Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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?

1 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Seriously? by antiperimetaparalogo · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    [...] Yet killing a chimp is not considered "murder".

    Perhaps it should be?

    I will not answer your question (i am not even the one you replied to), but i think it would be the "insult" missing from the "injury" when we humans allow murdering other humans with abortions and call it pro-choice - note before down-mod: "pro-choice".... this ephemism is already "an insult added to injury"!

    --
    Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!