New photos and information of Pleo, the first robot from Ugobe. Extract from the article:
The Pleo, though, will differ in a few respects from earlier attempts at companion robots. First, it will cost around $250 when it hits shelves slightly later than planned, in the second quarter next year. (Ugobe showed it off earlier this year at the Demo 2006 conference.) While the Aibo sold for $1,900, the Pleo tag is closer to the price of two of the more successful robot products on the market: the $99 Robosapien toys from WowWee and the floor-cleaning robots from iRobot, which are priced from $99 to $400.
Second, Ugobe will try to go beyond selling a walking/talking toy. The company will publish a developers' kit and open its source code, making the Pleo something of a cousin to the Lego Mindstorms kits or the old Radio Shack 64-in-1 electronics kits. Consumers thus will be able to download "personality modules" and see how their Pleos react to different stimuli.
