Visit to the Pleo's birthplace

Mark Frauenfelder 10:23 am Mon Dec 17, 2007

Daniel Terdiman of C|Net News.com went to the Pleo factory in Boise, Idaho to find out how the robotic dinosaur came to be.

After being announced at Demo in February 2006 as a $250 "life-form" that would be out by holiday 2006, Pleo's prospects took a significant downturn when Ugobe found that it would have to delay the launch until this year. The company also decided it would have to charge $350 for the dinosaur.

For most products, being a year late and costing 40 percent more than originally announced would likely be a death sentence. But Pleo is not most products, as demonstrated by the slew of mostly positive media coverage it has gotten since it launched earlier this month.

And why? Well, it's a robot dinosaur with a limited artificial intelligence, a custom operating system, and a personality. Plus, it's just awfully charming.

Link

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