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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!"
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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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.
"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.
The idea of a pet that does not piss and crap all over the house or cause gobs of other damage makes it look good to me at $5000.00US!!
Anyone ever tried raising a puppy in their home knows that a free puppy can cause well over $5000.00 in damage in a 24 hour period. before you get a live pet, if you own things such as nice furniture, LEATHER furniture, good carpet, hardwood trim and floors, or live in someplace you would call really nice be ready to either keep that pet in a cage most of it's life or spend a lot of money repairing damage the critters do during their young phase of their life (Cats=1st year.. dogs from 2-4 years are their "young" years depending on breed.)
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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.
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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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...
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AIBO sounds like aibou
I thought it was a contraction of "ai robo", which is often how "robot" is pronounced in Japan (where they don't like to end words with consonants besides "n"). Sort of like "Love-Bot".
You know its funny. People with certain financial status think the same of PDAs. I have known 40 year old people who work minimum wage jobs to talk down gadgets such as GPS units, PDAs and yes .. DVD players (they prefer VHS) as being worthless and stupid devices just because of their financial bracket.
.. this is not new .. it has been a popular item for a while now.
If your in a financial bracket obove the people I just described, then buying a PDA is just a usefull device I can replace every year.
This is the same for people who think of these dogs as stupid. They think that because $3000 is a tough chunk of change to just spend on anything and they just dont have it.
For people in the upper income bracket $3000 is something that does not take much effort to save for and things like this are no longer so stupid because they are very much within reach. BTW there are LOTS of people in the upper end bracket I just describe and the sales of aibos have been good. The units have gone through multiple versions and various improvements over the YEARS. And no