AIBO is a series of robotic dogs designed and manufactured by Sony. Sony announced a prototype Aibo in mid-1998, and the first consumer model was introduced on 11 May 1999. New models were released every year until 2006. Although most models were dogs, other inspirations included lion cubs, huskies, Jack Russell terriers, bull terrier, and space explorers. Only the ERS-7, ERS-110/111 and ERS-1000 versions were explicitly a "robotic dog", but the 210 can also be considered a dog due to its Jack Russell Terrier appearance and face. In 2006, AIBO was added into the Carnegie Mellon University Robot Hall of Fame.
Furby is an American electronic robotic toy that was originally released in 1998 by Tiger Electronics. It resembles a hamster or owllike creature and went through a period of being a "must-have" toy following its holiday season launch, with continual sales until 2000. Over 40 million Furbies were sold during the three years of its original production, with 1.8 million sold in 1998, and 14 million in 1999. Its speaking capabilities were translated into 24 languages.
Tiger Electronics Ltd. was an independent American toy manufacturer best known for its handheld electronic games, the Furby, the Talkboy, Giga Pets, the 2-XL robot, and audio games such as Brain Warp and the Brain Shift. When it was an independent company, Tiger Electronics Inc., its headquarters were in Vernon Hills, Illinois. It has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1998.
Simon is an electronic game of short-term memory skill invented by Ralph H. Baer and Howard J. Morrison, working for toy design firm Marvin Glass and Associates, with software programming by Lenny Cope. The device creates a series of tones and lights and requires a user to repeat the sequence. If the user succeeds, the series becomes progressively longer and more complex. Once the user fails or the time limit runs out, the game is over. The original version was manufactured and distributed by Milton Bradley and later by Hasbro after it took over Milton Bradley. Much of the assembly language code was written by Charles Kapps, who taught computer science at Temple University and also wrote one of the first books on the theory of computer programming. Simon was launched in 1978 at Studio 54 in New York City and was an immediate success, becoming a pop culture symbol of the 1970s and 1980s.
WowWee Group Limited, is a privately owned, Hong Kong-based Canadian consumer technology company.
The iDog was a robot dog toy designed and manufactured by Sega Toys. An iDog figure receives input from an external music source, such as an MP3 player, and will light up and "dance" to the music's rhythm. It is marketed as the eDog in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
An entertainment robot is, as the name indicates, a robot that is not made for utilitarian use, as in production or domestic services, but for the sole subjective pleasure of the human. It serves, usually the owner or his housemates, guests or clients. Robotics technologies are applied in many areas of culture and entertainment.
Chibi-Robo! is a platform-adventure video game developed by Bandai and Skip Ltd. and published by Nintendo for the GameCube console. It was released in Japan in 2005, and in North America and Europe the following year. Originally conceived as a point-and-click adventure game, it was put on developmental hold until Nintendo producer Shigeru Miyamoto gained interest in the title and overhauled its production.
i-Cybie (爱赛比) is a robotic pet that resembles a dog. It was manufactured by Silverlit Toys Manufactory Ltd Hong Kong from 2000 to 2006. i-Cybie was developed for commercial distribution by Tiger Electronics. Outrageous International Hong Kong distributed the electronic pet from 2005 to 2006. The i-Cybie robotic dog responds to sound, touch, movement, and voice commands. The toy robot can autonomously recharge its batteries using a special docking station. I-Cybie was the first mass-produced toy that used advanced voice recognition technology.
Tomy Company, Ltd. is a Japanese entertainment company that makes children's toys and merchandise. It was created from a merger on March 1st 2006 of two companies: Tomy and long-time rival Takara. The company has its headquarters in Katsushika, Tokyo.
Robotic pets are artificially intelligent machines that are made to resemble actual pets. While the first robotic pets produced in the late 1990s were not too advanced, they have since grown technologically. Many now use machine learning, making them much more realistic. Most consumers buy robotic pets with the aim of getting similar companionship that real pets offer, without some of the drawbacks that come with caring for live animals. The pets on the market currently have a wide price range, from the low hundreds into the several thousands of dollars. Multiple studies have been done to show that we treat robotic pets in a similar way as actual pets, despite their obvious differences. However, there is some controversy regarding how ethical using robotic pets is, and whether or not they should be widely adopted in elderly care.
FurReal Friends is a toy brand division of Hasbro, Tiger Electronics and Dreamright Toys created in 2002 focusing on robotic pets. FurReal toys widely vary in style and size, depicting different domestic and wild animals as robotic toys ranging from large enough to be sat on to small enough to be held. Each FurReal robotic toy moves in some way. Two slogans were "They love you for real, FurReal Friends", and "My best friends are FurReal Friends".
Lazer Tag is a brand name for the pursuit game using infrared toy guns, generically known as "laser tag". It was developed by Worlds of Wonder and launched in 1986. As one of America's top hit toys of 1986-1987, Lazer Tag was aggressively leveraged by Worlds of Wonder's retail sales network in an ultimatum to force the Nintendo Entertainment System into retail stores, allowing its smash hit nationwide launch, which prompted Nintendo of America to lead the nation's recovery from the 1983 video game crash and dominate the industry. The Lazer Tag brand is currently a subsidiary of Hasbro's Nerf toy line.
Genibo is a robotic dog produced by the Korean company Dasarobot of Dasatech.
RoboSapien is a toy-like biomorphic robot designed by Mark Tilden and produced by WowWee toys. The Robosapien X was made to entertain and will react to sounds and touch. The Robosapien is preprogrammed with moves, and also can be controlled by an infrared remote control included with the toy, or by either a personal computer equipped with an infrared PDA.
The WonderBorg is a programmable consumer robot kit first released for the Bandai WonderSwan and Microsoft Windows PCs in 2000. It is intended to match both the external appearance and mode of transport of a beetle, with functioning antennae and a six-legged design.
Tekno the Robotic Puppy is a popular electronic robotic toy which originally launched in late 2000. Tekno sold over 7 million units in its first season and went on to sell over 40 million units in its original 4 years of production. The worldwide popularity for Tekno led to prominent awards and widespread media coverage which included newspaper articles, television and film appearances, and a stand-alone feature on the cover of Time magazine.
Giga Pets are digital pet toys that were first released by Tiger Electronics in the United States in 1997 in the midst of a virtual-pet toy fad. Available in a variety of different characters, each Giga Pet is a palm-sized unit with an LCD screen and attached key ring. To ensure a happy, healthy pet, its owner has to take care of it similar to how one might care for a real animal, including feeding, cleaning, and playing with their Giga Pet.
The AIBO ERS-7 is an entertainment robot created for the commercial market. Initially released in 2003, it was the first AIBO installment to be explicitly referred to as a dog and saw adoption in both research and popular culture. It was the last robot developed before the dissolution of Sony's robotics division in 2006 and the eventual release of the ERS-1000 in 2018.
