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."

Comments

I wonder...

[Marx_Mrvelous]

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.

Re:Teaching characters new tricks

[mughi]

Too Late!

He's been cloned!

Programming Aibo - wasn't this already enabled?

[markwelch]

When I attended the RoboCup 2001 competition in Seattle, the students had reprogrammed new behaviors and movements into their Aibos -- with Sony's blessing. My never-quite-finished report on the event, with links to photos and AVIs, is at:

http://www.robot-news.com/robocup_2001_images/

I was told that the Aibos and the programming stations (used by the college teams competing in the Aibo competition) were not regular retail devices, but clearly Sony was endorsing the notion of reprogramming Aibo, at least by experts-in-training. (Sony was a major sponsor of the event.)

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.

Aibo in context

[daeley]

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."

Open != Sony

[SubtleNuance]

Anyone interested in an Open Robotics system PLEASE ignore this SONY-BS and have a look at this: Open PINO platform

Re:Teaching characters new tricks

[shawnmelliott]

Here you go. Close enough
'''
'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

.Animation = msoAnimationGetAttentionMajor
.Visible = True

With .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 " & _
"deal with office scoundrel like you!" & """"
.Mode = msoModeModal
.Button = msoButtonSetNone

call .Show

End With

end with

'Cleanup
set assist = nothing
set xlcel = nothing

Re:What about Simon?

[daeley]

The article (not available online in full as far as I can find) mentioned that 'Wolf and dog were provided by Doug Seus's Wasatch Rocky Mountain Wildlife, Utah' -- they actually grew up together so were pretty familiar with each other. Some more text online (from this page)

Raw meat and doggy snacks kept these distant cousins in line over a two-day photo shoot, says photographer Robert Clark. And even that only bought him seconds of time to snap this quirky, yet captivating image featured on the January cover of National Geographic.

"Getting the wolf in the right position with the right expression was the hardest thing," Clark says. "It took me 120 frames to get what I wanted."

What he wanted most was a portrait that captured poise and eyes so attuned to the camera that they followed the viewer right off the page. At the same time, he also needed an image simple enough to clinch the story's headline, "Wolf to Woof," with one glance, while still getting people to wonder how they got the two together.

But more than getting Koda and Simon to stand up, sit down, or look at the 140mm lens on his Mamiya-RZ67 camera, the key ingredient to capturing this photograph was planning.

Three days before the shoot Clark transformed a garage into a studio with a backdrop, a platform, and six strobe lights to highlight the animals' fur. Although Koda has starred in TV commercials and an Imax movie, he needed time to shed his skittishness and warm up to the environment.

"At one point, all the people were talking, and the wolf just let out a beautiful low-level howl... as if he was howling at the moon," Clark says. "It was beautiful, but it reminded us that even though he was trained, we were still with a wild animal."