to ElevenLabs to transform the script into audio.