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The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Pleo
robotsrule writes "This article contains notes from a 1-hour phone call with Ugobe founder Derek Dotson, now CEO of Innvo Labs Corporation, the company that acquired the rights to Pleo at the recent bankruptcy auction. Dotson reveals the hidden story behind Pleo's rise, fall, and resurrection including intriguing facts about the money trail and what he feels caused Ugobe to fail, including how he had to save Pleo's future on more than one occasion. He also lays out in plain detail Innvo Labs's strategy to help owners of older Pleos and those whose units were swallowed up by Ugobe's bankruptcy." We've been following the Pleo saga for years.
Yeah yeah, slashdot editors suck, etc. - but expecting your readers to do your work for you is pushing it, and I'm a long-term reader.
Pleo: what is it? why should I care?
Else = Idle
When I read
Ugobe was a heavyweight company poised for explosive growth and burdened with all the associated expenses and overhead that implies, so they needed a huge explosion in sales. Derek still believes Ugobe would have survived and done well if they could have raised their last round of funds.
I was reminded of a .com that I worked for during the boom years that had a nice product that would support a small company. But of course, you couldn't get rich creating a small company, so instead they projected a sales curve that started out low and rose exponentially, and thus they could remain "on track" for that "explosion in sales". Ugobe sounds like deja vu all over again...
Bankruptcy sounds pretty vague to me. What did they spend all of their money on? Fighting the uprising of technologically advanced robot dinosaurs perhaps? Did they realize only too late that the chip they installed was capable of switching genders leading to an unforeseen ability to reproduce?
Hey wait, that would make a great movie...
Seriously, why save a product that has no life?? Sure it runs Linux .... but even that is of little interest.
It is a stupid toy that never made it. Why waste money on a useless product?
Sometimes people can see beyond their own noses. Instead of wasting the investment on a DOA useless toy, what about investing time and money on a product that really has a chance to make a difference.
We've been following the Pleo saga for years.
...I, for one, haven't been following the Pleo story for as much as five minutes. So this is one breaking news item about which kdawson is at least 210,378 times better informed than I.
Truly, one is reminded of why one started reading Slashdot in the first place.
Breakfast served all day!
I wonder, how does Pleo do around cats? Does he become food or a playmate?
Seriously this CEO sounds like a typical asshat fucktard.
Why would I want to follow his story of how he steals from everyone?
Oh right he paid kdawson to put the story up that;s why!
Is there such things as robot-zombies ?
While I appreciate the effort people went through to develop this thing, when I got a chance to interact with a Pleo I found it pretty much useless. It was slow and sluggish, and its behavior was light years away from usable or realistic or entertaining. It didn't behave in any engaging way, it didn't DO anything worth a darn. In direct comparison with a Cybie, which was way cheaper, the Cybie performed in more interesting ways yet was a less sophisticated device. I remember waving the Pleo's leaf toy in front of the Pleo, and the dino did not respond to the (simulated) food item. It was a prop and not good for anything at all. Pleo was dumber than a normal pet and was bland and offered no reason to interact with it past five minutes of experiments.
Well, you'd say, obviously! :-)
Disclaimer: I own a Pleo.
I know that it's not engaging as it could be a cat, but it can be engaging as it could be -say- a turtle.
Of course this is just an attempt at AI, with some life simulation; so there's nothing like neural-network-simulated-synapses-AI-supercomputer-MIT-experiment, you know.
What's nice is that there have been a couple firmware upgrades, with actually different 'global' behaviours, and there are a few 'SD' behaviours that can change the way Pleo reacts to external activities.
All in all, it is nice to have the thing moving around in the explore mode, and toy with it and make it purr or barf or stand on two legs
Ah, by the way, a link may be nice
Pumbaa! I don't wonder; I know.
Who wants a small dinosaur!? I mean, it can't crush your enemy's cars, or destroy their houses, or knock over power lines. Hell, the thing wasn't even big enough to bite someones ankle convincingly (not that it had any teeth to do that anyhow). Just a waste of good plastic.
That is all.
Pluto was a planet discovered a few years ago and which became loved by the masses. After some years some mean old scientists said pluto wasn't a planet anymore. People got very upset and now Pluto has the possible celeb appeal of being the smallest planet without actually having to live up to people's size standards. This could have broad implications for the fashion industry