Contrary to the sales hype surrounding AIBO, it isn't quite the sentient companion you might have been expecting. In fact, the biological sophistication of real creatures has never been brought into such blinding contrast.

AIBO ERS 210 is a robotic pet made of plastic. It can recognise vocal commands, play games and explore its environment on mechanised legs. 95,000 AIBOs have been sold worldwide since they were launched in 1999. For the first time, Australians can get their hands on one.

Last month, Sony released AIBO, the robotic pet to the Australian. AIBO, a name derived from the acronym Autonomous Intelligent roBOt, means "companion" in Japanese.

The AIBO project has always been something of a proof of concept mission, arising from Sony's vision of a robot that will bridge the gap between humans and technology, highlighting the possibilities of interaction between the two.

When we unpacked the AIBO, its legs smoothly extended on anatomically correct little knee and hip joints, which was a little bit creepy. It seemed, somehow, like a cold, plastic carcass.

Placing it gingerly on the floor, we switched it on. Immediately AIBO began rocking its head from side to side, emitting quaint little chimes, eyes lighting up in unison.

Simultaneously, 70s style science-fiction computer noise played in the background, along with warbling rapid beeping sounds with random frequencies. This was AIBO's 'wake-up' ritual.

Soon this ended and it gradually sat upright with a convincing series of leg motions that closely approximate the steps a real animal might take, if a little jerky. It then raised its head back, opened its mouth and emitted a theatrical sound like a medieval fanfare. With this, AIBO was live and autonomous. We suppressed the urge to shout "It's alive!" in a maniacal tone, and began to explore the interactive properties of this highly expensive piece of robo-tech.

Eventually the "creature" clambered to its feet, and, taking precise steps with impressive speed, began walking forward, creating a chorus of electrical engine sounds, much like an orchestra of tiny winding winches. AIBO actually emulates the walking pattern of the small four-legged mammals we are familiar with.

This is quite amazing to watch, especially considering that the designers of most domestic robots tend to opt for the simpler wheel-based methods for motion, avoiding the complex machinery required to emulate walking.

AIBO can vary the length of steps it takes on each leg in a prehensile fashion, much as we do to change speed and orientation.

Unlike many products of it's kind, AIBO is fully autonomous. This means that it will carry on operating and exploring its environment, even if there is no one around to influence its behaviour. AIBO can act independently of its owner, free of the need for constant interaction of any kind (though it's programmed to respond to neglect).

The emotive performances that reinforce the AIBO's "animal" identity are immediately apparent. For example, occasionally AIBO would arch its head back and perform a very cute ear-scratching motion. On stimulus to its head sensor or spine sensor, it would play a musical series of chimes, culminating in a little melody to indicate enjoyment. When ignored, AIBO sat down, occasionally panning its head from left to right, tail wagging.

AIBO's sophisticated spatial orientation allows it to explore a complex environment, provided it is flat, manoeuvring with ease. AIBO walked back and forth, deftly avoiding obstacles, travelling to an impressive proximity to objects before turning around and visually scanning again. It would typically walk in one direction, scan, rotate on the spot in a spider-like motion, then scan again, occasionally exhibiting cute dog idiosynchracies, such as ear-scratching, leg-raising, or more anthropomorphic performances such as a little song and dance routine. AIBO actually has five different musical and choreographed acts, which are surprisingly well composed.

An example of a little act that the AIBO performs is a pattern called the "High Five" -- a prefabricated animated response that can be triggered vocally. AIBO opens its mouth, leans sideways and ostentatiously flourishes a paw toward the sky. Pressing its paw pad switch has the expected effect, causing AIBO to make whistling noises, lower its paw and resume the typical patterns, happily "high-fived".

Aiiiiiibo, Aiiiiiibo, Aiiiiiibo

One of the truly impressive locomotive demonstrations AIBO can perform I might be described as "AIBO soccer", a sport which is taken to extreme degrees in the annual Robo-Cup in Japan. There, teams of specially programmed AIBO's compete. The civilian model AIBO comes with a special pink ball, of hard but lightweight plastic that it is adept at recognising.

On detecting its special plastic ball within visual range, AIBO immediately tracks the ball's motion with its head, then begins an intricate process of approaching it, doing tiny steps to orient itself before nudging the ball using it's head. This full-body manoeuvre is accompanied by a strange thrashing sound effect (perhaps intended to mimic a crowd cheering). AIBO also had several methods of batting the ball with its paw as an alternative to the strange theatrical head-butt.

AIBO could track the ball across the floor and follow it to repeatedly carry out this basic process of search & destroy. After the game was over, it returned to the ball of its own accord several times, seeming to remember its location, continuing the game. On spotting the ball in its periphery while not playing, it emitted a musical tone to indicate the discovery. The speed at which it could do this and react was consistently impressive. For example, even while walking across the floor, it could locate the ball and track its location with its head, without stopping. The sophisticated overlap of activities like this really sets AIBO apart from anything released to consumers in the past.

Not to mention the convincing displays of stimulus and response.

Faking that emotion

When picked up, AIBO would make graceful swimming motions, as if responding languorously to the attentive touch of his owner, before retracting its limbs to facilitate transportation (presumably). When placed back on the ground, it carries out a convincing full-body shake before resuming operation.

AIBO is touted as a machine that can learn, responding to its masters by understanding positive and negative feedback. AIBO can respond to its human masters through rewards delivered through of its tactile feedback (approximating the petting response of an actual domestic pet). AIBO has touch-sensitive switches on its head, back and on the end of each paw. Stroking the head sensor back and forth rewards AIBO resulting in pleased little trills, and reinforcement of the current behaviour patterns. Penalising AIBO's behaviour involves sharply tapping the head switch, the signal for AIBO to cease what it is doing, resulting in a displeased response, and discouragement of the current behaviour.

Contrary to the sales hype surrounding the device, it isn't quite the sentient companion you might have been expecting. In fact, the biological sophistication of real creatures has never been brought into such blinding contrast. AIBO cannot learn new games or interactions in the way a real animal can. It has a limited capacity to learn about navigating new environments, but it won't be fetching your slippers in a hurry. Everything you see AIBO do which is interminably cute or dog-like has been painstakingly animated by a team of Japanese artists and technicians locked in a laboratory somewhere. Work like this is finite by definition; it learns what kinds of patterns you prefer and respond by repeating those patterns more often.

Voice response

You don't have to touch AIBO to interact with it--AIBO possesses highly advanced and robust speech recognition technology. Straight out of the box, AIBO understands a wide suite of voice commands.

Saying "name registration" to AIBO results in it raising a paw to listen for its own name. It will then respond to this name when called. It even compares the name you give it to existing voice commands it knows, shaking its head when it's given name is too similar to something it already uses.

You can greet AIBO in 4 different ways and admonish or praise the robot vocally as an alternative to stroking or slapping it. You can say "Good boy" and "Don't do that!" which are recognised through a range of accents and voice characteristics. Incredibly, AIBO requires virtually no voice training to understand you. You can even ask it questions that it will answer, such as "What is your name?" and "How old are you", which it acts out in strange coded light patterns and musical tones. Say "Hello" and AIBO reciprocates with a very close musical facsimile, immediately.

AIBO can also be told to take a picture and it will capture a digital snap from its nose camera, which can be extracted later using the software interface. Upon hearing the command, AIBO nods vigorously - pressing its head switch at this point confirms the photo instruction. All the lights on his head illuminate, sequentially extinguishing along with an audio-based countdown sound, culminating with a "photo taken" sound effect.

Despite the cheesy Barnum & Bailey party tricks, occasionally you can't help finding yourself spellbound by the AIBO's little adventures around the lounge room, temporarily forgetting that it is an expensive collection of plastic, electrical servomotors and software.

At other times, attempting to interact with it or teach it something makes you feel a little bit juvenile; like a toddler attempting to squeeze some more Fisher-Price 'push-and-pull' entertainment out of a AU$3,000 canine version of Teddy Ruxpin.

Occasionally brilliant, the AIBO serves primarily as a spectacular and stylishly constructed proof of concept device. It has certainly succeeded in emulating the cutest human and canine emotive behaviour and packaging it in a toy. Young children instantly fall in love with the AIBO and its charms.

Paradoxically, it is a little bit too expensive to consider as a gift for children unless you fall squarely into the millionaire category, and can comfortably blow AU$3,000 dollars on a fragile toy which can only exhibit around forty recognisable traits before you have experienced all of its behaviours.

AIBO comes in black, silver, and champagne, boasts 1.5 hours of battery life and takes 2 hours to fully recharge. Unfortunately it cannot recharge itself. Instead, communicates to request recharging and needs human help to be placed on a charger station or plugged in.

The AIBO ships with a very basic set of interactive functions. To really get the most out of it you would be mad not to purchase one of the personality application software packages for it, which add not only features but let you contour the AIBO more closely to the kind of product you want to own.

AIBO software and personality upgrades

Hello AIBO, the personality we saw in action, and the most well-rounded personality (an "adult" persona, with a mix of energy, exploration and exhibitionist behaviour thrown in. Hello AIBO costs AU$170);

AIBO Fun Pack PC software, which allows you to download pictures taken by AIBO, as well as AIBO's photo-essay "diary" which it records at intervals that it judges key to it's existence. AIBO Fun Pack costs AU$210.

AIBO Party Mascot is the most extroverted AIBO personality, with the energy and enthusiasm of a sports car sales representative. With this software-soul it constantly performs wacky tricks, sings songs, dances, and generally acts the goat. Party Mascot has a much larger song and dance repertoire, and can also offers a high-tech"spin-the-bottle" solution. It will spin around on its little plastic legs and stop at random, pointing in a direction with a plastic foreleg to single out the lucky (or unlucky) individual(s). It can also play a slightly obtuse game of Rock, Paper, Scissors and Roulette, although the exact mechanics of this are unclear, considering that it doesn't have prehensile toes. AIBO Party Mascot costs AU$190.

Yet to be released locally

The AIBO Navigator allows you to control AIBO from a PC, with wireless communications. You can view images in real time from the AIBO point-of-view, using it as a kind of roving explorer. You can take digital photos at ease, bringing raise to a rather nervously composed disclaimer message -- "Please don't use AIBO to take pictures that might inconvenience other people". The mind boggles.

AIBO Messenger is a kit to enable AIBO to do wireless LAN interaction. It can provide alerts of incoming email, providing information, from a "homepage" (any Web site?) in response to special key words.

OPEN-R is a hardcore development kit for creating new applications for AIBO.

AIBO Master Studio software, released in March 2001 is for hard-core programming of the AIBO system. Popular in Japan, it uses visual tools to fit together new patterns of stimulus/response for AIBO to follow, within certain boundaries.

For more information on the Japanese push into robotic technologies, see the report on the Japanese government's efforts to encourage these kinds of industries below.

Japan to animate robot industry
The Japanese government is set to invest heavily in setting up a robotics industry, in a move that could speed up the development of futuristic devices such as robots that could nurse and entertain people, or carry out dangerous tasks.

Company: Sony Australia
Price: AU$3,000
Distributor: Sony Australia
Phone: 1300 137 669

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