Remember Pleo that Judie and her kitty played with a while back?  Well it appears to be coming out of extinction and is now for sale at the Pleoworld web site!  So if you did not get a chance to order your own life-like dinosaur, then now is your chance!  He’s currently $349.  Continue Reading

Good news Pleo fans, it looks like the news of the adorable baby dinosaur robot’s demise may have been a bit premature. Robert Oschler has confirmed that Jetta Company Limited, who manufactured the baby robot for Ugobe, bought the  intellectual property rights and other assets from Ugobe on May 21st.

Jetta Company Limited is planning to re-launch the Pleo line as well as producing accessories such as the vital battery and charger component. Here’s hoping there will be many more years of consumer love for the Baby Dino Robot.

It looks like we can chalk up Ugobe, makers of the lovable Pleo Robot, as one more victim of the poor economy and the ongoing credit crunch. Evidently, it was never a matter of whether there were enough people buying the personable robots, because Ugobe defintiely had the orders. The problem came when the companies who ordered shipments could not pay Ugobe, because their credit was frozen or denied. As a result, Ugobe has had to lay off 20 employees and declare Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. Owners of existing Pleosaurs are understandably a bit freaked out.

This just in from Robert Oschler…

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When I was a child, I absolutely loved stuffed animals; I had such a massive collection residing on my bed that they threatened to push me off should I stretch out or roll over in the middle of the night. One of my fondest wishes at that time was that some of my favorite stuffed animals could be more life-like and animated. Granted, this was in the 70s, and the closest things we had to robotic toys back then were those obnoxious stuffed dogs that came with a wired battery pack so that they could walk a few steps, bark, and then walk a bit more. These toys certainly weren’t huggable, you wouldn’t want to sleep with them, and once the initial trill of watching them do their “thing” wore off, they would invariably wind up in the bottom of a little girl’s toy bin.

Fast forward thirty plus years (ack! did I just admit that?) and we find that little girls still love their stuffed animals, they still hug on them and sleep with, and they still long for a more realistic “pet” experience. Gone are the wired yap-dogs, and in their place we now have much more life-like and animated animals such as those in the new WowWee Alive series.

I was sent their Lion Cub, and from the minute I opened the outer box, I knew exactly who I would employ as its primary “testers”. My boyfriend has two daughters, ages 5 and 9, and they both love stuffed animal; their beds bear silent testament to this fact. Would this particular toy get any type of special treatment once they had discovered its capabilities? Or would it end up in the bottom of their toy bin like the yap-dogs of yesteryear? There was only one way to find out…

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Robert Oschler is making sure that none of us miss a bit of Pleo cuteness; this time we get to be voyeurs enjoying Linus’ day at the Changes Salon…

Hello Judie,

Put this under the “truth is stranger (and more fun) than fiction” category. Here’s a video that shows Pleo World member maggie44n’s Pleo named Linus getting the full treatment at the Changes Salon, including a fossil rock massage:

Link: maggie44n’s Plog (Pleo diary).

In my next life I’m coming back as a Pleo!

Thanks,
Robert
RobotsRule.com

Me, too!

Here to begin the week with some robotic shenanigans, is this video sent in by our friend Robert Oschler…

Hello Judie,

The best way to start a Monday is with a smile. Pleo rides the Roomba, complete with matching surfing attire:

This video is from Pleo world member Maggie44n. Everyone can read more fun stories about her Pleos Linus & Schroeder on her plog.

Robert
RobotsRule.com

From now until July 12, 2008 the Ugobe Pleo Robotic Dinosaur is on sale for $ 235 (with the coupon code from the next page). Judie reviewed the Pleo back in January. The Pleo is a robotic dinosaur that is receptive to touch, interacts with you and is programmable. Check out Judie’s YouTube video of the Pleo in action – including the Pleo “purring” when its neck is scratched and playfully nibbling on fingers. This looks like something of a science fiction movie. Check it out.

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It’s been a little while since I heard from Robert Oschler, the guru of all things robotic, but today I had a happy surprise in my inbox…

Hey Judie,

They don’t get any cuter than this.

Here’s a video that shows what happens when a Jurassic Park renegade robot dinosaur meets a family of Dolphins at Sea World.  The fun begins at the 2:00 minute mark when the dolphins crowd the exhibit glass to get a gander at Pleo:

The Pleo in the video is Pixie, who belongs to Pleo World member Siren.  Here’s a link to her Plog (Pleo blog).

Thanks,
Robert
RobotsRule.com

Say it with me now…awwww!

Ugobe is set to release their second software update this month for their robotic baby Pleosaur, which will make him (or her) “more animated, interactive, and expressive through a wider range of responses, motions, and sounds.”

As you’ll recall, the first update was on March 4th, and it was to “allow Pleo to be more animated, interactive, and expressive through a wider range of responses, motions, and sounds.”

I’m pretty impressed that Ugobe is cranking out their upgrades with such regularity.

Plindar has informed me that he would prefer I hurry up and do the upgrade, as he is all about expressing himself. If your Pleo is giving you the “me-too” eye, you can get your update here.

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I’ll be doing this to my Pleo, Plindar, a little bit later this week, but most of you with baby dino robots won’t want to wait. Ugobe has released its first update for Pleo, and it looks to be pretty significant.

According to Ugobe, this update will “will allow Pleo to be more animated, interactive, and expressive through a wider range of responses, motions, and sounds. ” All this without changing your Pleosaur’s personality.

Sounds great, right? Get it here.

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When I was a kid, my parents bought me my first robot. Except this was in the early 70s, so it wasn’t a real robot – it was a fuzzy effigy, a mechanized kitten thing. The kitten was tethered by co-joined wires to a long battery box which also served as a remote control. It could walk forward…stop…walk forward…stop; it might have even meowed, too – but I honestly don’t remember. Anyway you get the idea; the kitten wasn’t very exciting, and it certainly didn’t replicate the fun of owning a real cat. In other words, the kitten reacted but it did not interact. It bore no true resemblance to a real cat. It was supposed to be neat because it was a robot, but that’s really all that was neat about it.

Bear in mind the kitten was given to me not long after the “incident” when I had convinced my brother that he wanted to trade his incredibly cool Christmas robot (the one that showed a mini-movie of things blowing up on its stomach screen complete with sound effects) for some doll that I had received, so perhaps there was some parental bait and switch going on there.

Now granted, Mark’s robot didn’t interact, either. But it at least looked like a robot was supposed to look, which made all its other shortcomings moot. Man, I wish I still had my brother’s robot…for so many reasons.

But I digress.

A few decades passed, and toys got a lot more sophisticated. Fast forward to the late 90s: remember the Furby? Yeah, I bought one of those, too. Mine was brown and white, and it looked like Gizmo from Gremlins. What I liked about that little guy, beyond the fact that it was under $50, was that it was cute, it didn’t look like a creepy pet effigy, it was hackable, and if you put a couple of them together they would interact via their infrared ports. Granted, Furbies didn’t directly interact with humans (even though some people swore theirs did), so they weren’t quite as far up on the robotic evolutionary chain as I wanted. But they were definitely a step in the right direction, and for $35 I had no reason to complain.

In 2001, I got to review a Sony Aibo. At the time, this robot was retailing for $1500. It was programmable, interactive, and the closest thing to a true robotic pet that had ever been seen, at least by me. It also looked like a schizophrenic cross between a dog and a cat. Aibo’s plastic body was not conducive to cuddling or petting, and I had trouble getting past the fact that it was trying to look like a mash-up of real animals…but not.

See, here is my thing: I know what dogs and cats look like, act like, and feel like. So if you give me a robot made to resemble a dog or a cat, it will come with certain built-in expectations. These types of expectations may not apply to anyone but me, but they will still be there, and I won’t be able to get past them. These pet-type robots are too close to the animals they are meant to mimic, and yet they generally fall very short of the experience of owning an actual dog or cat. In another example of how hard I am to please, if the robot looks too similar to the animal it is meant to mimic, I will simply find it creepy. Witness the Yume Niko Smile; need I say more?

The answer then? Give me a robotic toy that is not based on an animal with which I am familiar. Make it a baby, so it’s cute. Make it lovable. Make it receptive to touch. Make it interactive. Make it programmable. Make it responsive. Make me want to pet it, hold it, touch it. Make it…

…a baby dinosaur named Pleo.

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It seems like I have been waiting forever to get my hands on the Ugobe Pleo, the robotic baby dinosaur that I first read about on my way home from CES 2007. A year has passed and even though Wal-Mart canceled my Pleo order right before Christmas, in the end Ugobe came through with a review loaner for me to enjoy.

This is a mighty dangerous proposition, of course. They loaned him to me for two weeks, and the clock is now ticking. Will I be able to send him back without any regrets? Or will I have to pay for the sample I mysteriously lost (wink, wink). Only time will tell.

In the meantime here is my unboxing as well as a video of Pleo waking up and interacting a bit…enjoy!

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Since it is Christmas morning*, I thought it would be fun for us to open Gear Diary cards and presents together…

The first item is a card that came from Belkin. I honestly didn’t expect anything further from Jackie and Melody, because they had already sent a really cute box of chocolates. There will be no picture of those because they went home with mom; they were beautiful, though.

So I received this card, which at first glance was quite pretty…

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When I was growing up, I always had at least one or two cats, and while some people will be quick to say they are “dog people”, cats were always my favorites. Well, until the sad day when it was brought to my attention that the vicious “hay-fever” and itchy eyes I was constantly suffering from were massive allergies to the fuzzy critters.

Even though I sometimes miss having a lazy ball of purring goodness in my lap, you couldn’t pay me to indulge; the resulting sneeze-fest just wouldn’t be worth it. Would I be willing to try out a robotic kitty instead? Hmm, it just wouldn’t seem the same.

But that’s exactly what Chris Davies of SlashGear recently did. Similar to the way that I have been lusting over the Ugobe Pleo, Chris wanted Sega Toy’s Robot Cat, Yume Neko Smile. He was able to eventually acquire one, and it would appear that he has now got a rather decent stand-in cat.

“All your mice are belong to us!”

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I know the Ugobe Pleo Dinosaur isn’t new to those that follow robotic pet news, but I had conveniently forgotten about what may turn out to be the most cuddly and obtainable robot to date – until I read an article in Wired on the plane ride home from CES.

Clive Thompson managed to grip my attention with one of the most interesting articles I have yet seen on the Pleo and its intrepid creator, Caleb Chung.

a face everyone could love

You can read the full Wired article here, and I certainly encourage you to – because it is very good stuff!

I’ll capsulize it here and tell you that it is basically the story of how Caleb, the mime/inventor/movie costumer/entrepreneur that brought us the sweet but simple Furby back in the 90s, wanted to go a step further. Continue Reading