RoboSapien in the News

Fun article about the RoboSapien toys out. Whenever I saw them in stores I thought that they would be sort of silly, but now I'm intrigued.

Interestingly, there was another article in the NYTimes recently about how kids aren't playing with tinkertoys and all anymore, opting rather for video games. Makes you wonder if programmable toys like this aren't a new third way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/magazine/28ROBO.html?pagewanted=2


When we spoke, Jacob had just made his Robosapien karate chop his older brother in the head ''to see if it would hurt.'' (Not much.)

...

Some scientists have predicted that the real advances in robotics will not occur in university or government labs but in entertainment robots like Robosapien, conceived to appeal to consumers. In a remarkable scholarly book, ''The Secret Life of Puppets,'' Victoria Nelson argues that our sense of the supernatural and yearning for immortality has been displaced from religion to such expressions of popular culture as superheroes, robots and cyborgs. We want robots that will perform chores for us, but want them for deeper, more mysterious reasons, too.

...

One and a half million Robosapiens have been sold worldwide -- against original estimates of 50,000 in the first year.


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