The toy you’ll be buying your kid for Christmas in 2007 or 2008
From Wired: It’s Alive!
WHEN I FIRST MEET PLEO, the tiny dinosaur is curled up on a kitchen table, its long tail and big head pulled inward. It’s snoring quietly, emitting a strangely soothing sound, almost like the amplified purring of a guinea pig. I’m tempted to reach out and touch it – but it looks so peaceful, I can’t bring myself to disturb it. | Then I realize what I’m doing: I’m worrying about waking up a robot. | Caleb Chung seems to understand my reluctance. “It’s OK,” the toy’s inventor says, motioning to the little green lizard. “You can touch him.” But before I do, Pleo wakes up on its own, fluttering open its doelike eyes and lifting its head. There’s a barely perceptible whizzing as its 14 internal motors spring into action and it struggles upright, stretching itself to get the kinks out. “You know, all your dogs do that,” Chung says as Pleo begins to poke around the table. “They wake up in the morning and go ‘ummmm’ – just like that.” The dino lets out a long, creaky honk.
“I think he wants to play,” Chung suggests, so I tentatively stroke the nubbly rubber skin on its back. It moos happily. A laptop on the kitchen table is monitoring Pleo’s internal state. As I trigger the touch sensors embedded in the toy, its “arousal” numbers start rising: 16, 23, 27, 28. It’s like a Matrix view of Pleo’s subconscious. I poke its left leg, and it cranes its neck curiously to see what just happened. I’m impressed. This feels less like interacting with a piece of machinery and more like playing with a kitten.
Chung knows how to create emotional connections to toys. Ten years ago, the bushy-haired, hyperkinetic inventor conceived Furby, selling more than 40 million of the yammering gremlins in a worldwide craze that launched the now-booming industry of robotic pets. A string of artificial companions have since trundled off the production line: the FurReal cat, the Roboraptor, the Robosapien, the Aibo and its litter of me-too electronic pooches. Household robots have arrived – not as servants doing our laundry but as helpless, babylike things that demand we take care of them.
Still, all of them have acted like, well, robots. But Chung, now 50, has a different idea: He wants to create “an artificial life-form” – something that looks eerily alive and is affected by its environment. Pleo begins as a baby, and its personality is forged by how you treat it. If it uses a high-pitched squeak and you feed it, it will learn to repeat that noise to get fed. Be nice to it and it will become mellow and friendly; mistreat it and you will evolve a bitter, annoyed robot. Theoretically, no two Pleos – Pleii? – will end up with the same personality.
Retail is expected to be about $250 for your kid’s pet baby dinosaur. Start putting aside cash now.
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