Tech Eye: Just what the doctor ordered
Techeye sits down at work in front of our ancient computer (which our employer likely purchased in the late Mesozoic Era) and we type in a few random words. Having done that we bang our head against the monitor (in the hope that it will break and we'll get a new one) and then we head home to write on our own blessedly modern laptop.
Last week, however, Techeye decided to do things a little differently. Just to see how the other half lives, we decided to abandon our usual rituals and try writing in the hospital for a change. Oh, the crippling pain we felt may have had something to do with our choice, as might our earnest (and spouse-shocking) attempts to paint the ceiling with our half-digested breakfast. But we're pretty sure that, subconsciously at least, we just wanted to try something new.
Sadly, we didn't get much work done. It turns out that our local hospital is a wretched and depressing place, staffed by nurses who possess unnatural amounts of knuckle hair. All in all, that made it difficult to concentrate. Worst of all, though, was the bitter atmosphere of the place - there's nothing worse than marinating in negativity when you're feeling ill (except perhaps marinating in denture adhesive).
Having survived the experience, we decided to write this week about something which has the potential to banish all kinds of negativity - Pleo, the first Life Form species from UGOBE. This little creature, which is modeled on a week-old Camarasaurus (of the late Jurassic, and thus unrelated to our office computer), is an "autonomous" companion which appears imminently huggable.
According to its maker, "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." UGOBE also notes that each Pleo will develop a "unique personality" which sounds interesting, but could be a recipe for tragedy too. What if it develops the personality of, say, a school marm? The last thing Techeye needs is a little robot dinosaur telling us to stop picking our nose.
Inside each Pleo are two 32-bit microprocessors (for central and image processing), 14 motors, an infrared and camera-based vision system, two microphones, multiple data ports (which sounds a little nasty, robotically speaking) and a host of other bits and bobs which keep it moving and playing. Its operating system also gets updates every so often, introducing new behavioral and operational improvements.
While it's not available everywhere yet, the Pleo goes for around 299 (zł.1,032). Someday, if Techeye ever strikes it rich, we'll buy a bunch of these and send them to our local hospital - along with a box of knuckle-hair trimmers.
