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Technology

Sony Announces Robotic Dog 107

Posted by CmdrTaco from the ya-don't-need-to-walk-'em dept.
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.
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Sony Announces Robotic Dog More

Sony Announces Robotic Dog

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  • Others (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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

  • Someone's Gotta Say It... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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...

  • Official URL (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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

  • Tweak (Score:1)

    by whoop ( 194 )
    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?
  • heh heh. i kill myself.

  • 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...

  • What you'd get if you crossed Aibo with Furby?


    ...phil
  • 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
  • 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
  • The battery goes in there too.


    ...phil

  • Guess where you put the battery? (Score:3)

    by phil reed ( 626 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @05:17AM (#1896078) Homepage
    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
  • 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 [sony.com] 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?


  • go dog go! (Score:3)

    by dattaway ( 3088 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @05:10AM (#1896087) Homepage Journal
    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!

  • Soccer Dogs (Score:3)

    by Visigothe ( 3176 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @05:30AM (#1896088) Homepage
    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!]

  • 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!

  • the robodog evaluated (Score:5)

    by D-Fly ( 7665 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @05:55AM (#1896094) Homepage Journal
    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.

    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/OSF /...
  • that the shockwave presentation implies that the memory stick fits into AIBO's (ahem) "rectal cavity"?

    Erm... back to work I guess...
  • I don't know why I was moderated down, but I think some moderaters need to grab a clue. I didn't say anything off-topic, or inflamatory. I had a perfectly valid comment, and 3 perfectly valid replies. Wake up people.

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • >It can play with toys, but it does so when it feels like it
    Sounds more like a robotic cat to me...
  • 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...

  • Humm (Score:1)

    by magister ( 9423 )
    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.
  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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!
  • Naturally, fetchmail will be included.
  • 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
  • This is amazingly pointless. It certainly supports the idea that people do things for no other reason than that it can be done...
  • i'm sure it will be able to get the news

    'fetch the newsgroups boy.. good doggie'

    'stand up, play bark.mp3'



  • 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.


  • 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.

  • It would probably whine a lot at you and die in like 2 hours.
  • And linking up 1000 of these Sony Robotic dogs would yield a beoWOLF cluster, which would leap for your throat...
  • I had Robbie Jr. And he didn't have the tape deck. He was remote controled but if you played with him for too long. Are he picked up interference form the TV or somthing he go out of control and say things like "You can't catch me" Kind of a primitive version of the AI they are using for the dog.

  • Poor Article. (Score:3)

    by W3S ( 24423 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @05:14AM (#1896122) Homepage
    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.
  • Yes, that is Oneko's main present purpose: to chase the mouse. She ignores all else on the desktop.
  • Yes, a dog is a pack animal and its master is the head of the pack...domesticated dogs recognize humans as pack members.

    Cats are more independent. You could start making software for a cat by making Oneko, [w3.org] 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 [canterbury.ac.nz] uses boredom as a trigger to try a more creative action, while learning [Andreae] [umass.edu] by trial and error.

    There is also a lot more stuff on adaptive behavior [adaptive-behavior.org] and machine learning [univie.ac.at] out there.

  • 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.
  • At least when this one chews your slippers the clean-up will be a lot less aromatic. ;)

    D. Keith Higgs
    CWRU. Kelvin Smith Library
  • ... Dateline ... Tokyo, Japan

    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 [beowulf.org].

    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

  • 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."

  • Web Site: Entertainment Robot AIBO (Score:5)

    by a.out ( 31606 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @05:15AM (#1896132)

    http://www.world.sony.com/robot/top.html [sony.com] for all the information you need.

    IMHO this is just too cool; web site explains all ..
  • I love articles like this.

    "Must... Fear... Unknown...!"

    LOL, I just think it's cool. Might get one.
  • The mind boggles, I wonder where said cable might plug in on the dog's anatomy???
  • 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

  • Wow - sneaky! (Score:3)

    by SpinyNorman ( 33776 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @05:17AM (#1896137)
    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...

    and a digital 8 vid cam...

    and better fetch my paper...

    and quite a few other things :P

    come on!! $2000+ for a fscking robotic dog???
  • According the WSJ article on it this morning, it has no voice recognition software. I has an open archetecture so it is upgradable once the upgrades become availible. It can play with toys, but it does so when it feels like it. It also does tricks, like it waved to the reporters in the unveiling. If you want, i will look up more information on it tonight. What i want to know is when will the source be ported to linux and who wants to write the upgrades?
  • 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.
  • Interesting story, crappy article. I am amazed that any one would allow that to go out with their name on it.

    No kidding. I liked this part:

    Once introduced as a pure gaming platform, the PlayStation now includes computing components such as DVD drives and Internet access.

    Now the implication here is clearly that I can upgrade my current PSX with DVD and a modem. In reality, I'd need to buy a PSX2 (not out until at least next year) to get this functionality.

    Nice to see a journalist who doesn't let the facts get in the way of a good story, though. ;)

    (ps: anyone know what kind of cpu AIBO uses? I can't find any mention of it on the Sony site)

  • 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...
  • There is always the Honda robot - closest thing to a real android I have seen yet!
  • 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...
  • 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
  • Yup, they've got a whole league running as a subsidiary of IJCAI [ijcai.org]. For on the robocup more see the homesite [robocup.org].


    |--Arzin Tynon---
  • I had a robie, and it was a real robot. It had a tape deck built in and you could record commands on it, and it would "play" them back. It sounds like the same idea to me, only more modern
  • 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.

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