A few weeks back I had the opportunity to talk with Steve Bannerman the marketing guru behind Pleo the baby dinosaur from Ugobe thanks to the team over at Chocolate Communications.
Initially we started by talking about Ugobe, what the company is all about and where they see Pleo going. Here’s what Steve had to say
“Ugobe is Unique – the companies aim is to transform the relationship between technology and the machine and creating a personality for the machine.”
I went on to ask who he saw the target market for Pleo and asked why they chose a dinosaur.
“The initial target market for Pleo was the technical enthusiast and create a suspended belief that baby dinosaurs would act as Pleo does, and we chose Pleo as they are based in the location where the dinosaurs were being excavated. There was a lot of local research easily and readily available for us to use.”
I went on to ask who came up with the concept of the Pleo and whether the idea was an extension of the Furby. Steve went on to explain that Caleb Chung who was the mastermind behind the furby and the idea of Pleo came from him. He developed the idea along with his business partner John Sosoka who is a behavioral psychologist who has done key research into human machine interactions. You can only begin to imagine just how realistic and how much attention to detail has been put into this little creature.
Steve said something that really made me think: “Dinosaurs aren’t like a dog or a cat… so there aren’t any real expectations, just people’s imagination.” It made me think about what I expected a baby dinosaur to be like… I hadn’t got my hands on one at the time and lo and behold the barriers between my expectation and what was presented by Pleo weren’t far from each other. I was quite surprised. In fact I was so surprised I took him (Smudge) into the office to meet a few of my work colleagues. I’m sure some of them thought I was mad but they did gel with it immediately. The more interesting thing was that it was the men in the office who gelled with it most.
Having seen how people react to Pleo I asked whether there were any other ideas for virtual creatures or even virtual people. This is what Steve had to say: “Most new stuff that we are looking at is radically different from Pleo… more towards robots with more or less human based responses. Things like robots on desks – “lifeforms” to do certain types of work but also breathe life so more human style interaction with lifeforms creating natural communications interfaces.“
Being a software engineer I had to ask the obvious, is there a developer kit for Pleo yet? And where would I find it? “There is a developer interface due out soon with some advanced tools, the developer program will allow the creators to interact and create new emotions and interactions with the Pleo. The program should be available within the next month.” That was a week or so ago, and I’m still looking out for it, however there are more primitive tools already out there to create some basic interactions including Dynamite which you can find on the PleoWorld website.
What made Steve want to join Ugobe… Before Ugobe he was part of the Apple senior management team where he enjoyed human interface work and apple were top of their game in that area. He identified this as an area that he would like to work more with. He went on to explain that Steve Jobs was an inspiration to him along with key scientific figures.
The creative team behind the Pleo product are four 4 hardware engineers and a number of AI software engineers. As Steve like to say they are a visionary team with a unique set of talents.
So what is Steve’s vision for the future of robotics: “personality and character of a robot. Make a simpler interface to interact with and with a soul. Natural extension of humanoid interface interactions for next generation human computer interface. This would provide the ability to unlock new abilities with technology as a result. “
So can you imagine such a change for any technology not just the entertainment devices? Steve Bannerman can… I asked him what it is that has make these things a reality now and what the biggest challenge to them is:
“Processing power, memory, engines, etc are all starting to make the vision a reality. The biggest challenge is the battery life and Ugobe are looking towards wireless power. Mips per watt is a problem currently. We are keeping a close eye on battery technology and in particular wireless power, we are also looking at getting the devices to find themselves a plug socket or power supply. Unfortunately you can’t make assumptions on where the devices interact with people… so for example we can’t assume sunlight and therefore can’t assume to use solar power.”
I have a Pleo for a few weeks so I’ll be posting some short video’s of what he does and what you can do with him, from the developer sdk through to changing personalities and maybe even having a go at writing a few new personality traits.
In the meantime you can go to see the video’s of Pleo from the PleoWorld website as a bit of a taster… I’ll have to find a way of resetting the Pleo to show you that cute little start-up sequence though as I didn’t have my camera charged when I did it the first time.
About Sarah Lamb
Sarah is the founder of the Girl Geek Dinners & GirlyGeekdom. She is a lover of gadgets, geeky things and sport! Find out more about her on her website.
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