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Computers Embed your Life

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PCQ Bureau
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Electronic Pets

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Gone are the days when you had dumb stuffed toys with no motion, or feelings to play with. Thanks to the wonders of modern electronics, toys are getting a new life. They have been given feelings that get affected based on how you behave with them. All the major toy makers across the world have been coming out with advanced interactive toys that can become your friends for life. These toys are electromechanical in nature, have sensors to listen, see, talk, and feel your touch. They have complex circuitry, and some use micro-controller chips to control everything. They have memory to store the code that drives the micro-controller, which in turn operates the remaining parts. In other words, toys are amongst the most popular examples of embedded systems. In this article, we’ll see some of the most playful pets in the market, and try to understand what makes them intelligent. 

The rapid development of intelligent toys has been fueled by the fierce competition amongst leading toy manufacturers. Every toy maker tries to introduce some hot selling toy to gain an edge over competition. So we’ve seen the intelligence level rising in the toys. One of the earliest instances of ‘intelligent’ toys was a pet teddy bear known as Teddy Ruxpin, introduced sometime in the mid-80’s. This little bear initially had an audio cassette player built-in. When you played the recorder, Teddy Ruxpin moved its lips and blinked its eyes to the sound of whatever was being played. The story telling teddy bear became an instant hit with young children. Later, many variants to the toy were introduced. Another stuffed toy was introduced that acted as Teddy Ruxpin’s partner, and the two of them narrated stories together. This however was not very intelligent. All it did was move its lips to pre-recorded stories. Many other intelligent toys were introduced after this. Two of the most prominent ones have been Furby from Tiger Electronics, and Sony’s

Aibo. 

The Furbies

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Pet its back, and it may wag its little tail lovingly; Tickle its tummy to make it laugh or pass a comment; Take it through different shades of light, and it thinks you want to play hide-n-seek; Open its mouth, and it will ask to be fed. These are just some of the things that a Furby is capable of doing. It’s an interactive toy created by toy maker Tiger Electronics, sometime in 1998. 

A Furby have no resemblance to any living creature. It’s a cute furry little creature that learns new “tricks” with time. They have a distinct life cycle just like human beings, starting from being a baby Furby and growing up to be an adult one. Furbys react differently to different situations. In fact, the last time I tickled a Furby, it gave a different response for every tickle. The first time you get a Furby, it speaks its own language called ‘Furbish’. As it interacts with you over time, it starts using English more frequently. How much it can communicate in English depends upon how you interact with it. Since no two human beings are going to interact the same way with a furby, no two furbies will be alike. That’s the beauty of having this toy. It’s almost as if it understands you. 

Furby’s intelligence

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Furby has a built in vocabulary of 160 words that it combines to form about 1000 different phrases. That’s why it can give a different response each time. Furbies have five sensors in them. There’s a sensor on its back that understands petting. A sensor on the tummy senses tickles. A built-in microphone triggers reactions related to sound and a light sensor detects changes in light intensity (remember the hide-n-seek example mentioned above). Finally, the best part is an IR port. This is used to communicate with other Furbies. So if you get a family of Furbies, then they can interact with each other through IR. Not only that, but they maintain decorum. If papa Furby talks, then baby Furby quietly listens. If one Furby narrates a joke, the rest laugh at it. So you can imagine the number of permutations and combinations that are possible with these sensors and the vocabulary. You can check out more about Furby on their website

www.furby.com

Aibo, the smart dog

If you thought that Furbies are amazing, then you’ll get even more dazzled by Aibo, the robotic dog created by Sony Corporation. The word Aibo has two meanings. The ‘Ai’ stands for Artificial Intelligence, and ‘bo’ represents robot. Aibo also translates to mean ‘partner’ or ‘pal’ in Japanese. 

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Aibo, just like the Furby has sensors to detect various emotions. It learns and matures by interacting with people. It has a state-of-the-art voice recognition system that understands what you say. For instance, if you praise it for playing with a ball, it will continue doing so. However, if you scold it, Aibo will not even look at the ball. Aibo recognizes its name, so it will respond through electronic tones if you call its names. Other than that, it can recognize and respond to about 50 words. It has six emotions to display its happiness, anger, sadness, surprise, fear, and dislike. It has a CCD camera and a distance sensor that allows it to avoid obstacles, and even recognize colors it likes or dislikes. In fact, the camera can also be used to take pictures. It recognizes the command “take a picture”. Of course, you need extra accessories to be able to view those pictures on a computer screen. It has four sensors similar to humans and animals, of touch, hear, see, and a sense of balance. 

The robotic dog is amongst the most intelligent implementations of an embedded system. It has 18 joints that can produce 250 different types of movement. So it can run, dance, sit, and play with a ball. All actions of Aibo are recorded on a 8 MB memory stick. There’s even a development tool called Aibo Master Studio that can be used to create original motion and sound data for

Aibo. 

What next

As I mentioned earlier, the toy industry is being fueled by constant innovation. Currently, most toy manufacturers are following Aibo’s trend and making their own versions of intelligent pets. Toys in fact have actually grown out of being just for kids. Today, more and more adults are actually buying Aibo–a trend that is bringing humans closer to robots. 

Anil Chopra

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