Skip to main content

Sony’s robot dog Aibo is headed to the US for a cool $2,899

By

Sony announced today that it’s going to release its robot dog Aibo in the US, following the brand’s relaunch in Japan last year. The new edition will be available to purchase in September for $2,899 and will be bundled with three years of Sony’s AI Cloud service as well as a variety of toys, including a pink ball, an “Aibone,” paw pads, and a charging station. The AI Cloud allows Aibo to send its daily activity back to Sony’s servers, which the company claims help shape the robot’s personality and let owners stay connected with their Aibo over Wi-Fi or LTE. The dog likely won’t ship until closer to the holidays, however, so prepare for a long wait.

The US version doesn’t sound or look much different from the one Sony showed off at CES this year. It incorporates a bunch of sensors, cameras, and actuators to activate the pup and keep it interactive. There’s a camera on its back to help it navigate to its charging pad, and its nose camera helps it find its Aibone and identify family members through facial recognition. It also responds to voice commands, and you can add tricks to its knowledge base through the companion Android / iOS Aibo app.

This is a limited edition product, although Sony hasn’t said exactly how many units are being made. So if you’re dead set on owning a robot dog, be ready for that preorder link soon.

Sony isn’t the only company thinking about a smart companion. Anki’s Vector robot (a grown-up version of its predecessor Cozmo) was just announced, too, with the idea that users can treat it more like a pet or play games and ask it questions. The key difference between it and Aibo is the price tag: Vector costs $250, although it doesn’t have the same AI backend as Sony and acts more similarly to a smart speaker.

Many tech companies are thinking of ways to make robots with personality, but so far, only Anki has seen any real success with a product in this category. It sold 1.5 million Cozmo robots since its launch in 2016, while Sony has sold roughly 11,000 units of its pricey Aibo in Japan since CES.



from The Verge - Teches https://ift.tt/2Lkrqwn
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Firefox is testing features that let you customize colors and view two tabs in one

By
Mozilla Firefox is testing out two new experimental extensions that let users further customize their browser and view tabs together more easily. The first one is called Firefox Color and it lets you change the colors of the background, text, icons, and the toolbar. Whatever you change can be saved and you can also choose to share your color schemes with others. Firefox also has a selection of pre-made color themes that you can choose from if you don’t want to customize every single color yourself. The second feature that Firefox is testing is called Side View and it does basically what it sounds like: you can view two browser tabs at once in the same tab and window. Without the feature, you can already line up two windows side by... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2LZWa7h
Post a Comment
Read more

How to install Fortnite on Android

By
Epic Games launched its battle royale hit Fortnite on Android devices last week with a big catch: it was exclusive to Samsung-made phones for a few days as a way to help market the new Samsung Galaxy Note 9. Now, the exclusivity period appears to be over, and beta invite codes are going out to select users of non-Samsung phones like the Google Pixel 2 XL. If you’re itching to dive off the battle bus on mobile, you might have to hold on just a little while longer: there appears to be a waiting list, just like there was when the game launched on iOS. There’s also a bit of trickiness involving exactly how you get the app because Epic announced it would be distributing the Android version of Fortnite on its own terms . Last week, the app was distributed through Samsung’s app store, and Epic is using its own website and a Fortnite Installer program to distribute the game more widely on all compatible Android devices. (Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said this is basically to avoid paying Google...
Post a Comment
Read more