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Children can now star in their own story books, says the Seven Towns toy company of London (WO 02/45049). Its book comes on a computer disc, complete with pictures to illustrate the story. But some of the characters in the pictures are in monochrome only, and these can be replaced by the owner with colour pictures of their child.

Sketches of a camera viewfinder show the child how to pose and what facial expression to adopt, so that their image fits the storyline. The software does the image merging, and lets users print the final combination. One advantage for…

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