SONY :: AIBO :: Sony empowers Aibo pet robot to read e-mail

By Paul Kallender , EE Times

URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20010507S0059

TOKYO — Acknowledging that its prodigal robot pet did little more than talk back and eat batteries every couple of hours, Sony Corp. on Monday (May 7) unveiled software that will enable its Aibo robots to read e-mail messages and Web pages.

The company's Aibo Messenger applications software gives Sony's two-year-old robot the ability to inform owners that e-mail has arrived, to read the contents of a message, and to convey text-based information such as news and weather from home pages, Sony said.

The software is delivered on a CD-ROM and is uploaded onto the PC of an Aibo owner. The software converts e-mail or Web files into sound files, which can be played through the robot's audio speakers when activated by a key word spoken to the dog, a Sony spokeswoman said.

"Some people have commented that Aibo wasn't very useful and asked why it didn't do e-mail," the spokeswoman said. "Now we're sort of taking it another step; now it can do something."

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