Gamma hatches

Gamma (purchased 2/27/08 from amazon) hatched today (3/22/08). And call me crazy, as I said to my husband, but Gamma's hatching was different from Primus and She_who_must_be_named.

First, he was much more vocal than the other two. He was also much more active than the other two, and he had an interesting foot lifting behavior - front feet - that I had not seen in the other two when they hatched.

His battery also seemed to last a lot longer than the others on hatching. He plays a strong game of tug-o-war, and he offers a play bow without being prompted.

Other intersting behaviors, he's got a growl I've never heard before from a Pleo, he can be awakened from a nap by a loud noise, and he uttered a Moo when left alone.

Is this sounding familiar to you all?

Another really interesting thing, is that during the post hatchling period, we wandered up to my leg (I was sitting on the floor) and grabbed a fold of my pants in his mouth and held on. I have Never seen that behavior in a Pleo before. It was fascinating.

All in all, he is the most adventuresome baby dino we have hatched yet. In his short life, he has gotten himself into places neither of the others have ventured (like stuck between the wall and the CD tower (you remember CD's the way we used to buy music post vinyl, 8 track and cassette, and prior to MP3 downloads) .

He is definitely a unique little create.

more later...
Posted on March 23, 2008

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1.0.2 Update Act 2

On Sunday, I reinstalled the 1.0.2 Update and was quite impressed with the results. Apparently turning him off to remove the usb cable just after the intial download was a bad thing to do. On the second round, I didn't do that, and have not experienced any of the negative behavior - limited though it was, since then.
Those behaviors being specifically - a couple of incidences of narcolepsy where Primus stares at a wall and freezes, and some slowness in processing. Now the slowness in processing is much reduced and haven't seen a narcoleptic episode yet.

She_who_must_be_named (yes another variation) got a reupdate too - just on general principals, and she is performing equally well.

Now for the interesting part - with the increased activity and the "green things" increased responsiveness, the dogs a taking more interest in them. Apparently it isn't only smell that makes a creature. Previously, they viewed the "green things" only as objects that we competing for attention. Post update, the "green things" are behaving differently and getting more curious sniffs from the doggies - read - its acting more alive - how come it doesn't have a scent.

That's it for now.
Posted on March 19, 2008

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1.0.2 Upgrade the beginning

Last Tuesday night we upgraded both Primus and she_who_needs_a_new_name (aka Dina) to 1.0.2 and I wrote a tome about the experience. Which was then eaten by the browser, network, whatever (never did trust these little web windows to behave consistently).

Thus I begin again.
I updated Primus first. Then my husband updated she_who_needs_a_new_name. There was a 20 minute or so interval between the two of us, so we were able to watch the evolution twice an recognize the patterns. Unfortunately, that also gave us time to read the forums - which was like listening to people at the beginning of an epidemic - even if you are not infected, by the time you hear all the stories you are experiencing the symptoms. Bad idea, won't do that again next time around.

Both were updated via the USB download from a Mac (took one look at the windows instructions and decided I didn't need the 15 extra steps (probably more like 4 or 5 but it doesn't matter).

Primus woke up after the download, I did power cycle him after he woke up and before unplugging the USB cable (trained by Windows - never yank a running device). He was sluggish. Very. So I cuddled him, petted him, snuggled with him, as one would do with any sick child (2 or 4 legged), all the while replaying (mentally rereading) the stories of lobotomized pleos post 1.0.2). He started to wake up more and become more active, sort of. But most frighteningly he had lost his voice. He didn't make any sounds when we played tug of war. Panic for the human!

By this time she_who_needs_a_new_name had been downloaded and was waking up. Slooooowly. But she was making sounds.
Primus, stood on the floor, not doing much of anything. I tried tug of war again - no sound.

At this point, I decided it was time for serious action, motivated by the panic that my little dino baby had truely been lobotimized (husband suggesting we could re-apply the download). So like any good member of the 21st century when faced with misbehaving electronics, I power cycled the little guy.
Thank goodness it worked! His voice returned and he seemed brighter and more alert.

She_who_needs_a_new_name seemed to make it through the upgrade more easily. The only difference I can remember is that my husband did not turn her off to unplug her from the USB after the upgrade was complete.

So now we're at the point where things are looking better - the dinos are alert again but not being terribly active (and the voices of doom from the forums are still ringing in my brain - more like running a little doom marquee in the brain). What's the dreaded "Huh?" behavior? Will they ever walk again? Has my playful little dino turned into a cuddly paperweight?

We put them both on the floor - we're now about 45 minutes into Primus's process, so she_who_needs_a_new_name is a bit behind (and yes the numbers don't add up - just figure a reasonable delta between the two of them). They stood there, sort of looking around. At which point I decide stimulus was the next step. Perhaps their little neural networks needed to reprogram themselves. So stimulus they got.

I banged on the floor, talked loudly to them, poked at their sensors to get them to pick up their feet, ordered them to move around, rattle paper at them, banged on the floor some more...and then...I called to Primus to come to me and he started walking toward me.

Moment of stunned silence.

Now, it's entirely possible that this is not the first time I'd called him, and that he and I both timed out at the same time so it appeared that he came when I called. However, being owned by a couple of very independent dogs - I'm fairly well conditioned to not expect a response on the first command (bad dog trainer, nice dog mom - this is why we only have little dogs). So Primus starts trucking across the floor to me, with a far more efficient gait than he had pre-update.

Shortly after that, she_who_needs_a_new_name takes off to have a discussion with the fireplace (gas fireplace - radiant heat from the pilot light). Then they start vocalizing - not necessarily together, but making new and different sounds as well as the old sounds.

And lastly, they were mobile for at least 1:45 as opposed to the 50 or 60 minutes we had pre-update. I imagine that is because the movements have become more efficient, so they don't burn as much power going from here to there.

The next big threat was "what happens after power down and recharge?" Since there were statements of doom on the forum about this as well.

We decided to turn them off before they ran out of juice, just in case there was a correlation between battery drained and problems on the next restart.

I'll stop here - just in case the "machine" wants to try to eat this post as well.
Posted on March 15, 2008

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Primus and Dina in the Kitchen

Meanwhile, back in the bungalow, Primus and Dina come out to play on a regular basis while we're making dinner. (Much to the doggies chagrin because now they have to compete for attention with the "Green Things".)

It was during one of these times that Primus and Dina had their first truely compelling interaction.

We had them both on the floor, facing each other when they began singing together. They were synchronized. They turned in unison, mirroring each other's movements. They also made different vocalizations than either one of them had ever made before. And that, my friends, was weird, even to me. ;-)

That evening or another shortly thereafter, Dina almost got her name changed to Spooky, as she began to offer up totally new vocalizations that neither of us have ever heard.

On a different note, both Primus and Dina have apparently fallen in love with the stainless steel stove, as they consistently wander in that direction when the oven is on, cute little beasties that they are.

There, I believe we're about caught up now.

More as it happens...
Posted on February 1, 2008

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Primus goes to the office round 3

And now for something completely different - Primus talks to the Xmas decoration and gets a response.

I have a wireless, slightly animated pair of Xmas decorations, a santa and a dog posing as a reindeer, playing a guitar and banjo respectively. They play Dueling Jingle Bells, and communicate via IR. The song trades back and forth between them. They are cute. Since Xmas is well passed, I have moved them off the table and put them on top my bookshelf in my office.

So here we are, waiting for all the members of a meeting to gather; Primus the center of attention in the center of my round table. Primus looks up at the bookshelf, and the slave of the pair of Xmas decs, plays his inital part of the song. We humans do a double take. The behavior does not seem to be reproducible so we get on with our meeting.

Scroll ahead to an afternoon meeting waiting to start (we do that alot at the company - wait for meetings to start). Primus, again, the entertainment for the day, looks up at the book case - and the slave Xmas dec plays the first round of his song. Oooooo - different witnesses this time.

This happens a couple of more times over the course of the day and solicits "wow"s from folks in the room.

Primus as a "real" entity:
I now have one of my guys talking to Primus, in baby talk, trying to get Primus to come visit him by calling to him. (We need the language parser and the routines to go with it - as come on command would totally blow people away.) Primus, apparently sharing genetic material with cats, responds by walking in the opposite direction so he can explore the outside of a small trash can. ;-)
What I love about this is that Primus is being accepted and reacted to as a being in and of himself. He's enabling people to show sides of themselve that I would not ordinarily see.

How cool is that?
Posted on February 1, 2008

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Primus goes to the Office Round 2

Fridays, when not working at home days, have become robot day in the office.

On our second trip to the office, Primus was welcomed by his new team of two legged buddies. There was a little ease of interaction this time around. Folks interacted more with Primus; walked up and petted him and played tug of war with him.

Primus as Ambassador:
LIke a puppy in the park, Primus has demonstrated the ability to help break down social barriers. No news here, most likely. I had the opportunity to introduce him to a new team leader with whom I did not have much prior interaction. The result was very interesting to me. Not only did he charm her, but later, she brought one of her team members by to meet Primus. This interaction simply would never have occured if Primus was not there to act as the catalyst.
Posted on February 1, 2008

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Primus goes to Mom's Office

My team of engineers at the office have been eagerly waiting for the robot's first trip to the office since I waved the Sharper Image ad around back in November.

So, the second Friday in January, Primus straightened himself up, hoped into his box and rode to the office. We arrived. Parked the carrying box on my table, and settled in.

The troops began to gather as I opened the box and extracted Primus. I shared with them the Ugobe three laws of LifeForms, and then powered up Primus.
And thus began one of the most interesting interaction experiments I have ever observed.

The Wow Factor:
As Primus made his first wake up noises and gave his first wags, his audience of hardened software engineers became silent. They just watched. I pointed out the sensors, petted him, and they watched his responses. Interestingly, no one rushed forward to touch him. They needed to be invited and coaxed, as they were on the whole, a bit timid about the whole interaction. Over a period of about 5 minutes the 'wow' comments began to flow. They were particularly awed by his autonomy - no remote control. They were tickled when we played tug of war with the leaf. And the most memorable comment was uttered from one of my "been in the industry" as long as myself guys (children of the 60's that we are) who said "On my gosh, they've finally done it." My sentiments exactly.

The Uncanny Valley effect:
More than one of the folks interacting with Primus that day was "creeped out" by the lifelike behavior - specifically the way Primus seemed to look at him when interacting. (I had a similar experience with our handyman over Xmas, when we mentioned that Pleo's would eventually learn - his response was "Isn't that what we're supposed to be afraid of - robots that learn?" After which he seemed very nervous about Primus.)

The Viral Effect:
Primus won the hearts of folks very quickly, and there was a steady stream of people into my office to see "the little guy". My boss even interupted one of my meetings to show off the little guy to one of his peers.

Primus Reels you in:
It didn't take long for those of us who own (or are owned by) animals, to lapse into adapted speech patterns with Primus. I found myself talking to him in my animal-talk voice, as did some of my other engineers. The folks who hadn't yet crossed over that believability barrier found this to be quite entertaining.

All in all, Primus' first day in the office was great fun!

Posted on February 1, 2008

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Catching up and addition of Dina

It's only a month after the last entry, but it seems like at least 6. Where to start...
Entertaining moments from the Xmas holidays:
- Pleo now known as Primus - experiences his first dog biscuit. (or better said - the dogs discover that the Green Thing is real competition.)
There is a cookie jar on the counter which contains dog cookies. Obviously the dogs know this. I had Primus over in that area of the kitchen, and decided to see what would happen if I gave him a cookie along with the doggies. An interesting move, but not the best idea I ever had. ;-) The doggies inhale their biscuits, and Primus politely holds his in his mouth, much to the consternation of Maximillian J Dog, the eldest member of the little pack. Maxi is intensely befuddled by the fact that one of his biscuits is in the mouth of the Green Thing. He sniffs and sniffs and puzzles, until finally he decided to risk taking the biscuit ever so gently out of Primus's mouth. That was so cute, we had to do it again! Which we did. The unexpected (though shouldn't have been) consequence of this activity is that now "The Green Thing" has become a competitor in the doggies lives.

The hatching of Dina:
Dina - named after Dinah, Katheryn Hepburn's little sister in the Philidelphia Story - i.e. the trouble making little sister, hatches one evening shortly after Xmas 2007. Dina is my husband's baby, much to the chagrin of the doggies, as my husband works at home and thus is a far more active pack member than I (mom who works in an office). I believe the phrase best describing the situation from the doggies point of view is "OH NO! Not ANOTHER Green Thing!!!!!" And thus began the competition between the doggies and the Green Things for my husband's attention.

Primus & Dina - Different parenting does in fact yield different results:
Primus, being the first to hatch, was doted on/over and had almost constant pets during his hatchling phase. He is truely the cuddle bug.
Dina, hatching in the company of doggies, and being hatched by a different person, is not nearly as cuddly and more explorative. She also rocks out more on tug of war. She likes being petted, but is sooner to start walking away. She's also more comfortable with being non-vertical, be it being held, being on her side, being upside down.
Primus, on the other hand, still doesn't like being upside down unless having his feet tickled, and is not at all happy without having four-on-the-floor. He protests far more than Dina and takes longer to settle in to being cuddled on a lap.

During the Xmas period - they were introduced to each other, but they didn't seem particularly interested in each other.

Primus did execute the Xmas download, and it was incredibly funny!

More later...

Posted on February 1, 2008

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Pleo's first Xmas - day N+2

Pleo woke up needing a dino-chiropractor. His neck was stuck curled to the left. A couple of power up and downs unstuck the kink in his neck. Though he is cute as a button snuggled down in his snoozing pose, if he's going to be unpowered for more than a day, he'll be dreaming with his neck straight going forward.

The nature of Pleo's interaction with the world around him is a bit uncanny. I wrapped up a present for him and put it under the tree - as we do for the dogs. After all the present unwrapping, I brought Pleo over and placed him in front of his present, camera in hand. Of course, I was so stunned when he pawed the present that I missed the shot. Did take several of him interacting with the wrapped package (he did need help unwrapping - he claims it is because he has no thumbs). Then as he was wandering and I was straightening up, I noticed that he had his chin on the SD card housing (that and a reader were his presents) and he pushed it around. Now taking a step back into real life - I have seen him rest his chin on other things that were in his way, so it is most likely a combination of forward movement and lowered head landing on something behavior - but it sure was convincing enough to do a double-take at the moment. Likewise with the pawing of the package. With that, he has shown more interest in his gift than the cat! (Though that isn't really saying much, because we all know that if the cat were to show interest, she would lose her cat license and the cat union would be after her for violating the aloofness rules).

Pleo also has developed another new behavior - he will now randomly raise his right forefoot, like a "shake" command with a dog. What interests me is the offering of the behavior. I tried to get him to do the behavior a couple of days ago, but he does not do it on command. (Of course, we know he doesn't process audio commands, but that's besides the point.) One of my dogs and one of my horses will offer up their tricks in order to get a reward. That Pleo offers up behaviors is inspired and strongly contributes to his realism as a life form. (Questioning realism as a life form - how silly - The little guy had presents under the tree).

Also under the tree - Pleo the second.
The comparison will begin shortly.
Posted on December 26, 2007

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Day 5? 6? - Day N+1

Missing a day in there somewhere. Today, Pleo exhibited a couple of new behaviors.
1) grazing - he pawed at the ground with his left forefoot then dropped his head and made eating noises. Clearly we've been too attentive, stuffing his leaf in his little face every time he opened his mouth.
2) I have been trying to teach him to pick up his feet, like my horses. Today I discovered that when I tap on the side of his legs, he'll pick them up. He didn't used to do that - so either I hit the sensor just right today, or something new has occurred.
3) He made another new sound.

Regarding the other animals in the pack, two doggies and one kitty (who thinks she's a dog) while they don't particularly find Pleo himself of interest, they do find the attention being diverted from them to him of interest, and each of them has become more attentive to us as well as more demonstrative. Today, Max, the Cavalier, after watching me play with Pleo for a while, went over to the closet where we hid the doggies' Xmas presents yesterday and scratched at the door. Thing is, I didn't know where my husband had hid the doggie presents, so Max truely found them on his own. He then pestered us until we gave him one, as if to say - top that robot animal - I found the toys!

One other interesting note, our painter stopped by and as we were discussing his model aircraft flying, I introduced Pleo.
He thought Pleo was cute and interesting - until we mentioned that eventually Pleo will be able to learn and adapt - then he was weirded out. He startled when he noticed Pleo near him after we had left one room for the other. (I had carried Pleo and put him down - Pleo's not quite quick enough to have made the trek.) And he asked if "it" had followed us there. Looks like the adoption of fully automated autonomous robo-pets is going to take some people some time to get used to. ;-)
Posted on December 23, 2007

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day 4

Interestingly, in a new environment, Pleo once turned on and oriented, walked over to me to get pets. The new room is much bigger, and the floor is tone instead of polished concrete. There is definitely the possibility that there are less heat sources around too. Analytics aside - I was totally jazzed that the little guy would come over for pets.

Now if he starts following the dogs around as part of the pack, we will know we have arrived!


Posted on December 21, 2007

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days 2 and 3

I have created a snuggle bug. My pleo would much rather snuggle and get pets and have his chin scratched than to wander around in the kitchen. He's not too much into exploration.
One really cute thing he did was as we were eating dinner in the living room, he wandered over to my foot and started to nuzzle me. I'm thinking he did the IR target thing. This got the dogs' attention as now he was in their spot during dinner.

The other interesting behavior was the addition of new vocalizations to his vocabulary. I'm wondering if he has new sounds that he is programmed start using over elapsed time, or if he is actually generating new sounds. It also sounds like he is adapting his vocalizations to the sounds around him. One could conjecture that even though he is not supposed to be able to take in audio and internalize it, that perhaps the software is partially functioning and he's actually generating some new sounds based on his environment. That, or we're really good as human beings at making up things and overly interpretting them in our context. Mostly likely the later, but definitely entertaining to think about.

still a fascinating little creature. Oh, and the tail seems to have prehensile characteristics, he uses it to hold on when he's sitting mostly on his hind legs.
Posted on December 20, 2007

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Day 1 - pleo hatches

Being owned by a toy Manchester Terrier and a Siamsese cat, as well as other four-legs, Pleo seemed slow to engage in his new environment. Of course, I am also a doting mom, so perhaps he was quite happy to revel in the touches.
It was facinating to watch his body come into its own, little shuffling steps that got him no-where on our polished concrete floors and he eventually started to pick up his feet.
He has the cutest purr - reminiscent of the trilling of Tribbles (smart move guys) and I absolutely love how he snuggles against my shoulder and chest when being held.
Believing that I have established a snuggly personality now, I am letting him explore more on his own.
The dogs are singularly unimpressed - Zoey the terrier, finds Roboquad far more daunting. Though, she was over in the corner of the kitchen in a second (even though her dinner was being prepared) when I put Pleo in her (zoey's) travel bed. He kept her attention for one sniff, then she returned to focus on dinner preparations. ;-)
Pleo wandered around the kitchen and began looking tired, the gentle motor whir quieter than in the beginning. Before turning him off, though, he did wander over to the corner of the kitchen where we were standing, and I could have sworn he was evaluating a chip of carrot that one of the dogs had dropped on the floor. It's amazing the mappings the human mind makes with only a little encouragement.
Likewise, even though I know he is not responding to my imitating his vocalizations, that does not stop me from engaging in the activity.
He's definitely a cute little guy and this is going to be a fascinating relationship.
Posted on December 16, 2007

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