Order Your Pleo Now. Not!

Well it seems that there was some confusion with Ugobe. (see the comment to this post) They are not allowing any pre-orders yet. They are not quite sure of the price, maybe, or possibly they do not really have a firm date for deliveries, or maybe, they have not figured out why anyone would want to buy this thing anyway.
They have been taking a huge risk by making all kinds of fantastic claims about the wonder of their robot Life Form and the potential market for it.
The hype was more for the benefit of investors rather than users of the product but now they have painted themselves into a corner by trying to perform up to the expectations that they created. We shall see.



Matt Trossen has announced that Ugobe has given Trossen Robotics permission to start taking pre-orders for the wildly hyped dinosaur robot Pleo.

The cute little monster will set you back US $350 and has an 'estimated' ship date of July 2007. (My guess is that they may trickle out in August and September but they will not be widely available until Q4)
This may be your best opportunity to be the first on your block to have a Ugobe Life Form pet.

Here are some of mechanics behind the magic:
- 32 bit Atmel ARM 7 microprocessor - The main processor for Pleo
- 16 bit sub processor - The processor dedicated to the camera system
- (4) 8 bit processors that provide the low-level motor control for the servos
- (35) Sensors including a camera custom designed to fit into Pleo's very compact body.
- (4) foot-switches to detect footfalls and being picked up - assists with spatial orientation.
- (12) capacitive touch sensors (4) legs, (4) feet, back, shoulder, head, chin
- (2) microphones for directional sound detection
- (14) "Force" sensors, one per servo, to recognize abuse through force feedback joints.
- Orientation/tilt sensor
- IR transceiver for bidirectional data communication with other Pleos.
- IR interrupter for detection of objects in Pleo's mouth
- (14) motors. Standard low voltage DC motors
- (150) gears and clutches
- Rechargeable NiMH battery pack
- USB port with mini USB connector
- SD/MMC memory card slot

---All kinds of cute and cuddly built in all over the place

order it here:
PLEO #TY-20-PLEO

Ugobe Pleo Update

PC Magazine has an interview by Mark Hachman with Bob Christopher, CEO of Ugobe, about the progress of their toy robot dinosaur, Pleo.

A few interesting clips:

SDK
There will be different types of software developer kits for the rubber dinosaur. There will be a consumer version that will allow you to create animations and moods for your robot on a pc through a graphical interface. For the consumer software you will not have to learn any direct commands. The "third-party" SDK will be for programmers who are interested in getting into the head of the robot and re-designing the behaviors for their own application.

Availability
They are trying to get the units shipped before the end of the year but Christopher was making no promises. He emphasized that the quality of the product was more important than getting it out early. Sounds like he is really not expecting it to be ready for holidays 2006.
The suggested price will be US $250.

Challenges
They are trying to get the motions to be very smooth and without the servo grinding sound of most of todays robots. It also needs to react quickly and appropriately in order to maintain its creature credibility.

Ugobe's Three Laws of Lifeforms:

Now Pleo, and all the Life Forms, are governed by three laws. And one of the laws is that they have to be aware of themselves and their environment: the ability to have real-time sensory arrays, and the ability to react to it.
The second law is having the ability to have emotions and show them—feel and show emotion. You don't really care if it's happy unless it's showing you it's happy. So feeling and showing emotions.
And the third thing is that all of our Life Forms have to be able to grow and evolve over time. They have to be able to adapt and adjust, personalize themselves over time, which is really a creation of the user experience over time.

Why will people want a Pleo?

To really succeed in the mass market, there has to be an emotional language between people and robots, where robots can actually feel emotions, and can react on an emotional level. You have to take the mechanics away from everything and create an emotional dialogue. And that's the big thing we're doing, we're creating an emotional relationship where you can feel empathy and feel emotions for, in this case, Pleo.

So you almost have to think about it in a way—how do you get robots from a level where they're not really kind of robots, but something that is really meaningful to us, and it's that emotional relationship to be a big play that allows this market to become where we think it can go, and that's where we're leading the charge as a company.

You don't have to do a lot to affect an emotional bond. You have to do a lot over time to continually make it interesting. People read into their products a lot—they read into the Roomba vacuum cleaner...
There's a lot more appetite that we're seeing exposed in the media to read into and create an emotional bond with something mechanical.

In my opinion Ugobe is designing a new computer interface. Effective cooperation between robots and humans is a big problem. A type of interface like Pleo may be part of the solution.
There are those who believe that it is necessary to have a voice interface with the partner-robot. This is especially true if the robot is a co-worker for manual labor or lifting.
However, humans have worked quite well with horses for many ages and horses do not talk.
Horses are large enough to crunch a human if they get in the way and they need to understand very subtle instructions under difficult conditions - the same worries that people have about robots. Yet the interface between the human and the horse is an indescribable language of movements, sounds and emotional outbursts. It appears to me that Ugobe may be on the way to developing such an interface for robots.


News from PC Magazine: Q&A: Ugobe's Three Laws Of Robotics

Pleo Robot Dinosaur

More news of the Ugobe robots from PC magazine:
By Lance Ulanof...

Ugobe plans on releasing a new kind of sub-$200 personal "Life Forms" robot in the third quarter of this year.
Ugobe executives explained, this is a robot designed to create a roughly three-year relationship with the end users, where the robot will evolve overtime.

Though Pleo will be marketed as a toy, he'll be virtually covered and stuffed with high-technology including a soft-polymer-based skin that cover a series of pressure sensors, infrared in the head to "see' objects and avoid edges, a potentiometer in its belly, force-feedback sensors in its toes to let it know where it is in the world, one 16-bit CPU and a series of 8-bit chips, 14 servo motors and 40 sensors. Pleo's body will be articulated in the center of the torso and at the hips, knees and ankles, and his mouth, eyes and nose will also move. But Ugobe execs believe the most striking thing about Pleo will be the way he moves and respond to his environment. The robot will have "organic movement" that attempts to replicate the way living organisms move and respond to changes in the outside world and within themselves. So, for example, a "tired" Pleo will move more slowly, while an awake one will move with a noticeable amount of energy.

The goal is to have end users to see Pleos as more than just robots, but "living" companions.
Like any robot, this three-pound animatrons will a carry a nickel hydride battery that should offer 3-to-4 hours of battery life.

News from PC Magazine: Can Pleo Robot Charm the Market?

UPDATE:

Pleo webpage

"Pleo is modeled after a 1-week-old Camarasaurus sauropod, or long neck dinosaur"
Link to Ugobe press release (pdf)

Ugobe Robot Mystery

Maybe Sony bowed out of the robot business because they knew they they were up against a formidable competitior.

Ugobe describes themselves:
"We develop and market revolutionary robotic technology that transforms inanimate objects into lifelike creatures exhibiting stunning, organic movement and behaviors. Like Pixar, we blur technology into reality."

"UGOBE is developing a line of revolutionary robotic creatures and companions that exhibit stunning lifelike personalities, sound and responses that will inspire and entertain the child in all of us. "

I do not know who has seen an actual product from this group yet. (But then, I don't hang in the Silicon Valley venture capital circles.)
However, they are scheduled to show their amazing inventions at the that-might-just-work festival, DEMO 06, next week in Phoenix.

They definately have the entrepreneur power to attract the money:
"UGOBE is the latest endeavor for polymath toy inventor, Caleb Chung, one of the most successful and respected toy creators in the $25 billion US toy industry.
Caleb is renowned in both toy and robotic circles as the designer of Furby..."

With CEO cofounder, Bob Christopher:
"An experienced executive leader, Mr., Christopher has contributed to the success of Zentera, Five 9, Circle 24, ValuCircle, Jopari, Mercotel, and NextSport."

etc, yawn...

They say that the robots are so realistic that they had to invent a new word, realbot.
We will see the products "effectively blur the distinction between toy, robot and pet..."

Will the product live up to the hype?
Are we dealing with the next 'Ginger' here?

Hopefully we will find out next week.

See the update here

Ugobe