IP: Bow Wow! Sony "Aibo" first impressions

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 14:06:02 -0700 (PDT)
>From: John Wharton <jwharton@netcom.com>
>To: farber@cis.upenn.edu
>
>
>Dave--
>
>Well, my Sony Aibo robot dog just arrived, Serial # 3600004.  One of the 
>earlier units, I would guess, since they only built 2,000 for the US 
>market.  Haven't done much with him yet -- gotta top off his batteries 
>first -- but I have to admit, Rags is a cute little fellow, for a robot. 
>Albeit somewhat sterile.  
>
>Some initial reactions:
>
>o Firmware, status information, and "learned behaviors" are stored on a 
>   an 8-MB Sony "memory stick" about two inches long.  Sure enough, the 
>   memory stick gets inserted into the dog's body in /exactly/ the place 
>   you'd sort of hoped they would /not/ have asked you to insert it.
>
>o Batteries are inserted in the same place, recalling the Woody Allen 
>   joke in "Sleeper" about un-house-trained robot dogs "leaving little 
>   batteries all over the floor".  One wonders if this is due to South 
>   Park influence or some sort of scatalogical engineering humor.  
>
>   (I seem to recall the British term for batteries is "piles".  There's 
>   probably a bad pun there somewhere, but I can't find the punchline.)
>
>o The user interface and remote control appear on first blush to be 
>   fairly obscure, with way more modes and complexity than would seem 
>   necessary.  The remote control issues commands by playing charming 
>   little musical tunes.  With practice, you can send Aibo commands 
>   from a piano or flute; the remote control marks each key with its 
>   corresponding note to help you learn what to play.  How quaint.  
>
>   Aibo responds in what the manual calls "robot language" -- which 
>   sounds uncannily like R2D2 beeps and squooks.  And is equally 
>   unintelligable.
>
>o "Aibo", BTW, purportedly comes from "Artificially Intelligent roBOt".
>   And the Japanese word "aibou" supposedly means "partner" or "pal".
>
>o I'm intrigued by the aesthetic distinctions between Aibo and Furby.  
>   Dave Hampton, the Furby designer, adopted guidelines that Furby should 
>   contain nothing that would seem unnatural or "make it look stupid".  
>   Thus Furby is fuzzy, has expressive eyes, giggles and talks (in 
>   occasional gibberish), and has no on-off switch.  ("Your cat doesn't 
>   need to be switched on every morning, does it?", Dave Hampton asks.)
>
>   Whereas Aibo is built of hard metal-flake plastic and has a helmet for 
>   a head, with cooling vents on its back, an air filter in its belly, 
>   and a fairly audible cooling fan -- probably an artifact of the 64-bit 
>   MIPS (?) RISC processor inside.  (Too bad they didn't just use a 
>   network of CMOS 8051s! :-)  
>
>   And it's got lots of blinking status lights, eyes that glow bright red 
>   ("when it's angry", according to the manual), and a "pause" switch on 
>   its chest.  And if you whack the poor fellow on the head when he 
>   misbehaves, "Aibo will understand that it is being scolded".  
>
>   A cultural anthropologist might enjoy analyzing the Aibo design and 
>   user interface from the perspective of what Asian vs. Western markets 
>   expect of their respective consumer robots.  
>
>o Haven't yet applied knife and chisel, but best I can tell from 
>   surveying the exterior, it looks like the whole thing is assembled 
>   with conventional Phillips-head screws and clearly visible plastic 
>   snap joints.
>
>   Skinning this beast should be a piece of cake.  How long 'til "Aibo 
>   Autopsy" sites start popping up on the web?  
>
>   --John Wharton