Sometimes you see something which is so funny, mind boggling and interesting, even if there is no direct link to CAT-iq, that is should be mentioned.
Yesterday I saw a Pleo. Pleo is the first truly autonomous Life Form capable of emotions that allow personal engagement. Developed, produced and marketed by Ugobe.
UGOBE ’s multidisciplinary team has blended engineering, life sciences, philosophy, and artistic design and developed a unique set of core technologies. The company’s unique products, known as Life Forms, intend to blur the line between technology and life.
By integrating three disciplines—organic articulation with sensory response and autonomous behaviors—UGOBE aims to revolutionize robotics and transform inanimate objects into lifelike creatures. Inspired by its dream, the group coined the word ‘UGOBE’, which translates to: “You! Go and Be!” a creative reworking of Descarte’s “Cogito ergo sum”—“I think, therefore I am.”
The company’s vision is to inspire mystery and awe in people, provide extended novelty and entertainment, and ride the edge between popular culture and science fiction. In a private R&D facility, UGOBE works to recreate known species, engineer beneficial hybrids, and transform previously inanimate objects into lifelike creatures using its Life Operating
System platform. UGOBE is in the business of developing unique proprietary and patent-pending technologies. UGOBE innovations are leading to real world applications and are related to work being done at MIT, CMU and a host of other universities, as well as technical and biological science companies around the world.
Pleo incorporates all the basic traits of autonomous life and is specifically engineered to mimic life and relate to its owner on a personal level. Pleo will let its user know how it feels at any moment, and he is capable of multiple expressions, including joy, aggression, sorrow, and fear—every Pleo will eventually exhibit a unique personality. Pleo can also sigh, sniff, sniffle, snore, cough, hiccup, and sneeze, and when Pleo is tired, he will become drowsy and go to sleep, and sometimes even dream. Pleo is equipped with sensors for sight, sound and touch. Pleo will stretch when he first wakes up, and may cry when frightened or hungry.
See what Pleo is and can do in this video.
I spoke with some executives of the company and we talked about the future Life Forms. One of the topics was integration with a wireless standard. There might be the link with CAT-iq. Total new productconcepts, services and the like for operators, software developers and even hardware vendors.
True, this is far away from the business of wireless home phones, but realise that this might create total new markets in the digital home of the future.
Isaac Asimov is getting close now
Subscribe