Dinobot Blurs Line Between Pet and Toy
Posted by StormWarning on 15 Dec 2007 at 09:37 pm | Tagged as: Current Affairs, Future Vision, Opinions, Science, Technology
The future will bring us closer and closer to tomorrow, and tomorrow is more and more today. Pleo is the brainchild of Caleb Chung, cocreator of the Furby, whose new company, Ugobe, was intended to be the next step in the evolution of robotic toys that exhibit social behaviors and learn from experience.
Ugobe’s vision was “of life-forms that people could bond with,” says the company’s CTO, John Sosoka. Pleo, he says, “exhibits stunning organic movement and dynamic behaviors unlike other robots in the market.”
● It nuzzles its head against its owner’s cheek in an apparent display of affection.
● It crouches and wags its tail like a dog that wants to play
● It cranes its neck to let out long, plaintive cries.
● Pleo’s emotive states include joy, sorrow, and anger.
● It can also be drowsy or even sick
Expressive bot: Pleo exhibits “happy,” one of its several emotive states.
Credit: Ugobe
Pleo’s hardware consists of 38 sensors, 14 motors, and more than 100 custom-designed gears. Light sensors and a camera in Pleo’s nose help it detect objects, color, and edges. Sound sensors allow some degree of “hearing” when “[Pleo] is still, and it is quiet,” Ugobe says. Eight capacitive touch sensors line Pleo’s shoulders, back, legs, head, and chin.
Pre-orders for this robo-toy started in June 2007 and they became available last week for a price of $349 per dino. Of course, you’re buying a robot that looks dinosaur…according to Tom Hershner, event coordinator of Robot Village…”there’s nothing else of that caliber of realism,” partly, he says, because of “the look of it.”
Should also see Your Robotic Personal Assistant
Aside from the Roomba, robots haven’t made much progress infiltrating American homes. But researchers at Stanford University have developed software that overcomes one of the biggest challenges: teaching a robot how to pick up an object it has never encountered before. The robot’s software suggests that the best way to pick up something new is by determining the most grabable part of the object–the stem of a wineglass, the handle of a mug, or the edge of a book, for instance.
Other Storm posts on robots, robotics and bots.
dino bot, dinosaur robot, Pleo
