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New Version of Sony's AIBO Robot Dog Released
Cave_Monster writes "Sony has unveiled a new version of its canine robot AIBO which, unlike your average puppy, can talk and keep a diary but which still needs love and attention. Sony starts taking orders Thursday, with a price tag of 194,250 yen (US $2,263.40) in Japan including a five-per cent sales tax. Now that's one expensive toy!"
Here's a link to Sony's own AIBO page, which really should have been in the story.
And I bet you can install OSX on them...
The robo-dog may steal owners away from the Tamagotchi virtual pet, which swept the world in the mid-1990s.
Uhm, yeah. This +$2K puppy will surely steal the market share from a $10 toy!
five percent
Expensive? Bear in mind that most $2k computers go to ten-year-olds and they are also pretty much just toys so that makes them expensive too. Nah, I'd say that $2k for a robot puppy is actually quite reasonably-priced if not a bargain.
Did anyone ever play with theirs for longer than 5 minutes? More importantly, what audience is there to 'steal' given that these haven't been on the market for years?
You are paying for hardware and software... trust me, the software is the biggest expense. What is surprising about that? Just wait till your refridgerator has a console in the door, that won't be the kind of present you give away very often either.
What's even worse about Aibo is that the amount of creativity that it permits the owner is not exactly what I would call an open source kind of effort.
I've not heard of them going BSOD as yet, but there is always a new version to be released.
This is just one of the first of this kind of robot, and really the first successful sale of closed software in a toy/robot/moving-appliance. There will be others of course, but this represents the first of this new 'Jetsons' world of things to come. A world where buying a personal robot is ranked about the same place in life experiences as buying a car for most people.
Of course, I could be wrong, YMMV but things are slowly going the way of the Jetsons. This year, its bluetooth and WiFi, in 10 years, who knows what?
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But does it bite ?
Can it fling toxic darts at unwanted house guests?
In case anyone's curious, AIBO sounds like aibou, which in Japanese means partner or pal, etc, kind of along the same lines as "best friend" in "man's best friend."
Many dog owners keep their dog for practical reasons: for game hunting, as seeing-eye dogs, for companionship, or for protection/security. While these robotic dogs may provide some form of companionship, are they useful for anything else? Or are they just technological curiosities?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
"AIBO owners have sometimes asked us what AIBO is feeling like in certain situations as it was not clear. They will be pleased to have this speaking function,"
Yeah, that's just what I want. Guests over at my house, and all of a sudden out of nowhere comes a fucking robot dog asking me "Why don't you love me? Why don't you love me? Why don't you love me?"
The moment they release AIBO with communication software for Apple OS X. As long as they keep Windows minded I will ignore this (otherwise) great gadget. Pitty ...
I'm waiting until I can buy the Sony Celladiowave from Sony Style Magazine
Join the TWIT army now!
"But it also comes with several lives. Owners can skip the maturing process and make AIBO an adult instantly or switch the adult back to a pup to enjoy the growing-up stage." I realize that the AIBO is an extremely simple piece of equipment when compared to even a unicellular organism, but still. People who buy this are looking to impose the "dog" abstraction on it. Sony is trying very hard to make AIBO owners treat it like a real dog. It's a little disturbing that it can be reset with the push of a button. Either the owners are going to be apathetic towards it, since it isn't realistic enough to empathize with, or they're going to be wierded out when their mature "dog" suddenly starts acting like a puppy. I know it'd creep me out.
Until then, I see this sort of thing as just a toy that would be liable to be entertaining for all of... oh... maybe up to a week or so, and then forgotten. Kind of a lot of money to spend on something with such a brief entertainment value, don't you think?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
MC Chris has a hilarious song about these called "robotdog". Y'all should listen to it.
Untill these things are at least "smart" enough to say go through a Schutzhund, what's the point? You're not getting a real pet or real companionship from a peice of plastic and metal, so it should at least act as a good work dog.
...for a full featured female robot... without the PMS bug...
What's changed is the software: Mind 3, replacing the previous Mind 2 (plus service packs). My biggest wish for Mind 3 would be for some image processing to heal the terrible image quality of the internal camera, and also, for some sort of "TV image detection".. so that it doesn't get stuck cheering at the TV while I'm trying to watch it !
"La presi e te la pagai (480.000 Lire)"
i seem to remember someone hacking the AIBO a couple years back (i mean, it did have 802.11b support, a camera, etc.)
anyone know of where to track this down? thinking of this way you could command your AIBO to do stuff from a remote location
my fave random AIBO thing was this prototype unveiled at STEF '03 that had "digital olfactory" capability - when i asked whether that was so that, you know, you could send the dog into areas that a human or animal couldn't go, the answer was, "um, no: it's a dog. it needs to be able to smell."
nice
You'd be surprised what's not on the map in this country. - Mulder
You need to keep shoving Sony Memory Sticks up its ass to keep it fed....
One factoid not mentioned in the linked article is that the new AIBO can blog.
Yes, blog. In addition to "talking" and keeping a "diary" of its daily routine, it can automatically and wirelessly upload its entries to an public blog website for all to read. (For all Japanese-literate, at least.) As with any blog, the owner and similarly squishy entities can submit comments to AIBO's entries.
http://www.jp.aibo.com/products/ers7m3/aep04.html
Sony actually thought it was necessary to post the following warning:
"* [People] can write comments, but AIBO cannot respond to the comments."
Plus, you can train AIBO with your daily routine by importing your Microsoft Outlook schedule into him/her/soulless thingy. For example, AIBO can dictate today's news headlines as you eat breakfast.
I'll let the concept of an unholy alliance between robotic dogs, blogs, and Microsoft Outlook sink in before the blood-curdling begins.
Is it ill-tempered? Can I train it to, say, guard my underground heroin production lair? Would it attack any kung fu masters who might enter from some sort of ventilation system? Would it be able to differentiate between said kung-fu master or MI6 agent and my loyal henchmen?
Is it fluffy?
Or at least they will be for several centuries. It has nothing to do with AI or realism or functionality. It has to do with the psychology of humans and that little off switch on the back of each. When a human is done with their gigapet or Aibo, they turn it off until they come back later. It's not a virtual pet, it's a toy. Toy's are put away when you are done with them. There never will be any real sense of responsibility to take care of a pet if you can turn it off. Even if you can't turn it off, it becomes very frustrating when the batteries run out and you basically have to start over with a new pet in the same body.
:P). It could only do a few things, and it's charm wore out really quick. It demanded things at odd times when it wasn't convenient and was a hassle.
Pet's are reasonably self sufficient compared to toys. If you feed them, they eat it themselves. They nap frequently and you can adapt them to your schedule making it convenient for you. When you play with them, you have to discover the quirks in the pet's personality that make that pet unique. They can be very frustrating to deal with, but very rewarding when they come back to you and give you attention when you need it. Most importantly, most humans want real contact with another being. If it feels like a toy, it's a toy. Pets feel real and can snuggle 100000 times better than a metal or plastic toy.
I tinkered with with one of those gigapets back in the day (hey, I play with all my son's toys, sue me
Even if AI advances that far, who would pay for a quirky emotional robot? That's extremely difficult to program, and annoying if it doesn't behave exactly like a real pet.
Besides, I don't know what the pet situation is in Japan, but in America a real pet can be had for a lot less money (free if you keep your eyes open) and there are plenty to go around. Visit your local kennel and adopt a real pet that needs a good home.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I showed it to my AI professor once and he told me that Sony sent these out to universities when they first came out so researchers could play with them. Then he showed me the thing that made it so amazing. No matter how you oriented the AIBO, it can always stand upright. If you put it on its side, it will move its legs so it rolls over until its belly is on the ground and then proceed to get up. You can't put it with its back side down because of the head (Sony designed it that way on purpose). Its ability to stand up is probably the most amusing part. Otherwise, it wasn't all the great, IMO. I eventually gave it to boss' kids because I thought it would amuse and inspire them more than it did for me and hopefully one of them would go into AI someday.
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I shared my secrets with only one person in the world, and he aint talking ... oh wait
Yeah, but will girls think it's cute and want to walk up and start petting it?
Didn't think so.
It seems the latest toy from Sony can be instructed through WiFi to take pictures or record video (it has stereo microphones as ears and a camera as eyes). It can also send the captured media by email.
Nifty eh ?
... here.
Circumcision is child abuse.
One of the divisions of the ongoing RoboCup competition (robotic soccer) is the Sony Four-Legged League, where researchers, including some pretty high-powered robotics groups from major universities, hack teams of Aibos to play soccer against other teams of Aibos.
RoboCup
Four-Legged League
When 20-50 year old men find more hours of amusement from a toy than it's intended audience.
I got a dog for free a year ago. Purebred, at that. In the single year since then I've easily spent $1500 or so for neutering, shots, boarding, training, and general upkeep. Then the dog disappeared (methinks she escaped, and someone else said "hey, a well trained aussie! I think I'll keep her!).
Aibo looks pretty good to me. Over only two years I'll come out way ahead.
Finally, I can teach a dog to help keep the mother-in-law outside the house, and for it to unplug the phone when the call is coming from her house!
Did I just say that??
That head looks a bit like Giger's Alien, I couldn't resist doing a bit of a redesign.
SDR and Papero looks pretty good, but most robot designs out there doesn't appeal to me at all. Maybe they're limited by engineering problems though. Right home robotics seem to be where the home computers were back in the 1970's, ie. expensive kits with no real screens and little use (KIM etc).
One day there might be kits in the local hobbystore containing a bunch of joints you can connect as you like, then the head (software) automatically develops movement patterns etc...
The Chair Corp. comic(*00-12)
I want a Marvin.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
194,250 yen is more like 1,720 US dollars. Still in striking range of $2K, but still far off from the original quoted dollar value. I noticed this because I'm going to Japan this week, and the original numbers in this post implied that my trip would be 25% more expensive than I was planning :)
One simple rule for its versus it's
This appears to be yet another incremental revision with no
changes to the hardware whatsoever (or not noticeable, at least).
They just tweaked the default software a bit and called it a new
release. If history is any lesson, though, we might expect a
really new model within the year or so.
Do you also have a monkey with four asses? :)
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
The currency conversion was right into Australian dollars at the Australian newspaper which published it, then the editor or submitted included the US before the $ sign. Check the original link, its not in the article. This apparent extra-special-effort-to-screw-up-the-copy-paste job went unnoticed despite the fact that the name of the paper is The Australian.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
...but I hope Sony has made this new Aibo to be able to run Puppy Linux
:-)
w00t
Too much common sense and perspective for Slashdot.
For your records: iBo is teh sux0r!1!1!1!! omfg lol1!1!!!eleven!1!
The one thing that this toy does not do that really seperates it from a real pet is that you have to plug it in. If they sold it with at "doggie bed" that would allow the aibo to recharge via induction, and the aibo could find the bed when it was low on power, THEN I would consider buying one. If I have to plug it in, it is a toy. If I could leave one in my house while I went away on vacation, and when I came back it was greeting me at the door, that would be a pet.
Finally, they fixed the bugs that jamie rishaw announced so many years ago ..
Sony starts taking orders Thursday, with a price tag of 194,250 yen (US $2,263.40) in Japan including a five-per cent sales tax.
Hell, in memphis tennessee sales tax is 9.25%. i WISH we had 5%
Great work misquoting the article. The $2,263.40 is AUSTRALIAN.
According to xe.com the actual price in US dollars works out to $1,704.54.
"with a price tag of 194,250 yen (US $2,263.40) in Japan including a five-per cent sales tax. Now that's one expensive toy!"
I admit I don't know much about how much real dogs cost, but how much does one pay for a purebred puppy? Not including food, veterinary costs, cleaning, making sure someone is around every few hours to let it out, wiring a reset button into its brain.
http://www.rurnt.com/brian/archives/technology/000 060.html
I saw these guys on the Discovery channel. They're doing some pretty amazing stuff with these 'toys'
Personally, I'm waiting for the nest version that will have bees in their mouth and when they bark they shoot bees at you
I mean, look... The future of robotic dogs is not a good thing...
-FL