Word: aibo
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BOWWOW That perennial Comdex favorite--Sony's Aibo, the robot dog--arrived this year in two new incarnations. The 220 model, instantly dubbed the Terminator by showgoers, is a sleek and scary-looking hound with a built-in flashlight and a host of programmable robo-features. At the other end of the spectrum stand Latte and Macaron, cute little round-faced puppies with entirely touch-sensitive heads. Both models just went on sale, and to Sony's surprise, the pups are already outselling the Terminator. Go figure...
...carpet. His 16 motors make him almost creepily lifelike. Human reactions range from "That's the cutest thing I've ever seen" to "Get it off me! Get it off me!" Judge for yourself. i-Cybie can be yours for $200--cheap compared with Sony's $1,500 Aibo...
...wasn't so much the occasion, which was ostensibly AIBO's second birthday party. Nor was it the AIBO pet tricks contest I'd been drafted to help judge, though that was certainly amusing. No, the real reason AIBO became more of a viable mass-market proposition that day was a piece of software that will be released for the mechanical mutt this August. It's called AIBO Messenger, and it has the capacity to be a killer app - that all-important single piece of software that consumers desire so much they have to rush out and get the machine...
...process will be as voice-controlled as any face-to-face interaction: you talk to him, he talks back. In theory, it sounds like the perfect pet trick for curious technophobes; a way into the Internet without pressing a key. Using a wireless link to your PC, AIBO downloads your new mail as it comes in and uses his hard drive and a special Sony memory stick to convert the text to voice. He even recognizes certain words and does the appropriate action -waving his paw when someone writes (and he speaks) hello. That rustling noise you will no doubt...
...once did Yazawa let slip that Sony was working on software to bring AIBO into this visionary future sooner rather than later. All he'd say was: "this is just the beginning of robots in the home." He's right. This is sure to be a hit with the still-can't-program-my-VCR set. That means a bigger market, a lower price, and in the long run a lot more of these Chihuahua-sized critters running around the place, accompanying us to the grocery store and on family visits. Not that I'm complaining. More AIBOs mean more...