AIBO Robot Dog
Discussion
Who has owned one, and what are they really like. Im just reading about them now, and would love to hear some positive stories from owners, what they are like, what they do, were they worth the money, just how intelligant they are, how do the cameras work exactly, how good is their eye sight, does it amaze guests, or just amuse them (thinking about value for money here, they are not cheap!) How great are they basically?
moreymach said:
I have a hankering for one too... but then get all pious and think I could get a(nother) moggie for free and make a donation to a cats home too!
Having said that you can get the older models on ebay for a lot less so maybe one day.
loads of them on e-bay
http://search.ebay.co.uk/aibo_W0QQsocolumnlayoutZ4QQsocomparecolumnlayoutZ1QQsosortorderZ1QQsosortpropertyZ3QQsonewuserZ1
anf yes I would love one
I have an Aibo sat on the carpet by the sofa. To be fair, I didn't buy it... we had it at work, and it's been in need of a bit of TLC (it got its neck broken).
Aaaanyway, enough of the excuses... it's cool. It's one of the early ones, so not as much fun as the latest that have decent facial recognition, video cameras, etc. But kids love it. And it is disturbing how you kind of forget it's just a lot of circuitry, and start treating it as an individual. I wouldn't buy one for myself for £1500, mind. Maybe second hand off EBay when you know you can make back most of what you pay for it. Or if I had kids. Definitely if I had kids. The ex-boss that originally bought it reckons his kids still miss it a good year on from him abandoning it on us in the office.
[checks UKBob's profile & sees he does e-commercey stuff, etc]... In the office, we use Agile development techniques, which means a continuous integration server that compiles the code + runs the tests every time someone checks in a source-code change. Programming the Aibo to yap and complain everytime someone breaks the build is a great business justification for having it. Especially if you get one of the later ones, and have it walk over to the actual person that checked in the error and yap at them. [Geek mode off]
KITT said:
what the heck is that pigeon?
It's K-9 which I believe was in an ancient TV series called "Dr. Who"
I'm 25 BTW
Dr. Who, eh? You know, all the Doctor ever really had to do to defeat the Daleks was to lure them into a place with lots of stairs...they'd have been utterly screwed. Why didn't he ever think of that?
UKBoB said:
Who has owned one, and what are they really like. Im just reading about them now, and would love to hear some positive stories from owners, what they are like, what they do, were they worth the money, just how intelligant they are, how do the cameras work exactly, how good is their eye sight, does it amaze guests, or just amuse them (thinking about value for money here, they are not cheap!) How great are they basically?
I have an ER311 "latte", the one that looks like a cute plastic puppy. WIth the AIBO Life software you can bring it up from being unable to walk, which is a lot of fun for kids of all ages - or go straight to playful adult stage with AIBO Pal. What does AIBO do? Wander round, chase its ball, obey voice commands, make pathetic noises until you give it enough attention. Eyesight is OK in good light - but it thinks anything round and pink is a ball and tries to kick it. The picture-taking is a bit of a gimmick - ER311 doesn't have bluetooth so its a pain taking the memory stick out and loading it into a Sony laptop, just to see a camera phone sized pic.
Is it worth the money? Of course not, since when was that a criterion for doing something fun? Is it cool? - definitely. If you visit the owners forums like www.aibo-life.org you'll meet some deeply odd people on there - as well as the folks who spend their life inventing disco-dancing programs for robot dogs...
king arthur said:
UKBoB said:
what the heck is that pigeon?
It's K-9 which I believe was in an ancient TV series called "Dr. Who"
I'm 25 BTW
Dr. Who, eh? You know, all the Doctor ever really had to do to defeat the Daleks was to lure them into a place with lots of stairs...they'd have been utterly screwed. Why didn't he ever think of that?
The BBC thought of that too, so when Sylvester McCoy tried to hide downstairs in one of the last programs the BBC made the Dalek hover down the stairs.
Zorro said:
This is too cool...Sony QRIO robots.
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2003/1218/sony_06.wmv
They are seriously cool - When we first saw those, we started wondering if rather than having a dog that yapped at incompetent developers, we couldn't just do away with the developers entirely...
I couldn't spend that money on one personally, but it is beautifully made and has nice touches like going back to it's basket(docking bay) to have a rest(charge batteries) when it is tired(going flat).
Was told by someone that had one that they are not too happy on carpet and battery life is much better on hard floors. Is that right?
Was told by someone that had one that they are not too happy on carpet and battery life is much better on hard floors. Is that right?
) 
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