I won’t pretend that I’m old enough to remember the days before toys started getting technological. Lincoln Logs, Tinkertoys, and Mr. Potato Head were viewed as clinging remnants of a bygone era even when I was growing up, and G.I. Joe had already evolved from one big, manly 12-inch doll with real hair to a squadron of four-inch action figures with plastic hair and tiny high-tech weapons. But I do remember when toy technology didn’t extend much beyond the capabilities of my toy walkie-talkies (still more reliable than my last cell phone, and probably not as great a brain cancer threat) and my sister’s E-Z Bake oven, or as I like to remember it, Ol’ Smokey. Then came the age of video games, and the rein of Atari. And Atari begat Nintendo, Sega and Playstation. This is when toys started to leave me behind. By the time I’d mastered Pac-Man and Frogger, the Super Mario Bros. had landed a feature film. Then the internet came along, and changed the way that we view just about everything - work and play - and it was only a matter of time before someone fashioned a toy that took advantage of the emerging global village... and ensure that I was even more out-of-the-loop.

 The time, apparently, was one night here at the Grand Havana Room, when Stan Winston, the special effects expert behind such films as Aliens, Jurassic Park, Predator, and - most significantly, in this case - The Terminator, sat down with his old friend, Brain Shuster, for cocktails and cigars. Shuster, in addition to being part-owner of the club, is the president of United Internet Technologies, and pioneered the creation of a platform called I-C-IT (Intelligent Control Interactive Technology), which enables electronic devices to “speak” to each other. Stan was looking for a new project; Brian was itching to use his new system in toys.

 “Kids are early adopters of new technology,” Shuster reasons. “Parents like their kids to use technology, especially if it has that ‘edu-tainment’ value. Making a long story short, over a couple of cigars and bottles of really good wine, I convinced Stan that there was a market for this, and we formed a partnership.” And fortunately, there was a character in Stan’s movie repertoire that was ideal to serve as the prototype.

 “We decided to use the Terminator because it’s the most well-recognized of Stan’s characters, “ Shuster says, “and it gave us a chance to really enter this industry swinging a baseball bat. It’s hard to look at it without that ‘Wow’ factor. It either intimidates or fascinates you, and I think for most people, it’s a combination of both.”

 True enough, especially when I finally got the chance to get a look at its capabilities (actually, play with the thing) firsthand. The I-C-IT chip inside the T2’s head enables you to send instant messages to anyone, anywhere, in real time, as long as they’re hooked up to the system, which the T2 will then chillingly deliver in its own mechanical voice. The Terminator’s glowing red eyes aren’t just for show, either: there’s a video camera feature that lets you spy on the person on the other end of your chat (George Orwell is surely spinning in his grave).  The T2 can also interact with other media - CD’s DVD’s, VHS tapes, and MP3 files, meaning if you ever wanted to know what the Terminator sounded like singing, say, “Mr. Roboto” just pop the CD into your computer’s drive and press play. For video gamers, the T2 can plug into the game console and actually play the game along with them. The coolest thing is that the toy actually can get smarter. The I-C-IT technology ensures that new features and functions are downloaded over the Web regularly, which users can use to constantly update their toy.

 According to Shuster, the hopes are for more licensed characters to join the fun. The Terminator appeals to teenage boys, but girls could be enticed by an interactive Barbie, or younger kids by (shudder) Barney the Dinosaur. So, I asked Shuster, does this mean that the non-tech toys of my youth are totally obsolete? “Kids are getting more sophisticated,” he replied frankly. “I believe that you’ll see the marriage of technology and toys increase over the next few years.” And in case any critics fear that this great new system is being wasted on playthings, Shuster informed me that the I-C-IT is also currently revolutionizing the field of at-home medical care, with sophisticated, blood-pressure triggered hypertension monitoring devices among the first of many life-saving inventions. It’s also enabling appliances to speak to each other; your refrigerator, for example, will be able to send a message to your palm pilot that you’re out of milk. The sky truly seems the limit.