November 6th, 2007
Only a Year Late, Pleo to Hatch
By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
Remember the Pleo? Don’t worry, it’s been so long, neither did I. It was supposed to ship in time for the 2006 holiday season, and that obviously didn’t happen. However, according to Ugobe, manufacturers of the Pleo,
For those of you who have pre-ordered Pleo from the UGOBE store, your 30-day shipment notification will arrive before Thanksgiving. Anyone who has pre-ordered Pleo from any US retailer will receive their baby dino before December 25th.
The Pleo is modeled on a two-week-old camarasaurus. It’s powered by an open-source operating system, Life OS, that has a capacity to learn.
Ugobe life-forms, and that’s what they call them, life forms, all conform to “three laws of Ugobe life-forms.”
First, all life-forms must feel and convey emotions.
Second, all life-forms must be aware of themselves and their environment.
Third, all life-forms must evolve over time.
Rest assured, the Pleo is not cheap. Our initial story said the price would be $199; now it appears the price will be around $350.
See a video of the Pleo … and it’s amazing.
John Corliss says:
I wonder what kind of emotions it would experience if you drop kicked it?
Seriously, I wonder why they didn’t go with the Asimov version of the Three Laws of Robotics. I wouldn’t want to wake up and have one of these things eating my brains for instance.
November 7th, 2007 at 4:08 am
Kevin K. says:
Hmmmm, I wasn’t too impressed with the video as all the robot did was shuffle a bit, move its head back and forth and cry out a bit.
I really want to see it interact with someone like move its head deeper into the hand that’s petting it (to indicate it knows it’s being petted, that it likes it, and that it wants more affection - something like that) but I did not see it in this video. Not $300 worth of it, anyway!
November 7th, 2007 at 7:58 am