Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

New AIBO - Meet the ERS-7

Posted by michael on from the bow-wow dept.

ejtttje writes "Sony announced today (also here) the ERS-7, the third generation of the AIBO. New specifications include more computational power, improved sensors, and, last but not least, built-in 802.11b WiFi standard! Additional information from the Japanese Flash promo includes this flash video. (8MB, mirror - sorry, no mpg). Sony will also be releasing a new version of the OPEN-R SDK to continue support of third party AIBO developers. (self plug ;) Pre-orders start October 10, and ship early November, for $1599 (in the US)."

9 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. The coolest peripheral... by Mr.+Darl+McBride · · Score: 5, Informative
    The coolest peripheral is one that I'm not sure they'll be showing. They were demonstrating the new Aibo at a small Sony developer gathering the month before last. The gentleman who was doing the demonstration had a tiny remote control with two joysticks and an array of buttons.

    If you're like me, you've got an Aibo who does all kinds of cool shit, but only when nobody else is around. When ten people are circling the Aibo and cooing and ahing, the sensors get all confused and he just sits and yaps like he thinks he's blocked. With the remote, he was able to turn off the eyes momentarily, as well as putting the thing in a no-reaction mode where he could just reposition the thing and restart whichever react mode it was in.

    If I could get my hands on one of these, I could impress friends more easily, and they'd probably sell a dozen times as many!

    1. Re:The coolest peripheral... by Mr.+Darl+McBride · · Score: 2, Informative
      I'm a mormon again. I can't type this morning.

      s/not sure they'll be showing/not sure they'll be selling/

      Regardless, it was a great little controller. From what I could tell, one of the joysticks was dedicated to moving the Aibo, and several of the buttons had fixed functions (labels built on, but in Japanese so I couldn't read them). The other joystick and buttons all had generic number and letter labels, which leads me to think that you could use them with your own Aibo apps, if you picked up the programmer toolkit (if you're on Slash and you picked up an Aibo, you had to have gotten the toolkit too, right?). I think it'd be pretty cool to make the second just adjust where he's "looking." If you hid that thing in your pocket, you could make him seem to follow someone's movements about the room and freak them out more than a little.

      Then again, I'd also add a flatulence button. But anyone who's read the press recently already knows I'm not a good person.

    2. Re:The coolest peripheral... by Mr.+Darl+McBride · · Score: 3, Informative
      I got mine on ebay for less than 1/6th of the new price.

      Every time the new models are released, you find a ton of people selling their old ones. Watch for it -- so many hit at the same time, that they go for peanuts.

      Good luck, kind sir.

  2. Disappointing video by Lorphos · · Score: 2, Informative

    I was interested in the new Aibo, but the flash-video is a downer. The new Aibo moves very slowly and robo-like.. i was hoping it'd be a lot smoother and faster.
    The SDK looks cool though.

    1. Re:Disappointing video by ChristopherAltman · · Score: 3, Informative



      ... here are a few high-quality videos from Tokyo RoboDex 2003.

      --
      Quantum computing / Artificial intelligence: http://www.umsl.edu/~altmanc/news.html
  3. I don't like my aibo by peterpi · · Score: 4, Informative
    Hello.

    I have (well, my team at work has...) and aibo ERS-220, and it really is a heap of shit. This is not a troll; I really do have one, and it really is shit.

    We were expecting it to do cool stuff, but it just wonders round the room bumping into stuff. After a while it sits down and plays a little song. After doing this a few times it runs out of battery and dies.

    That's it. Biggest waste of two thousand pounds ever. Now the new one's come out we'll be lucky to get four hundred for it on eBay.

    I'm done now (:

    1. Re:I don't like my aibo by SnowZero · · Score: 2, Informative

      Or you can run our code and make it walk twice as fast. The person here ported it into a smaller test program and has a nice demo. If you can't program, the Aibo is probably not a wise investment. If you can, think of it as a portable computer with a camera and legs... 1500-1600 USD isn't so bad for that.

  4. AIBO AI Mind by Mentifex · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Aibo Kennel Club has an Aibo AI Mind that needs some re-working and hacking so as to be installed in your pet robot dog -- making it an intelligent companion.

    A Python Software Development (SDK) is available for the Evolution Robotics ER1 Personal Robot -- why not for the Aibo?

    The Python AI Weblog is a start for coding Python AI minds for Aibos and other robots.

    The Visual Basic AI Weblog promotes AI coding not just for Aibo pet dogs but for humanoid robots.

    The Perl AI Weblog is for perl geeks, Aibo owners, and coders of server-side 'Net-roaming AI.

    The Lisp AI Weblog goes beyond Aibo and other toys into the most serious AI theory and practice.

    Please support public-domain open-source artificial intelligence for Aibo and all other robots.

  5. The only comfort is... by C. · · Score: 2, Informative

    The only comfort is that unsuspecting Aibo users have very little chance of broadcasting their home contents to hackers passing by. Under existing Aibo software (and probably under the new ERS-7 software), the Wifi card turn off automatically if it doesn't detect an active Wifi network around.

    As usual, mostly semi-knowledgeable people are at risk, not the newbies nor the "experts"...

    --
    Christian.
    Aibotoys Aibo Games

    --
    C.