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Sony Announces Robotic Dog
Dr. Wild wrote in
to tell us that Sony has announced their
portable dog/robot.
We've mentioned this here a few times before, but now its official.
The article actually spends most of the space talking about
how the robot might be some crafty trick to sneak Sony
technology into the US market place. I just thought it
was a little robotic dog. Guess I'm naive.
It's a lot cheeper, even in the long run, just to buy a dog. A lot more cuddly as well....
--James
(james@webfusion.co.uk)
It would have a geek nostalgia factor if it spoke in a British accent, like the robot dog of a certain alien doctor. ;)
Sorry, couldn't resist.
-kojak
Robbie Robot was a bank, and didn't do squat aside from pilfer your money, which is what you deserve if you actually shop at Radio Shack.
#mush --help
The mush command applies to Beowulf clusters of Sony robot dogs. Issuing the command mush will initialize and start the Sony Robot Dog Cluster. The command is derived from dogsledding terminology in which a cluster of organic dogs was started by shouting "mush!"
Options:
-v --verbose Lots of barking output
-r --recursive Mush recusively
-C --columns [x] Cluster runs in [x] columns
-l --lead [name] Set lead dog to [name]
see also 'whoa'
(Logging in as AC so this silliness doesn't down-moderate me into a puff of smoke)
Is it this fellow's best friend?
This sounds oddly like a Furby. And I'll take a real dog, thank you very much.
Have fun, John.
I bet the CPU rocks.
I think a combo with Caller ID would be cool enuff in itself. Phone rings, dog pads up and says "Its your mother...". You kick the robo-dog and it makes up some reasonable excuse for you not being able to come to the phone.
I think I'd pay more attention to AIBO than I do my real dog... does that make me a bad person?
> p.s. I'm sick of George Lucas having a monopoly > on Star Wars. What we need is a second-rate film > to give him some good competition.
Damn Straight
You might also be thinking of the HERO model, which was one of the more popular (but expensive) hobby models.
Kinda sounds to me like a prmitive R2-D2, you know how it makes sounds and people still knew what it
was talking about.
Except for the small difference that R2D2 was not real and the dog is. So using the word primitive is meaninless, please seperate reality from movies in your posts please.
Two words: Nuku Nuku :)
Respectfully,
Kevin Christie
kwchri@maila.wm.edu
This line is something you find in books by crappy third-rate publishers that tell wide-eyed teenagers and antisocial soreheads how to build bombs and rob ATMs.
Does the author know something dangerous or kinky about Aibo? I mean, the Japanese already have (or had) a vibrator equipped teddy-bear. Could Aibo be some kind of sop for neurotic, house-bound antisocial Otaku?
Or perhaps Aibo has all sorts or dangerous options that we don't know about yet. Like sockets for teeth cut from rusty tin cans, or a socket for a container of Authentic RabidFoam.
I paid 50 bucks for my dog.. he can fetch. No one is going to buy this crap in the US unless it can do more. I might consider 2000 if I could say "Hey dog. go get me some beer"
Nah, not back to Japan cuz the electronic interference would be too great. I'd suspect all the footage is transferred to Sony Studios and then edited to be included in their movies (saves money not having to hire chicks for the nude scenes).
Believe it or not, some people ACTUALLY have too much money to spend (not me!). Also, I think Sony is targeting consumers who are more into short term amusement or are tech nerds. But, most likely, people who simply don't know how to raise a living animal will probably be interested in these.
Remember the reports concerning emergent behavior? Maybe Sony deliberately left a bunch of bugs in the AIBO's OS, whatever it is, and anticipate them to eventually exhibit violence toward their owners, thus causing more instability in the US. Seriously, I doubt this is true because that would cause them to lose business, but then again, conspiracy nuts are capable to fabricating madness just to get attention.
It would be great if they had robotic dogs that looked like K9 from Doctor Who. In fact, it would be great if they made robotic dogs exactly like K9. I'd run linux on mine along with some sort of GPS reciever so I can tell it to go some place. I'd have to make a voice synthesis pattern based on John Leeson, to get that defacto K9 'Yes master' sound.
I tend to think less of the "rat things" from Snow crash, and think more of the "electric pets" from Phillip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"--another S.F. Classic.
/. password for the life of him.
Wiggles-who can't remember his
Whatever happened to that old robot from radio shack,i think he was Robbie Robot or something, he was cool, so if ya think about it this concept is not new
How do I make a Beowulf cluster out of these? (Bad pun already built in. Coincidence?) Yeah, I could link 'em by wireless LAN and have packs of them terrorize the neighborhood and crunch weather simulations simultaneously...
Of course, the idiot reporter purposely omitted the AIBO URL.
Here it is, no thanks to CNET.
http://www.world.sony.com/robot/get/meet.html
I picture this author like Tweak from that South Park episode with the underpants gnomes, just shaking there letting out a scream every once in a while. "There's secretly spying on us! Ahhh! Must stop Sony gnomes!"
No, but I'll give you 3 guesses were the battery goes. This sounds like just the thing to take down that damn energizer bunny.....
I mean, really. It makes sense, right?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
heh heh. i kill myself.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Just 3 days ago, as I was lugging around my 'laptop' (a regular PC with wheels) up the street to a friends place for some LAN gaming action, I was thinking "How cool would it be if my computer had legs, and could just follow me around everywhere?".
With one of these dogs, I'd just bolt my case to its back, and tell it to follow me up the street instead of having to carry it everywhere...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
What you'd get if you crossed Aibo with Furby?
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
I am still trying to figure out the locomotion of the Aibo. Does it use wheels, or real walking?
Real walking. Looks a little stiff-legged and hesitant - probably waiting for the CPU to catch up. If it falls over, it can even stand back up on its own.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Oh, please, no. Then you wind up with Catz, the screensaver. You play with them, they learn. They chase your mouse while you're working. eewwww.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
The battery goes in there too.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Saw it on CNN last night. Looked pretty slick - the "dog" can right itself if it falls over, apparently it does respond to voice input. And, you lift up the tail and open a door to put in a long black battery pack.
I'll name my "Rags", after the robot dog in Woody Allen's Sleeper.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
i put this story up too damnit! oh well, they cool pets :)
"There is no spoon" - Neo, The Matrix
"Robots in Japan are seen as very compelling things, unlike in the U.S., where they seem cold and harsh." unless youre an american that watches lotsa anime and/or manga :)
"There is no spoon" - Neo, The Matrix
my 2nd fav part of these dogs is there motor actuator system, and my 1st afv part is the emotion system it uses (basically 6 emotions, each have a weight, all adding up to 100% of its emotions and certain emotions will counteract other emotions...emotions are created by outside stimuli and are presented to the outside world by the bot's behavior...at least thats how it werks as i understand it :P)
"There is no spoon" - Neo, The Matrix
well acshully i think it CAN do all that...this is just the previous one w/ some flashy features added...it can play soccer etc, even apparently hula dance for you :P i'd love to see that! :P gotta be weird
"There is no spoon" - Neo, The Matrix
dude settle DOWN, beavis
:)
they expect to only sell 2000-3000 units in the US, because its LIMITED EDITION
wait a year or so for more advanced ones
"There is no spoon" - Neo, The Matrix
I had one of those (original model, not 2000). Still do, actually, but the battery's long gone; I let the thing go so long without a recharge that I can't even recharge it anymore. I wonder where (or even if) I could find another battery for it...
on the link thoughtfully supplied by an ac i found the faq and some other other stuff. i looked to see what happens if the designers and engineers had supplied any way of turning aibo off in case of an emergency...yep sure enough.... i found it
Q. Why does aibo have a pause button on it's chest?
A.The pause button on ABIOS's chest is used to stop AIBO in any emergencies, and also used to rivive (sic) AIBO when it has put itself into deep sleep.
it made me think that if they are starting to develop robotics with 'emotion' like behavour, are they going to read asimovs, 'i robot' and utilise the 3 laws of robotics or are they going to have a problem with their machines much like the beasty boys clip for hello nasty?
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
It even comes with that proprietary memory stick discussed before. Is that the technology they are trying to sneak in the US? May the dog bite it.
Anyhow, it does not mention what kind of sensors for negotiating the environment this dog sports. It would also be interesting how developed the locomotion is. Can it run? Jump? Play catch? If it had seperate servos for each foot, there would be significant possibilities for a programmable dog. Fetching the paper unaided, for instance!
Those dogs are pretty cool. I have friends at UPenn who are training [read coding] a fleet of them to play soccer on their own. pretty damn cool if you ask me. Thee big issue is a lot of the functions are currently "inaccessable"... read sony ain't tellin them what they need to know [like calls to things like leg actuaters]. From what I was hearing it's a pretty cool project [hi Bo!]
Blocklevel: Practical Information Architecture
I'd also like to see some details on the OS (Aperios) it's running. I don't know if there's any OS's out there specifically designed for robotic applications. If Aperios was designed specifically for robotic/AI applications, it could end up being the basis for many other robotic applications.
What if they intended all along to "sneak" their subversive technology in... what's the big deal with that? Makes good business sense to me. Although I have to agree that this dog is not the vehicle. Home entertainment centers (ala WebTv) are going to get WAY more popular than they are right now. Don't worry... Sony will have plenty of competition.
you can neuter it by installing Win98 on it
---
Dogs may be cute but who wants to clean up after them?
---
So if I feed it raw meat one a week and keep it hained to a tree I could have a robot dog that visciously (sp?) attacks whoever comes near it?
Cool!
Search first, ask questions later.
It appears that this writer had some kind of a preconception about this robot dog, which he couldn't back up with his reporting, but decided to go with anyway--that this robot dog is trying to sneak Sony tech into our homes.
If that is the mission of the robot dogs, he might have asked himself about their VAIO computers, Trinitron monitors, Walkmen, portable CD players, Playstations,and even credit cards.
Sony has been pretty damned successful at sneaking their technology into my life--and that of many or most other Americans.
As for the robodog--it's fairly dumb, doesn't appear to have much upgrade potential (from my brief investigation), and has little, if any market potential. Way too expensive, for one thing. They'll probably sell a few thousand of this model.
But check back in three years. I suspect Sony will be selling a robot assistant that tags along in your house, offers advice and info, and does simple tasks.
This is *just a test marketing project* y'all. Think of it as a public beta. They will do extensive research on the problems people run into with this version, and come back to market in a few years with an amazing toy for rich geeks.
\
Sheesh.
F /...
How many time do we have to read "well according to my brief glance" or "I dont know if it does X but here is what I think." Just go and read the damn sony site. You can get all kinds of info from it. I swear some of the people that post on slashdot are the most lazy morons since the days of VBBS.
---
Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OS
--- I do not moderate.
that the shockwave presentation implies that the memory stick fits into AIBO's (ahem) "rectal cavity"?
Erm... back to work I guess...
Read my online journal: http://chris.carline.org
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
>It can play with toys, but it does so when it feels like it
Sounds more like a robotic cat to me...
0 1 - just my two bits
Looks like Jon was wrong. Instead of SexBots, sony is importing BestialityBots...
Seriously, if this technology is anywhere near the level of simulating a dog accurately (and from the look of the article it's not quite there yet) then this is a big step toward being able to simulate a human. OTOH, judging by the writing style, they let a robot write that article...
0 1 - just my two bits
Kinda sounds to me like a prmitive R2-D2, you know how it makes sounds and people still knew what it was talking about. Or, maby Im just antisipating the The Phantom Menace all too much.
-magister-
In "Snow Crash" Neil Stephenson came up with a partially organic dog robot, used mainly for residential areas security.
Maybe that is how Sony plan to enter the american market, selling upgraded versions of this pet to rich neighbourhoods.
> I can see it now, robotic dogs chasing Furbys up binary trees!! Aaaargh!
Even out of context, this is great. Can I nick it for my sig?
Why is it that many people who claim to support standards have such atrocious spelling and grammar?
This "sneaking technology" thing is absurd to begin with. I seriously doubt that Sony make the Playstation in order to get some kind of foothold for an invasion. IIRC, Sony was originally even working with Nintendo on a CD-based game console until Nintendo backed out, but Sony wanted to go ahead with it anyway and try competing with Nintendo.
They settled on CD-ROM for cost and convenience reasons, almonst certainly not so they could upgrade to DVD and turn the console into a home entertainment center in the future.
This is just absurd.
You forgot the $495 for the software. Although it didn't say so directly, I strongly suspect that's mandatory to be able to do anything with the "beast".
I wonder how long it will take for Linux folks to reverse-engineer the thing and get a Linux client for $ 0? If it was a bit cheaper, that is.
I was surprised they plan to sell only over the Internet. I would think that seeing the creature in a store would be the only way they could market it successfully. I certainly wouldn't want to buy without trying it out, even if it was exactly my thing.
One thing they seem to have missed - doesn't look like there's a video recorder included. It has an image sensor, but you can't shoot video with it. This seems like an unfortunate omission.
D
----
"It can play with toys, but it does so when it feels like it."
I'm curious what you mean when you say that that it plays when it feels like it? I wonder if there there is some sort of counter or random chance that determines when it will enter into play mode.
...when you consider the lifetime cost of (properly) taking care of a dog. The link below is intended to give children some idea of this.
http://www.geocities.com/~kidsanddogs/cost.html
Imagine what a Beowulf cluster of those woud be like. ;)
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Just what my sick sense of humor needed.
Last thing I need is a dog that leaks battery acid on my rugs.
And the metal splinters from having it hump your guests leg... Sheesh! A lawsuit waiting to happen.
I wonder if it will come with all the standard phaser settings - 'stun' for the mailman, 'kill' for the Jehova's Witnesses.
And here you thought having the real dog FIXED was traumatic. Imagine having to go through that $$$ experience every time in rains!
Can one of these be R/C driven by a Pilot? How about the seeing-eye-dog possibilities?
I can see it now, robotic dogs chasing Furbys up binary trees!! Aaaargh!
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I had an Omnibot when I was a kid. I don't know what model it was though. But mine cost only in the $100 range. This would have been about 10-12 years ago.
---
If you read the website that was posted about the details for the robot you will see that it is based on 6 emotions and 4 insticts. Depending on what "mood" it is in determines its behavior. It also mentions that the robot goes through different stages, infancy all the way up to adulthood. Depending on how you treat the robot during these stages determines its "personality".
---
I have no clue on the anti-Sony sentiment being suggested...
But give it a couple years, and I might get one just for novelty.
Anyone watch Doctor Who? Remember K9?
Even cooler, if the Aibo could be given Kitt's personality. Assuming you aren't as stupid as Hasslehoff and always getting into trouble.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
This is amazingly pointless. It certainly supports the idea that people do things for no other reason than that it can be done...
And it wasn't very impressive. Evolutionary, not revolutionary.
Though the price might be considered 'revolutionary' in comparison to the price of existing toys that do 90% of what this one does.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Yeah, I watched the "TV CF" (commercial?) on the Aibo page... it really doesn't walk very effectively. Rather wobbly.
Or is that supposed to be 'puppy-like' behavior?
I would be really impressed if it could walk well enough / fast enough to follow you around everywhere - who needs a pda when you have an electronic dog? Hook it up to wireless ethernet, give it voice recognition...
The only problem is a display. You'd need one of those eyepieces that projects directly on your retina with a scanning laser, or something.
No more laptops/pilots/wince-devices, just pets. That would be neat.
They're going to be $2500 in the U.S. I could buy like 1000 tamagotchis for that at our local toy store.
Interesting story, crappy article. I am amazed that any one would allow that to go out with their name on it. The guy talks to 3 different people all of who say they doubt that the toy is a trick to break into the market, yet he still writes an article about Sony doing just that. Maybe it was supposed to be funny. Too bad it wasn't.
By the way I think that the release of the toy is actually quite interesting. I just wish there had been more content about what it is capable of. What are the capabilities? Does it bark? Does it recognize voice commands?
Oh YEAH!
Look ahead at the implications of this project.
SOny has produced a viable musculo/skeltal system for a consumer robot. This is the important thing.
Not whether it is voice activated, it will be. Not whether it is programable, it will be. This thing was the last step impeeding REAL consumer robotics, the rest is just evolutionary.
Imagine, a pet that is also your pda/phone/secretary. Project the project for the nice man boy! C'Mon, this stuff is gonna rule, and it won't be SF anymore, this will happen in a handful of years!
Personaly, I want a small dragon, with nice titanium scales, that I can have perched on my shoulder, to light my cigarettes.
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
Yes, that is Oneko's main present purpose: to chase the mouse. She ignores all else on the desktop.
Cats are more independent. You could start making software for a cat by making Oneko, the X cat, more responsive to its environment and give it more emotions than boredom. Not that its boredom can't be useful, as PURR-PUSS uses boredom as a trigger to try a more creative action, while learning [Andreae] by trial and error.
There is also a lot more stuff on adaptive behavior and machine learning out there.
yuk yuk
Hmm. Robot Dogs? Somehow I keep seeing the Rat Dogs from Neil Stephenson's 'Snow Crash'. I'm sure he'd get chills seeing this come to reality.
...and Neil, if you're reading this (as we all know you're a slashdot reader)... 2 thumbs up for that book.
"the sky above the port is the color of a television, tuned to a dead channel"
At least when this one chews your slippers the clean-up will be a lot less aromatic. ;)
D. Keith Higgs
CWRU. Kelvin Smith Library
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
Residents of upscale neighborhoods on the outskirts of Tokyo (Japan) have been harried lately by large packs of electronic dogs. The dogs patrol the area at night causing a wide variety of damage ranging from spreading trash about the lawn, digging up flower beds, and destroying any metal objects they can reach (including mailboxes). Speculation by local authorities includes the possibility that these "dogs" are networked together by some sort of wireles LAN as a large "Beowulf cluster." (See related information on the Beowulf Project at CESDIS.
Information compiled from the few eyewitness accounts available indicates that the dogs lounge in well lit areas by day, recharging energy cells via photo voltaic panels, and roam the neighborhood at night. Their "mission" appears to be the gathering of raw materials for the construction of more dogs.
Watch-out Tabby! Fido has an attitude!
D. Keith Higgs
CWRU. Kelvin Smith Library
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
The University of Southern CA has perfected a process for creating very
tiny necklaces. Their web site sports a near-sighted house ant admiring a
gold necklace. They claim that their new process, EFAB (tm), allows the
creation of such jewelry without the need for a cleanroom. Apparently,
they can mass-produce insect necklaces for under $1.00 each. This might
not sound all that promising until you consider how many small insects who,
up till now, have had no access to fine jewelry.
Looks like a hot stock pick!
For more information, see: http://www.isi.edu/efab
Well it has a 64-bit RISC processor, a vid cam for eyes and stereo microphones in place of ears.
Wired said that "Sony's Artifical Intelligence Robot can be trained by using its motion- and sound-editor PC software to program new behaviors onto a memory stick."
http://www.world.sony.com/robot/top.html for all the information you need.
IMHO this is just too cool; web site explains all
Yet again - they come up with some cool tech, stuff you would love to play with - and what do they do, price it out of the reach of sensible human beings.
Their marketing staff must be idiots, instead of selling a couple of thousand units in total to the priviledged few, they could have made them cheaper (and you can't tell me there's any real cutting edge stuff inside it!), sold a whole sh#tload WORLDWIDE and subsequently made a killing, after all - isn't that why most people are in business, to make money - I wonder what Sony shareholders think of stupidity like this.
Maybe the edition is limited because it is a heap of crap and Sony don't want to support too many of them???
Besides, why are they in business, to make $$$ or what, if I had a "decent" product and was in the business of selling it, what kind of lame-ass business strategy is it to only move 2000-3000 units when you could be shipping - and profiting from - millions!
I'll wait alright, Sony can email me when Hell freezes over...
To quote a great man,
"You do not want to feel the wrath of my bunghole!" - Cornholio
Trick people into thinking they're buying a dog, then secretly load it up with subversive Sony technology! Maybe it's got a Sony "nightshot" vision system, and is beaming images of naked American chicks back to Japan!
it better have nightshot...
:P
and a digital 8 vid cam...
and better fetch my paper...
and quite a few other things
come on!! $2000+ for a fscking robotic dog???
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
Basically, that is what the article said. It seemed to me like a nice little random code in the neural networking of this little toy. What the article actually said was that the "dog" was presented with a ball and chose not to play with it.
"Alt-F4 that's for quitting" quoth Dan_Wood
furbie v3.0. except not as nice to stroke. lucky i have a pussy. here snoop doggie dog. robotic bastardry. roll over and play dead.
BLAMMO shaken not stirred
This robot sucks compared to the prototype they
have been displaying on that website for months.
The prototype was cute, this thing looks lame.
Its also cant do half the things the proto type could. Like play real fetch, play soccer, etc.. etc..
I decided I didn't want a Aibo when I read this:
:)
AIBO will make you want to laugh
out loud with all of its unique
dance-like tricks. It may even hula
dance for you!
If there is anything dumber than a DANCING robotic dog let me know... it'd be semi-cool if it weren't for that but... I can't get over the dancing next thing they're going to say they are changing it to Winblows 98 amd issuing a special Gates version with built in pie-evading capabilities. Thats alright I'll keep my $2000 till you release a K9 replica w/ built in nose laser
I think I will wait about 10-12 years, then troll Ebay and buy one for $200 or so. the way I see it, this is just like the Omnibot 2000 was back in the mid-80's. That thing cost around $2000 at the time - I just recently got one for the trade of an old 486!
I am still trying to figure out the locomotion of the Aibo. Does it use wheels, or real walking? Or a combo of the two? It seems like the latter...
There was a book a while back (mid 70's or early 80's I think) called "Build Your Own Robot Pet", or something like that, put out by TAB Books - I suggest you build your own pet - it would be cheaper in the long run. A few Stamps with an IR link, all connected to a cheap toy tank and covered with some fake fur wouldn't be too hard to craft.
If they made the thing cuter (closer to a Furby and less like a tank), it would sell better over here. The price problem still gets in the way.
I think they could have made this thing a lot simpler if they tried - maybe Tiger Toys should step in and make the Furby Pet Dog or somthing...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Speaking of limited editions...
I remember seeing on Ebay a while back an item that was truely "one of a kind". It was a little robot (fully programmable) not much bigger than a dime. I can't remember who made it (Sony or Tomy? Maybe some other company), but the shell was silver (real silver), and only a very few were made (for visiting dignitaries or some crap). It ended up selling on Ebay for around $5000 - if I had the money to blow, I would have got it myself...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Come on, you have GOT to be joking....you are just a whining little brat, who can not stand anyone making a little bit of money. I suppose Pan Am airlines have a monopoly on the skies too?
C Program Run
C Program Crash
C Programmer Quit
I am not stubborn. I am right!
As a rural American, the NRA is one of the few organizations protecting the rural way of life. If people in the cities can't control their guns, leave us rural residents out of their legislation.
To stay on topic, I should say that I agree with your analysis of this article. Sounds like FUD.