Nite nite Aibo
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Sony has decided to end its line of robot dogs and stop the development of the uber-cute Qrio (via The Raw Feed).
Sure, Aibo is a nice gadget and i had fun discovering its zillion talents (my favourites being its Weigth Watcher skills and playground creativity) but what's more important to me is that playing with it has helped me understand better why Japan is so in love with robots: i've been amazed to see how much affection i can feel for a "walking computer," how similar to a real dog the robot can get when it comes to annoying you (baby Paco crying to get caresses, Cloclo repeating his famous Station Dance twice every afternoon or staring for hours at the curtains because they are the same colour as his favourite toys), etc. So, yes, the news saddens me. |
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Sony will end production of Aibo in March 2006, according to the Asahi Shinbun. They are also stopped development of other models of humanoid robots and abolished the division . Sony will , however, continue work on artificial intelligence. The reason given was lack of sales.
you know software is getting good when it 's hard to distinguish between what is real and what is not. cool blog
Well, that's a shame. Perhaps they are giving up because they've heard Legos new version of Mindstorm, Mindstorm NXT, is just around the corner.
http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.02/lego.html
btw - have been rather off-line for a while. How supernice to come back and see that I can post comments. Love the site.
i envy your cloclo so much:) i've been dying to have one for years, but never had the chance.
the news saddened me also, however the reason might be. (and i do wonder the reason, so i trust you to post that when you find out :)
one other thing i wonder, is why do we like these robot dogs so much. i don't own an aibo as i've said but i have no doubts i would love it as i own a real animal, maybe more. but why? love of technology and robotics, play a major part here of course. maybe it is partly the love for the advancement of human technology and pride in what our kind has achieved. partly it may be the yearning we have for the retro futuristic scenarios where we all have robotic servants and flying cars buzzing everywhere... but we don't like factory robots this much, since they are not cute and cuddly like aibos. they intend to resemble a real dog but we know they're not real. they are programmed to sincerely love us back but we know it's not real either. however these don't stop us from loving them. What's the outcome then? We from the begining, are taught the value of life in every moral-story, every incident, in every notion of right and wrong. it's the living things that count and non-living things are play-pieces to answer our practical needs and nothing more. when i was little i believed non-living things just pretended to be non-living and they had feelings just the way we did, so i couldn't be harsh to pillows even. i was just personalizing them ofcourse, it was an imitation. is the imitation of life in aibos, the reason for our love, or do we just not care what's real or not as long as we hear what we want to hear...To be loved deeply and unconditionally (even more accurately than by a real dog). i guess the need to love and be loved in us is insatiable however loved by others we might be.
i like the site by the way, keep up the good work.:)
take care.
Sony often is just a very badly managed company. They will be wasting a fortune in the next war over standards (HD-DVD vs. Bluray) and on the other hand keep losing their profile as an innovator due to bad decisions, which in turn greatly helps their competitors like Samsung. Come on Sony, it's not about costs when it comes to a beacon like the Aibo. The money is made in other places like iPod (formerly known as Walkman).
yes, i feel it might be a mistake as well. AIBO is their best ambassador, second ambassador being QRIO. the blogosphere criticize heavily and with every right sony's behavior these days but everyone seems to cool down in front of QRIO and aibo.
This is such sad news - especially since Cloclo's blog will never be published now. Bummer. I was looking forward to it...