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The Death of Aibo, the Birth of Softbank's Child-Robot

Posted by timothy on from the product-obsolescence-as-murder dept.

New submitter pubwvj writes: Sony is killing off their robot Aibo, stranding the 150,000 or so owners with no support, repairs or parts other than cannibalism. Now we have another Japanese company, SoftBank, releasing a robotic 'child.' Eventually, they too will discontinue the production of parts and support, beginning the process of killing off all those 'children' that are spawned. As robotics become (far) more advanced at what point will it be murder for a company to discontinue a product line?

2 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Never by hduff · · Score: 5, Funny

    But I feel like I died a little reading crap like this on Slashdot.

    --
    "I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
  2. Re:Four year life span by geekmux · · Score: 3, Funny

    Aibo: "I want more life, fucker!"

    Uh, someone should have probably told him/her/it that we now live in a disposable society.

    It's also become rather obvious that the disposal rate mirrors our attention spa...woah, is that the new iPod in a different color?!?...