A creature from Jurassic Park it's not. But an East Bay startup is working to give life to a baby Camarasaurus, a gentle, long-necked, plant-eating dinosaur that once roamed the Earth during the Jurassic period.
Emeryville's Ugobe is developing a robotic dinosaur that picks up where Sony's Aibo, the robotic dog that the consumer electronics giant discontinued this year, left off.
Weighing about 4 pounds, with rubbery green skin and glossy eyes, the Pleo is programmed to respond to its environment and owner as a pet might. Call for it and it will amble over. Stroke the back of its neck and it will purr. Hurt it and it will whimper.
Caleb Chung, Ugobe's co-founder and the co-inventor of the popular Furby, hopes the robotic dinosaur will tap into the growing fascination and acceptance of robots and artificial intelligence.
Blockbusters like "I, Robot" and Steven Spielberg's "Artificial Intelligence: A.I." have put robots front and center in popular culture. Millions of consumers have adopted Roomba, the automated vacuum cleaner --
even going so far as giving it a name.
Now, as chips and other materials get smaller, cheaper and faster, engineers have been able to develop robots that are closer to science fiction and more lifelike than ever. The latest Asimo, the robot developed by Honda, for instance, can carry a tray of coffee, push a cart and hold someone's hand as it walks.
Like Sony's Aibo, the Pleo is an autonomous robot, meaning it isn't powered by a remote control. It learns to interact with its human owners and its surroundings, and it can be trained to respond to commands. Using a camera installed in its nose, it sees and tracks faces and locations. It communicates with other Pleos through infrared technology -- and it can even catch a cold.
The Aibo, first introduced in 1999, captured the attention of a select group of devoted owners. Even today, Aibo owners hold soccer tournaments where teams of trained robotic dogs play against each other. Some Aibos also have a "Roblog," a blog of digital photos captured by the dog and sent wirelessly to the Web. And university researchers found last year that the robotic dog can offer the same kind of therapeutic benefits as a live dog.
Ugobe wants to harness that enthusiasm and more.
"The intent is to create something so lifelike that it can't be distinguished from real life," said Chung. "We're not there yet, but we're close. You forget (the Pleo) is a robot. You don't think, 'What a cool robot.' You think, 'Isn't that cute?'"
While the Aibo used to cost about $2,000 a piece, Ugobe plans to sell the Pleo for $250 each, allowing it to get into the hands of more consumers, including its target audience of 8- to 12-year-olds and adults.
The company found ways to reduce the high cost of manufacturing a robot, such as deploying cheaper motors. "They've extracted the critical pieces to make the magic," said Mike Cheponis, a former MIT robotics engineer and a Santa Clara technology consultant who helped Microsoft Corp. develop the Xbox 360.
In its current incarnation, the Pleo runs on five processors, 34 sensors and its own "life form operating system" with a rechargeable battery that lasts about three hours at a time.
It is modeled after a one-week-old Camarasaurus, selected in part because its creators could base its structure from dug-up fossils of an adolescent Camarasaurus. Engineers have programmed it with hundreds of emotions and gestures. For example, it could, as it grows up, decide to build a nest, though how it acts and how it evolves is up to its owner. In the future, the company also plans to release a software development kit for tech geeks to develop their own programs for the robot.
Like science fiction author Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics," Ugobe has also come up with a set of rules for its creations: First, they must feel and show emotion, Chung said. They also must be aware of themselves and their environment, and they must evolve and change over time.
"We're talking about an ongoing relationship that's more petlike or lifelike," said Bob Christopher, Ugobe's chief executive. "They don't just do a couple of tricks. They're always surprising you and being a companion."
During a recent demonstration, the Pleo, coming straight from an airplane flight and having just had its software tweaked, wasn't able to perform.
But Ugobe said it later fixed the problem and will have the kinks worked out before it reaches store shelves during the holidays.
The company, which employs about a dozen people at its headquarters in Emeryville and an additional 10 at its research and development lab in Boise, Idaho, has raised $2.75 million in funding and is negotiating another round of venture capital.
It has hired Fred Forsyth, formerly a manufacturing executive at Apple Computer Inc., to lead its production and manufacturing in China. It is also securing distribution deals with consumer electronics retailers like the Sharper Image, and it plans to offer the Pleo in Europe and Asia.
At $250, the Pleo will attract a larger audience than the Aibo, said Tim Bajarin, principal analyst with Creative Strategies. But he also predicted that the price tag could too high for all but the early adopters of new technology.
"It's not going to be the Tickle Me Elmo or the Cabbage Patch Doll, but there's a segment of early adopters, if this works and is truly lifelike, who will fascinated by it and make it a hit," he said.
Chung developed the technology behind the Pleo 2 1/2 years ago. He's come a long way since being a street performer at cable car stops and Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco more than two decades ago. Later, as part of the television show "Dumbo's Circus," he helped fix and build parts of his puppet suit. He was then hired at Mattel and, as an independent toy consultant in the late 1990s, helped create the Furby for Hasbro, which sold about 40 million of the furry, talking creatures.
In his home in Idaho, Chung said, he has also begun to brainstorm new robots using the same core technology.
Eventually, he plans to introduce a robot priced at about $50, as well as a more-expensive one at about $250. So far, he's duct-taped together a jumble of speakers, motors, batteries and plastic. One robot is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.
"I put it in a pile, and I live with it for a while," Chung said. "It's always a dance between your imagination and reality." -----------------------------------------------------
The Pleo
-- Price: $250
-- Available: November or December
-- Where: Consumer electronics retailers
-- For more information: www.ugobe.com
CAPTION(S):
(1) John Sosoka, chief technology officer at Ugobe Inc., plays with a prototype of the Pleo, a robotic dinosaur set to sell for $250 by the Christmas season. / Paul Chinn / The Chronicle, (2) The Pleo, modeled after a baby Camarasaurus, runs on five processors, 34 sensors and a three-hour rechargeable battery. / Paul Chinn / The Chronicle
Source Citation
Lee, Ellen. "The dinosaur goes digital; East Bay toymaker is putting the computer in Camarasaurus." San Francisco Chronicle 10 July 2006: C1. Student Edition. Web. 3 Nov. 2010.
Document URL
http://find.galegroup.com/gps/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T004&prodId=IPS&docId=CJ147992974&source=gale&srcprod=STOM&userGroupName=18551_mcpls&version=1.0
Gale Document Number:CJ147992974
No comments:
Post a Comment