Cuddly, Lifelike Pleo Dinosaur

Robotic pets are evolving from metallic and plastic to soft and cuddly. And nothing better exemplifies this evolution more than Pleo, cutest and most lifelike dinosaur yet.  UGOBE’s warm and fuzzy Pleo is aware of his environment, reacts to sight, sound and touch, and responds by showing you his emotions, using his voice or by displaying his urges.  If you don’t have a pet, this may well meet your needs; if you have a pet already, it may get a little jealous of the attention you new buddy receives.

Each Pleo begins life as a newly-hatched baby Camarasaurus, and as this autonomous creature grows older, his individuality begins to show. As he opens his eyes for the first time, Pleo adjusts to the light, gives himself a stretch and takes in all the new sensations of his new world. He’ll require nurturing, but he will impulsively act upon his own youthful urges without your intervention.

Pleo displays a full range of emotions: happy and curious, playful and lively, scared and surprised, and sad and vexed.  His senses include sensitivity to light, hearing your voice and touch (and oh how he loves to be touched).  The little dino gets hungry, sleepy, curious, tired, and just plain moody. And he’ll let you know how he’s feeling by his gestures and vocalizations.

What else can Pleo do? Any number of things.  He can sense where the edge of a table is so he doesn’t fall off, he can shake hands, get mad at you when you hold him up by his tail, cuddle, sing...yes, we said sing!

And the great thing is that you can add to his many abilities yourself.  Non-techies can simply download and install new behaviors that UGOBE releases from time to time. All you need is a small SD flash memory card.  For example, with Valentines Day upcoming, they just released a new behavior that “sulks when left alone, but pet him ... he wiggles, coos, and sighs happily. Cuddle Pleo and his heart beats with joy as he purrs and nuzzles. Pet him just so; he’ll profess his love and blow kisses. Whistling when he sees something he likes, this baby dino is quite a flirt!”

If you are moderately technical, you can even make your own behavior “script” with 3rd party tools, like MySkit and YAPT, that let you design sounds and movements for Pleo.

If you are a developer, you can work with UGOBE’s PDK (Pleo Developers Kit) when it is released later this year to create your own new features and behaviors that take advantage of Pleo’s internal workings.

Pleo has an active forum where you can connect with other Pleo owners and developers to learn how to best live with your Pleo, share experiences and tips, find new behaviors to download, and get as techie as you want if you are a developer.

We can’t saw enough about this groundbreaking new robotic lifeform.  To get a better look at Pleo, take a look at some of the videos we’ve included below, then get your own Pleo and post a comment here and let us know what you think.