VIDEO: SONY REVIVES A ROBOT CANINE COMPANION
Back in 1999, Sony released a cute robot dog and the world went crazy for it. But all good things must come to an end, so they say, and the robot-dogs were discontinued in 2006. Now Sony is bringing the Aibo back, and it looks better than ever before, it is also quite a different beast to its playful ancestors.
The "latest iteration of the beloved robotic companion" is built around a 64-bit quad-core brain, with deep learning technology. Owner will get to See the Aibo develop "its own unique personality through everyday interactions as it grows closer and closer to its owners." The robodog is capable of facial recognition, can detect spoken words using four microphones, and react to being stroked and petted thanks to touch sensors on its back, head and jaw.
Once parents have granted permission, Aibo can collect interaction data before uploading to the cloud over built-in LTE or Wi-Fi to accumulate in a knowledge base, allowing for a "bond that only deepens as time goes on."
Proprietary actuators allow smooth freedom of movement along 22 axes, meaning that the head, mouth, neck, legs and paws, ears and tail can all move to the groove while OLED eyes offer "lifelike" expressiveness.
Two fish-eye cameras with room mapping capabilities also feature, along with a suite of sensors that includes motion, light, pressure and distance, a built-in speaker for yappy sounds and a battery that's said to last for 2 hours before needing to return to its charging station for 3 hours.
Sony is planning to introduce a companion app to further enhance the Aibo experience, as well as allowing smartphone access to system settings and owner information. Aibo will also have a bone-shaped toy accessory available at release.
Sony's new Aibo is up for pre-order in Japan for ¥198,000 (about US$1,700), though a subscription plan will also be needed to fully utilize the robot dog – costing a further ¥2,980 per month (or ¥90,000 for 3 years).
Unfortunately, it won't be released in time for the holidays – it's due out on January 11, 2018 – and no plans for availability outside of Japan have been announced.
In the meantime, you can see the robo-dog in the promo video below.