Pleo: the artificial lifeform

I think I may have post before on my FIRM intent to buy a Pleo as SOON as humanly possible. The idea of a robotic pet with a self-learning AI for under $250 is just too good to pass up!

I've been waiting for about a year now. It was suppose to come out this fall, in time for the Christmas shopping, but now looks like it's been pushed back to March, but maybe that's not all a bad thing!

When I was first looking over the specs, I could not believe what I saw.. all these cool touch sensors, sound sensors, edge detection... but.. wait.. what's this... NO CAMERA (eyes) ?? How easy would it have been to put a little webcam in there? Wireless would be nice, and one I could view from my laptop, or set up on a webpage where I (or anyone) could look through my Pleo's eyes! So, I wrote to them about this.

Guess what?! Looks like they are now adding a camera and again!

Using a camera installed in its nose, it sees and tracks faces and locations.

Of course, I'm not suggesting it was ALL due to my email..... and, in fact, I have read that the camera might only going to be for light/range finding/face tracking, but perhaps there is more to it, or maybe it can be software upgraded later? Whatever the reason, I'm happy to wait a few more months if it's going to mean having a few more features. :)


In the mean time, all this extra research DID cause me to stumble on PleoBot.com, which is a blog dedicated solely to Pleo, and looks like it will be helping to keep us well up to date!


Stay tuned for more robot / AI news....

---