Slashdot Mirror
Teach An Old Aibo New Tricks
dipfan writes "After expending much energy trying to stop hackers from tinkering with its Aibo robot dog, Sony has finally realised it's not worth the effort and has decided to start giving away a 'non-commercial' developers kit. The kit is called OPEN-R SDK, which allows Aibo be programmed in C++, as part of Sony's efforts to promote its (so-called) OPEN-R architecture for robotic entertainment. Anyway, the really neat thing is that you can reprogram your Aibo to meow."
If this, in combination with affectual computing, could make a pet that knows when you've had a bad day and bring you your slippers.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Somebody *MUST* program one.
Too Late!
He's been cloned!
It was amusing to see some of the new behaviors programmed by students in an effort to make the Aibos play better soccer. While the Aibo plays lousy soccer (due to extremely limited memory and a design focus on "cuteness" instead of efficiency), they are absolutely fun to watch.
-- http://www.MarkWelch.com/ Pleasanton California
One of my favorite pictures that I've seen in recent memory was from this past January's National Geographic, in an article about the evolution of dogs from wolves: a wolf, a dog, and an Aibo hanging out. From the page:
Facing the Future
Even with its battery removed, an Aibo robot got the full attention of Koda the wolf and Simon the Maltese during a studio shoot. Koda, a trained captive-born wolf, had worked with Simon but not with the robot. At first he moved away from the motionless Aibo, says photographer Robert Clark. Then, curious, he sniffed it and chewed off a plastic ear. Doug Seus, Koda's owner and trainer, says that while dogs can easily form new relationships after they are about six months old, wolves are genetically programmed not to accept strangers. "It's a built-in survival technique to limit the size of the pack." Confronted with the unknown, wolves are either extremely timid or extremely aggressive, he says. "They may look like a big dog, but they are psychologically different."
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Anyone interested in an Open Robotics system PLEASE ignore this SONY-BS and have a look at this: Open PINO platform
Hacking hardware == good for sales.
This is similar to how Harley-Davidson sells motorcycles: they encourage aftermarket hacking, so much so that they provide (overpriced) parts in the accessories catalog...
This, of course, doesn't count the scores of yuppie/image riders, but even they slap on a bit of aftermarket chrome.
Here you go. Close enough
.Animation = msoAnimationGetAttentionMajor
.Visible = True
.NewBalloon
.Heading = "Hello..."
.Text = "...What's an Aibo dog like you doing in a bar like this?"
.Labels(1).Text = """" & "Getting Reprogrammed... Get lost creep!" & """"
.Labels(2).Text = """" & "Looking for a Warez copy of OfficeXP so I don't have to " & _
.Mode = msoModeModal
.Button = msoButtonSetNone
.Show
'''
'Excel instance
Dim xCel As Excel.Application
'Our Assistant
Dim Assist As Office.Assistant
'Create a background instance of Excel
Set xCel = New Excel.Application
'Make certain it's not visible
xCel.Visible = False
'Load our assistant
Set Assist = xCel.Assistant
'Now show the assistant
With Assist
With
"deal with office scoundrel like you!" & """"
call
End With
end with
'Cleanup
set assist = nothing
set xlcel = nothing
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
My Take:
This site is great. I think this is exactly what we need. The only thing that really got removed per the story referenced below is "virgin" copies of Aibo-Life, because everything you could possibly want, and more, is available, including "RCodePlus", which appears to be a utility for writing and transferring RCode ("Plus" some aibohack.com extensions) to your Aibo.
Summary:
http://www.aibohack.com had much of its content removed because it built on Sony's AiboWare, but added new features.
Among its programs:
AiboScope: Wirelessly transmits images from robot's camera to a computer
Disco Aibo: Execute a programmable dance when Aibo hears a certain song.
Brainbo: Uses voice-recognition. When Aibo hears a phrase, Aibo selects an appropriate response and "says" it.
Source: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-000086726nov01
http://www.latimes.com/search/lat_all.jsp?Query=A
My Take:
While it would probably be trivial to overcome Sony's copy-protection algorithms, it's not worth the bother. $35 for a PMS (Programmable Memory Stick) is money well spent, and if all the code consists of is bootstrapping into the WLAN, we'd only need one for each 'bot.
Summary:
Sony makes red/pink memory sticks specifically for the Aibo. They contain copy-protection code that means that you can't copy their programs from one stick to another (unless, of course, the second one already had that program installed).
Source: http://www.aibohack.com/123/format.htm
My Take:
Nothing new here.
Summary:
Sony released several pieces of AiboWare that are only available in Japan. Based on what a friend of mine could manage to decode, there's nothing here to pique our interest.
Source: http://www.yk.rim.or.jp/~hkora11/aibo_2nd-g/kAibo
My Take:
Note that the 200Mhz (!) CPU uses the MIPS IV instruction set, for which there are no shortage of compilers. We may be in luck yet! (Of course, we might have to replace the current flash ROM with a custom one to develop that luck, but based on other readings, there seems to be very little code in the flash ROM and a heck of a lot of JPEGs of the development team.) You want to read this page.
Source: http://www.aibohack.com/210/hardware.htm
My Take:
An excellent tool, but not very applicable to our particular challenge. Nonetheless, a useful resource of which to be aware.
Summary:
Basically, Brain Surgery allows users to view and edit the data Aibo "feels". What does this mean? You can abuse your Aibo, and fix it yourself--no Sony required.
Source: http://www.aibohack.com/2or3/browser.htm
Now, some explanations are in order.
First of all, the Aibo is programmed in something called "R-Code", part of the "Open-R" standard. The odd thing about this is that Open-R gets licensed to other companies for a fee, and the documentation is not available. Not so sure where the "Open" came from. At any rate, R-Code is a poor imitation of assembly language that is interpreted in real time by the Aibo. Only one program, Sony's Master Studio, is capable of producing R-Code through anything other than editing the R-Code directly.
One of the interesting things about Sony's marketing strategy is that they intended changes you made to the Aibo to be well-nigh permanent. The idea was to get people to send in their Aibos if they didn't take proper care of the little beasties, charge an exorbitant fee for resetting them to the "newborn" state, and send them back. It apparently surprised Sony quite a bit that, when they released Aibo in the U.S., people started clamoring for a tool to allow them to do these resets themselves. It apparently surprised them even more that U.S. consumers wanted a way to bypass the entire, carefully-scripted AiboLife evolution and go straight to an Aibo adult.
In general, U.S. owners wanted to hack their Aibos, Japanese owners wanted to watch their Aibos grow.
On another terribly-interesting note: Brain Surgery allows you to see the internal phonemes for the name you gave your Aibo. This has come in handy at least once when I was trying to determine how I was saying a command incorrectly.
Jouster