Pleo

This article is about the robot. For party leaders and elected officials of the United States' Democratic Party, see superdelegate.

Pleo Robot

Pleo is an animatronic pet dinosaur toy designed to emulate the appearance and (imagined) behavior of a week-old baby Camarasaurus. It was designed by Caleb Chung, the co-creator of the Furby, Chung's company Ugobe sold Pleo and was manufactured by Jetta. Chung selected this species of dinosaur because its body shape, stocky head, and relatively large cranium made it ideal for concealing the sensors and motors needed for lifelike animation. According to Ugobe, each Pleo would "learn" from its experiences and environment through a sophisticated artificial intelligence and develop an individual personality.

Pleo was unveiled on February 7, 2006 at the DEMO Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona and was expected to come on the Indian and American markets around Fall 2007. Pleo shipments started on December 5, 2007.

In April 2009, Ugobe laid off all of its employees and filed for bankruptcy.

On June 8, 2009 Jetta ( the original Pleo manufacturer) announced it is re-launching Pleo and are continuing the line including accessories such as the vital battery and battery charger components.

Pleo is now owned by Innvo Labs Corporations (a division of Jetta.)

Overview

Pleo was engineered by a group of robotics specialists, animators, technologists, scientists, biologists, and programmers. The design combined sensory, articulation, and neuronetics to create a lifelike appearance with organic movement and adaptable behaviors.

In developing Pleo, Ugobe noted the biological and neurological systems of the Camarasaurus, and "re-interpreted" those elements through hardware and software.

The robot is software-upgradeable via SD card or USB interfaces and original cost was $350 USD. Ugobe encouraged user modifications of the robot's firmware, provided links to 3rd party developed tools such as a graphical interface for home users called MySkit, and an API for programmers called a "PDK" (Pleo Developers Kit).

In a 2008 test of various animatronic animal toys in Slate magazine, the Pleo was the only contestant that was considered a success, whereas the remaining models of earlier or competing developers were mainly considered unnatural, creepy, or simply unconvincing.

Features

• camera-based vision system (for light detection and navigation)
• Two microphones, binaural hearing
• beat detection (allows pleo to dance and listen to music).
• Twelve touch sensors (head, chin, shoulders, back, feet)
• Four ground foot sensors (surface detection)
• fourteen force-feedback sensors, one per joint
• orientation tilt sensor for body position
• infrared mouth sensor for object detection into mouth
• two-way infrared communication with other Pleos
• infrared detection for external objects
• 32-bit Atmel ARM7 microprocessor (main processor for Pleo)
  • 32-bit NXP Semiconductors ARM7 sub-processor (camera system, dedicated audio input processor)
  • four 8-bit processors (low-level motor control)

Ugobe bankruptcy

Beginning in December 2008, Pleoworld.com began to experience technical problems. By the Christmas holidays, Pleoworld was offline, including the user forums. After the holidays, both Pleoworld and Ugobe's official websites displayed updating website messages. Both sites returned sometime at the beginning of 2009. Ugobe official website updated its board of directors listing. Ugobe stated that the problems were due to the company's relocation but had not explained why the user forums have not been restored.

Wired News reported the company's outlook was not good, and it was struggling to save itself from extinction as it tried to raise new funding and keep its pipeline of products alive.

From November 2008, the company saw a host of top management departures, including two CEOs, moved its office in California, and pared down its marketing and Public Relations staff in an attempt to weather the current economic storm. (This may be the reason for Pleoworld's demise.) Emails to the company's media contact on its website bounced back. Phone calls to its corporate office were not answered.

In July 2008, Ugobe CEO Bob Christopher stepped down and former CFO Liz Gasper retook control of the company. Christopher said he left the company to move on to other ventures. Gasper had focused on cutting down the company's burn rate and finding new funding.

With the collapse of the United States credit environment, though, fund raising came to a halt. Meanwhile, the company's entire board of directors resigned before December, 2008, giving control of Ugobe back to the co-founders.

Ugobe also closed its Emeryville, California office and moved all operations to its new offices in Boise, Idaho. The company then had about twenty employees.

It had become extremely difficult for new Pleo owners or existing members of the website to access the official forums and Plogs. In the wake of these problems, a loyal fan has set up a forum for members to join to talk Pleo, get the latest Pleo news, and download firmware updates for Pleo.

On April 17, 2009 Ugobe filed chapter 7 bankruptcy, and halted the production of new Pleos.

On June 8, 2009 Jetta acquired Ugobe and Steve Ohler – the United States liaison for the company – said the company is firmly committed to re-launching Pleo and continuing the line including accessories such as the vital battery and charger components.

In 2011, the newest version, the Pleo RB (Standing for ReBorn), has been produced and released. It is similar, if not identical in design, with the original Pleo, but has multiple new functions. It has a longer-lasting battery (an oft-cited problem with the original Pleo) and generally faster bodily movement. It can sense changes in temperature, and will act as if it is sick or injured if it is maltreated or neglected, and must be tended to with certain accessory foods that can be purchased separately (such as ice cubes to cool it down, mint leaves to cure sickness, and rock salt to heal injuries). Also, while the original Pleo could sense and react to sounds, Pleo RB reacts to where the sound comes from (By turning its head to wards the source) Another new function is the ability to change its behaviour according to the time of day, such as becoming hungry around noon, or sleepy at night. But one of the most widely praised new functions is its voice-recognition, which gives the ability for each owner to give their individual Pleo RB a name, after which the Pleo RB will only follow commands (which can be "trained" into the Pleo by using a series of "Learning Stones") from the person who named them. The "learning stones" can be used to train Pleo RB to do tricks, such as bowing, dancing, walking towards their owner, etc.

Each Pleo RB unit comes with randomly selected eye-colours, and according to the manufacturers, because of the manner in which their skin is coloured, each Pleo RB's skin is a slightly different hue of green. A special line of pink or blue Pleo RBs were released on the Asian market.

External links

• Official PleoWorld website
• Pleopatra Tools - Research project of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence
• MySkit site for Pleo tools (Tools allowing fans to customize Pleo)