The return of Robo Dog: After more than ten years, Sony’s Aibo is celebrating a comeback. The Japanese electronics company presented a new version on Wednesday, which should be able to interact better with owners. This is how AIBO recognizes your smiles or words of praise, and thanks to its sensors, you can also take care of your head or your back and, thanks to artificial intelligence (KI), pass on your behaviour to reactions of people, thanks to machine learning.
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“After all, he learns to reciprocate affection of his owners and if he feels loved, he shows even more love and affection,” promised Sony. One hopes that owners develop a deep emotional bond with ir robotic dogs.
The first robotic dog was victim of austerity measures
The 1999 featured first AIBO version, which is still popular with enthusiasts despite spare parts shortages, had discontinued Sony 2006. The group was at that time on austerity because of massive losses in its business with consumer electronics.
The new AIBO will initially be launched in January in limited quantities only in Japan and 198,000 yen costs – converted to 1,500 euros. But Sony also wants to make money on life time of robot dog. A subscription service is required to be able to learn. For AI-subscription, a recalculated 2,980 yen (22 euro) is due in month or to a beat of 90,000 yen (680 euro) for three years.
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For 20,000 yen per year (well 150 euros) you also get a discount of 50 percent for repairs and inspections. The price model thus acts like a test run for future business of intelligent robots for home. For Aibo itself, you can buy a plastic bone with which it can play for 2,980 yen.
Restrictions are still due to battery capacity: battery will only hold for about two hours according to Sony, after which Aibo must be plugged in for three hours. The robot dog is about 2.2 kilograms heavy, has two cameras, fast LTE data radio and small OLED displays in eyes, which you should make expressive. While original Aibo (Sony model ERS-111) still had a robotic head, new generation (ERS-1000) looks more like a cute toy dog.
