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Pleo Robot Dinosaur Back From Extinction
robotsrule sends in a follow-up to our earlier discussion of the bankruptcy of Ugobe, maker of the Pleo robotic dinosaur: "Jetta Company Limited, based in China and Hong Kong, the company that manufactured the Pleo baby robot dinosaur for Ugobe, has bought the intellectual property rights and other assets at the Ugobe bankruptcy sale that occurred on May 21. Jetta is an established company with a 32-year history in manufacturing. They have issued a short press release announcing Pleo's rebirth. Steve Ohler, the US liaison for Jetta, confirmed the news, saying that the company is firmly committed to re-launching Pleo and continuing the line including producing accessories such as the vital battery and charger components. Jetta, as the original manufacturer, is the best possible company to have acquired Ugobe's intellectual property and to announce plans to re-launch Pleo. Ohler remarked that all of the equipment needed to produce Pleos and accessories is still intact and ready to go."
Yes they do! In the very first sentence of it:
"... a follow-up to our earlier discussion of the bankruptcy of Ugobe, maker of the Pleo robotic dinosaur"
How lazy are you to not check the article on Ugobe before complaining on Pleo?
Two 32-bit ARM7 processors
Four 8-bit processors for motor control
Fourteen tiny motors
One color camera
Two microphones
One IR transmitter
One accelerometer
Eight capacitance touch sensors
Why should you care? Sounds like something that's just begging to be hacked.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I think "animatronic toy" is being a bit dismissive, even if it didn't live up to the hype.
It's really an autonomous robot that learns and reacts to the environment - it's not just a robot with a remote or a canned set of moves.
That said, the degree of learning and autonomy it displays seems to be rather limited, although the promise was for this to be imporoved in subsequent software releases.
The reason you, as a Slashdot denizen, should care, is:
1) As an autonomous robot - with vision and hearing - it is pretty cool.
2) It's eminently hackable, and really an excellent value as a chunk of mechanics and electronics.