
Sony Aibo - cattlefarmer
http://aibo.sony.jp/
======
a_bonobo
It's amazing how attached some Japanese people were to the old aibos.

A report on a guy who specialised on repairing old aibos:
[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8qxk3g/there-
is-o...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8qxk3g/there-is-one-man-
and-only-one-man-who-can-still-repair-your-robot-dog)

Shinto priests hold Aibo funeral services from time to time, here's a recent
article:
[http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201706090040.html](http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201706090040.html)

Flats are small, not pet-friendly and people are old and lonely, there's a
good market for the new one.

~~~
puranjay
My brother was sad for two days when his Roomba broke down.

People are strange.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
The prospect of going back to manual vacuuming after owning a Roomba would
make me sad too. ;)

~~~
rkuykendall-com
Same. After the first week, I decided I'd buy another the day this one broke.
Sooooo much time saved.

------
cocktailpeanuts
Japanese companies know how to build products for lonely people.

And the rest of the world is catching up with this "loneliness", with advent
of superficial social media oversharing. Everyone is increasingly becoming
lonely inside.

So I think this is a huge opportunity and not a niche product anymore as of
2017, as long as they get it right.

~~~
donw
Sadly, this is a result of deeply-rooted parts of Japanese culture.

In Japan, you don't just walk up to people and strike up a conversation.
Foreigners might, but native Japanese largely don't.

To establish some sort of repertoire, you need to share some sort of
acceptable social context with that person: went to school together, played on
a sports team together, work together, etc.

And, given that Japanese companies commonly have working hours that would be
classified somewhere between "insane" and "criminally negligent", you don't
really have time to socialize with anybody outside of your office.

This all goes triple for Tokyo, which has a very cold and sterile personality.

Expats tend to glop together into a tight group -- the "foreigner" community
in Tokyo is like a small town in and of itself -- but for the natives, the end
result is that there are a _lot_ of very lonely people here.

~~~
JohnBooty

        In Japan, you don't just walk up to people and strike 
        up a conversation. Foreigners might, but native Japanese 
        largely don't.
        To establish some sort of repertoire, you need to share some 
        sort of acceptable social context with that person: went to 
        school together, played on a sports team together, work
        together, etc.
    

I'm from the Northeast U.S. (though I've visited friends in a decent number of
cities in this country) and this sounds 100% like every place I've ever lived
in or visited.

Are there really places in the world where total strangers strike up
conversations and form friendships with people on the street, on the bus, etc?

I'm 41 and I don't think I've never experienced that and I'm a pretty social
guy!

Aside from random "how about this weather?" chit-chat, I don't think I've ever
befriended somebody outside of an existing social context like school, clubs,
workplaces, online communities, fellow pet owners, neighbors, etc. Closest
counter-example I can think of is my mom, who become good friends with a
cashier at the supermarket she shopped at twice a week.

~~~
golergka
> Are there really places in the world where total strangers strike up
> conversations and form friendships with people on the street, on the bus,
> etc?

Israel, 100%. If you're new in the country, you'll end up getting a lot of
random people that you literally meet on the street or in public
transportation, helping you with a lot of stuff in your life.

------
modernerd
I owned an early Aibo called RT – the first Aibo to have an artificial hip
replacement from X-Dog, an engineer in the UK who specialised in repairing
them. [http://www.aibohospital.com/](http://www.aibohospital.com/)

He pioneered the “operation”, fabricated the metal replacement parts by hand-
milling them, and successfully replaced the hip joint in an era where home 3D
printing was a pipe dream and Sony couldn't hope to offer the same repair
service. The “hip jitter” became a common fault, and X-Dog ended up with a
waiting list of Aibos to fit new artificial hips to.

It was pretty incredible at the time, and it felt like being part of the
future – like the robot pet repair clinics in Philip K. Dick's _Do Androids
Dream…_.

The most impressive thing about Aibos at the time – apart from ball-tracking
and kicking – was their self-righting mechanism. It became a party trick for
people to knock them down and see them get up again, a precursor of sorts to
viral bullying of the modern Boston Dynamics prototypes.

I sold RT, but still remember feeling sad to watch Sony wind Aibo output down.
It's nice to see them coming back.

------
CGamesPlay
> Share memories. aibo keeps records of everything it experiences in day-to-
> day life, uploads the data to the cloud, and creates a database of memories
> that you can browse with the My aibo app. You can even ask aibo to take a
> picture—and you’ll be able to preserve that moment for posterity.

[http://aibo.sony.jp/en/feature/feature3.html](http://aibo.sony.jp/en/feature/feature3.html)

~~~
ekianjo
> preserve that moment for posterity.

Well for as long as they don't shut down the service, which is going to be
hell shorter than "posterity".

------
eyeareque
This looks really cool.

A 30 day warranty for an $1800 USD toy robot seems quite short. Is this normal
for electronics in Japan? In the US I would expect at least a 1 year warranty.

------
intopieces
God bless weird Sony. I don't trust them for any mainstream product (maybe
PS4, but certainly not phones or laptops) but they consistently fascinate me
with niche-as-hell products that I am tempted to buy just out of curiosity.

~~~
cocktailpeanuts
I don't think this is niche at all.

It's as niche as the first 32MB MP3 player was niche.

~~~
chenster
Thought Rio is the first one. [https://www.amazon.com/Rio-One-Digital-Audio-
Player/dp/B0000...](https://www.amazon.com/Rio-One-Digital-Audio-
Player/dp/B00005NIMH)

~~~
LeoPanthera
The first one was the MPMan.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPMan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPMan)

------
helloworld
The Google Translate version is funny:

 _Born to be gazed at, it is an unbelievable pupil. Unexperienced love
perseverance that I can not help touching unexpectedly._

But I also got this useful info:

 _Scheduled to be released on January 11, 2018._

~~~
ekianjo
"見つめられるために生まれた、つぶらな瞳。 プリっとしたフォルム、生き生きとした動き。 思わず触れずにはいられない未体験の愛おしさ"

translates (approximately) to:

"Cute (eye) pupils, born to be gazed at. Moving around in a vivid manner, in a
pure form. You can't grasp or can't imagine such an adorable experience."

~~~
GolDDranks
プリっと doesn't mean pure but something like... Round, soft-looking, but firm.

The final sentence means: "Before you even notice, you'll find yourself
playing with the pup filled with adorableness you've never experienced
before."

Edit: came up with a more accurate one: "Unprecedented adorableness, that
makes you want to touch it without a second thought."

~~~
ekianjo
Well done, I did misunderstand the last sentence.

------
moonka
I got to play with the older one a few years ago. A co worker found it in his
garage and gave it to me. It was fun to check out, and it freaked out my real
dog, but ended up dying pretty fast. There is (or at least was) a large
community of folks who keep them around, and so we were able to sell it to be
used as parts.

~~~
mgsouth
That is so disturbing :)

Hmm. Maybe there's an emerging market for robot funerary services.

~~~
ekianjo
> Maybe there's an emerging market for robot funerary services.

Truth is stranger than fiction.
[http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201706090040.html](http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201706090040.html)

------
hme
I own both an old ERS-7 and a Cozmo. It's striking how much Aibo is a likeable
thing, full of surprise compared to Cozmo. I really noticed it when I got
Cozmo. It's a shame given the amount of computational power Cozmo gets from
the smartphone, and its way better camera. But I guess the constraints forced
Aibo engineers into a more subtle and intelligent design. I'm disappointed, I
really hoped for something unbelievable like Aibo was ten years ago.

~~~
edshiro
I am thinking of getting Cozmo. What's your review on it? I'd also be
interested in knowing how much we can tweak Cozmo (e.g. can we implement new
features using computer vision, does it have its own programming language,
etc,)

~~~
hme
The toy itself is not very fun. Even pretty annoying sometimes (like the
stupid daily calibration task). It has no brain, you have to dedicate a
smartphone to this. It's a very wrong move I think, though I understand the
cost benefits. But the worst part is that almost every interaction with the
robot goes first through the smartphone UI (like triggering a request for a
game). It totally kills the experience, and makes it painful for parents of
small kids, too young to have a phone. I have read somewhere that they hired
some expert game designers and hollywood concept artists from Wall-E to design
the actual experience. My harsh feeling is that it's the worst idea ever, it
feels very much like a bad hollywood blockbuster, no subtlety but only
misplaced costly special effects and tricks. I had little expectations though,
I bought it to tweak it (someday). It uses a python SDK, you have to connect a
dedicated smartphone to your computer, and the python SDK connects to the
Cozmo app on the phone to send commands. Apparently the SDK is good, and the
team seems serious about supporting this.

------
joefreeman
Sherry Turkle's book, 'Alone Together', is split into two parts - the first is
an investigation into how people (mostly children and the elderly)
interact/bond/etc with robots of varying sophistication - starts with
Tamagotchi, Furby and My Real Baby, PARO, and goes onto research-level robots.
The second part applies similar thinking to social media, which is why I
picked up the book. But I found the robot stuff interesting. I think my main
takeaway was realising that the robots don't have to actually be
technologically advanced for people to form bonds with them. Interesting read
anyway.

------
sowbug
190,000 yen to buy robot dog, plus 90,000 yen for required 3-year "Aibo basic
plan" (lump-sum option) = about $2,500.

~~~
lucaspiller
For comparison the first version released in 1999 was 250,000 yen (around
$2,500 at the time).

~~~
Aissen
Just calculated the price adjusted for inflation:
[http://fxtop.com/en/inflation-
calculator.php?A=250000&C1=JPY...](http://fxtop.com/en/inflation-
calculator.php?A=250000&C1=JPY&INDICE=JPCPI2010&DD1=11&MM1=05&YYYY1=1999&DD2=31&MM2=12&YYYY2=2017&btnOK=Compute+actual+value)

It's 252,021 yen.

------
mastazi
English version of the page:
[http://aibo.sony.jp/en/](http://aibo.sony.jp/en/)

------
vsenko
An idea of an autonomous cyber pet detached of any clouds and vendor
infrastructure appeals to me a lot.

But what Sony offers is a kind of a tentacle of a huge corporation.

------
ekianjo
I wonder if there's any new market needs for this to come back from the dead.
I thought they killed it because sales were so poor before, has anything
changed since then?

~~~
shakna
Hikikomori[0] are far more common in Japan now. It's a market of usually
depressed and anxious people, who have been overworked to the point where they
don't want to interact with the outside world, but still get lonely. The
stigma around it is fading.

That seems like a decent market to start with. (Though the ethical side of me
feels slightly queasy.)

[0] [http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/11/asia/japanese-
millennials-...](http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/11/asia/japanese-millennials-
hikikomori-social-recluse/index.html)

~~~
ekianjo
Cheaper and better to get a real dog.

~~~
wutwutwutwut
Might be a bad idea of you work a lot.

~~~
ekianjo
Then there is no lack of dog or cat cafes in town in most Japanese cities.

~~~
shakna
The audience I pointed out don't leave their homes.

~~~
ekianjo
The post I replied to mentioned working a lot. You dont work from home in
Japan.

~~~
shakna
The article I linked to mentions half a million people who never leave their
home, and work remotely.

------
SeanLuke
Sony brought 12 or so early Aibo prototypes to the Agent 97 conference. IIRC
the device was developed at Sony's D21 laboratory (later the "digital
creatures laboratory") and was called the Mutant, for "Musical Tangible
Agent". You'd play notes from a little keyboard and it would respond. I was
told they hadn't determined what kind of animal it should be yet, and were
leaning towards monkey. They had some faux fur for it too. But it wagged its
tail! So everyone at the conference told them it should clearly be a dog.

At the end of the conference all 12 of the prototypes had broken neck servos.
Because so many people had patted them on the head.

------
johnchristopher
I noticed that webpage is really clean design-wise. Almost all webpages from
Japan I had seen so far were really over saturated with colours and huge
lettering in different fonts.

~~~
dingo_bat
This is Sony, so kind of expected to have good design.

------
Scaevolus
English link (what you actually want to read):
[http://aibo.sony.jp/en/](http://aibo.sony.jp/en/)

------
codewiz
Will Sony go after users distributing open source hacks for this new Aibo? Or
maybe this time will they use DRM to prevent any software modification?

~~~
ebrewste
I remember Aibo as the product that Sony made that could reverse all the
positive feelings I had for their products because of this. It turns out that
this was the true Sony.

[http://grep.law.harvard.edu/articles/02/05/03/1613203.shtml](http://grep.law.harvard.edu/articles/02/05/03/1613203.shtml)

~~~
LeoPanthera
I was going to say that I was surprised it wasn't the Sony rootkit DRM
scandal, but that was two years later!

------
antonyme
I developed on the Aibo years ago for Robocup robot soccer, writing software
for object recognition, navigation, locomotion, etc. Much fun!

It's surprising to see its return after a long hiatus, as Aibo has had several
ups and downs in the market. And despite such a long period when it could have
been enhanced, it looks like it is not significantly changed from the last
generation.

------
jonah
Some raw video from The Japan Times:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRl_03_jNwE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRl_03_jNwE)

------
dingo_bat
I'd buy this over a real pet. If I had the $$$. One thing I can think would be
annoying if it kept making robotic servo noises every time it moved.

~~~
intoverflow2
Real dogs make plenty of noises and smells too to be fair.

~~~
dingo_bat
The whole point of robots is to do it better than nature. I think eliminating
servo noises should be a priority. Maybe not the highest one.

------
Johnny555
Yikes, that's expensive, around $2000 for the base device, $900 for a required
3 year basic plan to make it operate (or $29/month for 36 months), plus $540
for the optional 3 year support plan. (ok, I cheated on the conversions at
$1=100yen, it's around 13% cheaper that that based on the current usd/yen
exchange rate)

Makes a $1000 iPhone seem cheap.

------
ChuckMcM
Again?

I know several people that bought the first version of this robot dog, it had
some very clever electronics for its time but it failed to find a market and
became an expensive orphan. And now Sony goes back to the concept again. I
wonder what is different.

------
LiweiZ
[https://youtu.be/sJciRIZQTg4](https://youtu.be/sJciRIZQTg4) TVC on YouTube,
in case you are interested. I found it on the bottom of the webpage (just a
little logo).

------
codezero
In the last dot bomb, I was very tempted to buy an Aibo. I’m still tempted and
I don’t feel like it’s the same kind of dot bomb.

~~~
Terretta
I have the original. Its fidget movements look like the new one’s fidgets on
this splash page.

~~~
codezero
Kind of endearing.

------
singularity2001
198000 JPY to USD: 1740,95 US Dollars, cheaper than the nao bot. [[ bwt: can
JPY be pronounced juppy?;]]

------
kalys
Just read Asimov's "A Boy's Best Friend"

------
ulfw
How can one get one of these outside of Japan?

------
noncoml
Not too far from “Robot and Frank” are we?

------
dhoulb
Uncanny valley triggered.

------
bboreham
Like Alexa, but cuddly.

------
11235813213455
Anything would be good to replace real pets, there are way too many of them,
it's consuming a lot of energy, resources, pollution, and damaging ecosystem

~~~
mappu
In New Zealand we had a controversial proposal to seriously reduce the cat
population, over concerns about them destroying local protected wildlife.

Pets provide important companionship. But some environmental costs of pet
ownership aren't borne by the owners in a "privatize the profit, socialize the
loss" situation.

[http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objecti...](http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10860618)

------
suyash
How about owning a real dog? real dog over robot dog anyday for me.

~~~
cududa
Training a pup takes a lot of time and effort

~~~
dingo_bat
Also everyone doesn't have the space to raise a dog properly.

~~~
majewsky
Also some people are allergic to dogs.

------
vortico
I know I'm somewhat wrong, but I see no market for this whatsoever, besides as
a learning toy for student AI laboratories, where the original AIBO is still
popular. Can someone give me an example of a type of person of any wealth
level or personality that would willingly go out of their way to purchase
this? It doesn't clean the floor, so there's no practical function. It's not
an MP3 player that follows you around or a Siri-like assistant, so it can't
optimize your existing means of entertainment. The website advertises "love",
but I see 0% actual connection with it, so anyone that claims this reason is
doing it either ironically or perhaps due to certain object attraction mental
conditions. If anyone wants to cure lonliness, this would seem to have zero
effect. As a toy for children or hobbyist adults, it seems like a fun thing to
play with and show your friends for a few days, but no better than a yoyo
which is few orders of magnitude cheaper. For "tinkerers", it would be fun to
program applications into it that use the sensors and motors, but if that was
their primary market, it would advertised as an open development platform and
they would leave out the pre-programmed AI. So what am I missing here?

If I was an investor, I would value this at no more than $0 because sales
can't possibly surpass R&D. What reasons are there to believe otherwise?

EDIT: So it seems in this discussion I've learned that many believe that the
love for dogs _can_ actually be replaced by love for inanimate objects, which
is a bizarre concept to me, but if the number of people who are able to do
that is truly as significant as people are claiming, then I suppose I could
see why this product could become successful.

~~~
puranjay
People keep pet rocks

Human beings can get attached to anything, regardless of its utility.

This thing mimics the actions of a puppy, and it stays a puppy forever.

Of course people would get attached to it, and in selling that attachment,
there is value.

You're approaching this too much from an engineer's POV

~~~
vortico
>You're approaching this too much from an engineer's POV

I don't agree with this. If anything, I am approaching it from a spiritual POV
when I say that a normal person cannot love an object like you can love a dog.

~~~
ericd
If that was the case, people probably wouldn't be holding funerals for their
v1 Aibos, and there wouldn't be an active repair scene for them. They probably
also wouldn't have made a v2. This thing is explicitly designed to trick your
"is this a living being" circuitry.

