pleo

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Radiolab: Talking to Machines, Ep. 1001 | Radiolab

A new Radiolab episode!

Furby!

manonvanmil:

Another vid about robots (lovebots, if Chung’s correction near the end of the talk is conceded). I’ve seen this one before, but it’s been a demanding couple of weeks at school, and as far as I’m concerned there are few more effective coping mechanisms than watching videos about 100 cool toys designed and created by the amazing Caleb Chung (who, wtf, doesn’t have a Wiki page? Will attempt to rectify tonight).

Chung’s most famous creation is likely still the Furby (I remember getting one for Christmas one year alongside my cousins, and being creeped right the f*** out. Can’t imagine how I’d have felt receiving the prototype…) but he’s more recently come out with something way way cool - Pleo. Pleo is a young, robotic Camarasaurus who doesn’t grow but learns to progress through life stages. It receives information and moves in its environment using 40 sensors, 7 processors, and 14 motors. Pleo comes with a personality (Chung believes the toy will help users develop empathy, which is a beautiful thing for a toy to do) but is open source, so you can also create or download different personalities for Pleo. In other words, *so much awesome* in one toy - now in reborn version (hope the name’s not too indicative of PLEOrb’s personality…)! ee! <3