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Second Generation Aibo Specs Officially Released
pastie writes "The second generation Sony Aibo now has a full and glorious specification at the Aibo homepage. "
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Forget comparing this to live animals, what a waste of grey matter. How does this compare to other semi-interactive electronic pet types of things or robotic amusements? Is this cooler than remote control cars? Does this beat the hackeresque Palm robot? Is this more fun than Lego Mindstorm? Does this thing even come close to being as fun as a Tamagotchi (which is really setting the bar pretty low)?
I do not have a signature
Second: I'll buy one when it's capable of being a guard dog, a la Snow Crash. I'd love to see the neighbors get mangled by my nuclear attack dog!
Well, if you look here, you'll see that "AIBO learns from your praise or scolding. Praise it for playing with its ball, and it will enjoy playing with the ball more than ever. But if you scold AIBO when it is only looking at the ball, it will soon ignore the ball altogether."
So I suppose if you scold it when it's around you, it will ignore you, but if you praise it when it's around the neighbours, it will go after the neighbours.
Some computerized weaponry and a little bit of hacking later, you have a psychologically-warped little robot dog that's armed to the teeth.
I can spell. I just can't type.
their choice of location for the "PC Card Slot" is rather amusing. (Or disgusting, depending on your sense of humor levels....)
Me: "Hello, Sony?"
Sony: "Yes, this is Sony technical support. How can I help you?"
Me: "Well, I bought this robo-dog for a couple grand a few months ago and it was pretty slick."
Sony: "Was?"
Me: "Well, you see, Spot started following me around wanting to play ball."
Sony: "And?"
Me: "I was playing ball in the pool with my kids and Spot jumped off the diving board trying to fetch the ball. You know, metal sinks like a rock. Spot doesn't even sniff himself anymore. He just kind of sits there and twitches. Is that simulated hypothermia? Can I get him fixed or do I need to put him out of his misery?"
Sony: "Sorry, stupidity isn't listed on the warranty card."
LOAD "SIG",8,1
LOADING...
READY.
RUN
"Umm...I think your robot dog is humping your computer..."
"No, he's just uploading data."
"Don't tell me. He uses burst transfers, right?"
--K
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Now you don't have to worry about the dog watching you have sex, but the whole world.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
A real pure bread dog or cat costs only a few hundred
Actually, you can probably knead a pure bread dog (or cat, for that matter) with buying a couple loaves of bread from the nearest Safeway and softening it with water. You can leave it soft if you're a cat person with a longing for a warm, fuzzy cat, or bake it at 400F for that hard Doberman look.
A purebred dog can be more fun since it's actually alive, and it can lick you in the face, catch a frisbee and all.
When I saw a quick snippet of it on the news, it looked no more interesting than those dogs you see in toy stores that flip around, etc. This is just a bit more advanced. It walked around a bit haphazardly and made all sorts of whining sounds from the stepper motors.
I'd rather spend $2000 on a beowulf cluster of Lego Mindstorms sets and make a 1/2 scale Dalek(hey, they even have a camera for Lego now!) and be my own Davros.
Yes you are right. Think of all the personal info they could gain with that thing. All they would have to do is drive a little black van within about 200 feet of your house (the range of most wireless LAN cards these days). Then they would have to control the dog over the network so that they can maneuver it into position so it doesnt just take pictures of walls and such. Then they take the picture (of what?) and download it over the LAN.
Yep, that sure is a great way to collect data on customers. Drive to their houses and control dogs and have them take pictures of toilets or wallpaper or people's feet. Every big company would kill to get this kind of great marketing information! And they get it so easily, too!
Bah.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
I dont know about the rest of you guys .. but i dont feel quite comfortable with the positioning of the battery pack.
i can just see it now.
Is your dogs batteries falling out ? or is he just happy to see me??
A digital camera in the nose? A wireless LAN connection? Am I being overly paranoid or should we be concerned that Sony can now snap "spy" photos from in our houses and easily retrieve them over the Internet? Based on Sony's history, I wouldn't say this is too far-fetched. Imagine the mountains of personal info they could gather with this thing.
I have found the Poo-Chi to be superior to both the old AIBO and the new model. The Poo-Chi does not contain the complexity of the AIBO, which makes it walk slowly. The Poo-Chi is also a much better value, costing about $30. It allows full computer connection and fast walking, two things that the AIBO lack. Sony's AIBO may succeed in Japan where anything will sell, including soiled schoolgirl uniforms in vending machins (no, I'm not kidding), but the US is a much more conservative market when it comes to spending $2000.
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
If you hack Aibo, you're just a hacker.
If you hack a real dog, you're a mad scientist and people call the ASPCA.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
it's the yeast I can do.......
Dirty Pirate Hooker