This Looks Healthy
While real cats and dogs seem far too keen on reproduction to ever be as scarce or expensive as they were in Blade Runner, Sega is pushing full steam ahead with an update to their freaky robotic felines.
The Dream Cat Venus is coming to Japan this month for $US110. Both touch and sound sensitive, the Venus (no relation to the planet or the feminine razor) reacts to your petting and talking with a proper amount of nudging and purring. And like the Sony Aibo, the Dream Cat can actually “see” through its camera-enabled eyes.
But does this poor robot need to look like the product from a My First Taxidermy kit? Drop the realism for a moment, Sega, and let these helpless kittenbots out of your dungeon in the uncanny valley. Such amoral plush tactics may work fine to tease the buffets of Melmac, but no one wants to see Japan become Melmac…any more than it already has. [Sega Toys (pdf) via CrunchGear]
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
As an owner of a baby Pleo, it's nice to see the technology is continuing.. Plus, this may seam frivolous, but what about those kids and their families too allergic to everything to have a dog or cat? *raises hand*
Melmac, HA! I kill me.
VideoVampire
@TCMcQueen: 'Enhance..."
Invisobel
@aec007: That is a cool machine, and would totally keep those annoying kids off my lawn, but in the case of the mouse, I couldnt kill it, I had to catch the damn thing. Robokitty could have taken care of it for me, allowing me to go back to screaming, which in the natural order, is my job.
Sheesh. I love cats, but let's be honest - programming a Replicat is hardly difficult to get wrong... and yet.. they did.
Cats are soft, squishy things that flop around - like a bag of jello with teeth and claws. They only have four behaviour modes: feed, sleep, beg for attention and moving from one place to another to get the first three. And none of those are exactly complicated.
Dogs, on the other hand, are a bag of sticks and never look relaxed unless unconscious or drugged.
That disturbing thing in the picture looks like someone took a chihuaua and dressed it up in a little cat fursuit.
Either way... ghastly.
Would this work on robot cats:
redban
This news must make Bob Barker happy as a clam.
@Purple Monkey Dishwasher: "If you've ever seen Pet Sematary, or owned a cat really..."
Uh, you can Never own a cat - They own you!
The_Bear
@Curves: Nah... just get one of these:
+ Watch video
aec007
@Curves: You would welcome a hunting killbot in the house? You're a strong woman, dear Curves.
Kaiser-Machead
@CoolRiver45: and when available, you can per her any which way you want.
:P
aec007
Chop off its head and you got yourself a tribble.
"...looks like the product from a My First Taxidermy kit"
Very well put. My thoughts exactly.
redman042
@LEWD98: I got a good laugh out of that one!!
redman042
@Ehrich Blackhound:"She doesn't know."
"She's beginning to suspect, I think."
"Suspect? How can it not know what it is?"
TCMcQueen
I don't get it. I don't see any videos and I don't read Japanese script. What's going on?
FrankenPC
Will it catch mice? I had to catch one over the weekend (major emotional trauma and since I let it go outside, I am sure it will just come back). I am allergic to animal dander so this would be ideal if it hunted.
@Hello Mister Walrus: Well, you'd best keep your head stuck on a swivel. When coding with Python it's "import Evil".
@armyofchuckness:
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED
Teen Girl Squad'd!
dingus
@orphic1: named his desktop ThunderPrincess.: I have the same collar for my idiot cat, minus the bell. All my cats have a "charm" on their collars.
I can has soul now plz? Kthx.
dingus
Uncanny Valley'd!
That photo reminds me of the time Zsa Zsa Gabor was sitting on Johnny Carson's sofa with a cat in her lap.
ZZ: "Would you like to pet my pussy?"
JC: "Sure, but you have to move that cat first"
LEWD98
@aja175:
"General isn't impressed"
It was so good I has to help post it!
@aja175:
oh forget it.
[twitpic.com]
aja175
@aja175:
lets try that again...
aja175
@OMG! Ponies!:
General isn't impressed
aja175
@OMG! Ponies!: My cats have the same response. That's why God invented radio-controlled flying toys.
Kaiser-Machead
@geiko:
Watson disagrees with your assessment.
@geiko: "Cats have something to them that robots haven't yet achieved"
No one knows how to program Evil yet.
Hello Mister Walrus
It's better than a "dream dog" who humps your leg all day.
Bonus points for an ALF reference. Nyce.
@Kaiser-Machead: I think Dita dozed off when you started talking?
Could you repeat that middle part? The part about the sleeping...
@OMG! Ponies!: Yeah, Sebastian disapproves also. Somehow I get the feeling that dogs are a lot more easy to emulate than cats. Cats have something to them that robots haven't yet achieved. But Sony has already come close for dogs with the Aibo.
Yes, I know that sentence is all whacky.
@OMG! Ponies!:
I also, am not threatened.
What good is a cat if you can't have it in chow main?
CoolRiver45
@alexvanduyn: And if so... Does she react to petting as well?
CoolRiver45
No robot, no matter how sophisticated man's devices ever become, will ever be able to sit there, on the edge of some high point in the room, with a sleepy judging gaze, surveying its realm and the bipedal pet(s) it adopted. There's no adequate replacement for a real cat. And you plebes can keep your cat eating/burning/milking jokes to yourselves, ya freaks!
Kaiser-Machead
I can't put my finger on it, but something about this is unsettling to me.
Joshua Willis
@alexvanduyn: Hahah, like this one?
Purple Monkey Dishwasher
Neither Maxie nor Dita approve of this. Further, neither feel in the least bit threatened.
Is the woman a robot too?
no video?
qbxk
That cat just looks soo lifeless and creepy. Perfect for a new J-horror flick where the lady is obsessed with cats and goes to a cat store and the store owner sells her a robotic cat and shes obsessed with it and then starts to kill people after she realizes the cats not real and then in the end, shes not real!!! Shes a robo-geisha!!!!
hhkim515
If you've ever seen Pet Sematary, or owned a cat really, you'll know that they are evil creatures... no robotic cats please
Purple Monkey Dishwasher
So this will be called "Pet, Pet, Relaxation"?
Can I haz robot sex kittenz dolz? Kay Thanks
SewerShark
Well, as long as we don't have to call in giant cockroaches to ward those Melmacians off.
"Do you like our pussy...cat?"
"It's artificial?"
"Of course it is."