What are USB toys? This is the term given to gadgets or toys which use the electrical power from the USB (Universal Serial Bus) on your laptop or PC. They can also be known as ‘cubicle toys’ or ‘office toys’.
The USB port was designed as an easy modern replacement for the parallel and serial ports on computers (the old ports on your computer that you used to have to connect a printer, or some other device to). It was hoped that the USB port would completely replace this and that multiple devices would be able to connect to each other and then to the computer. The USB port was almost certainly not designed for the purpose of powering toys, but some creative genius thought that powering USB Toys would be a great idea. I do too!
There are two main categories:
Useful toys
These are devices, that although limited by the power supply of the USB port, seek to fulfil a useful role. Examples of these would be storage devices and reading lamps.
Fun toys
These have very little practical use, if any at all, except for entertainment. Examples of USB toys are, USB missile launchers, USB boxers, USB lava lamps and many more. Sometimes these are encouraged in an office environment, as they can be considered as mild distractions and can often relieve stress. Some of them can even be considered as the USB version of the office stress ball.
So there you go. Go do a search on USB toys now! There’s plenty of them on you-tube, and most of them look like great fun.