Ugobe to be the "Pixar of Robotics"?

Caleb Chung, the creator of everyone's favorite obnoxious furry robot pal, Furby, is helping start a new company that claims to revolutionize the robot toy industry. The new company, dubbed "Ugobe", which sounds vaguely like an African nation, is creating a lifelike pal that will, "... have certain personality characteristics. The toy will also adapt to its owner's behavior."

The company officials frequently refer to themselves as the "Pixar of robotics", in terms of how Pixar creates lifelike artificial beings.

"It will respond to its owner," said Ugobe CEO Bob Christopher. "If the owner is playful, the tech toy will become more playful. If the owner is scared, it will become scared."

The toy will be released in September and will be debuted in Sharper Image stores. They're also in negotiations with other stores.

On an interesting side-note, iRobot almost released their Roomba robots exclusively with Sharper Image, but backed out at the last minute. Had they done that, it's almost guaranteed that they wouldn't be as popular today. Let's hope Ugobe doesn't make the same mistake.

Frankly, what Ugobe is trying to do sounds a lot like what WowWee is already doing. Time will tell.

Tags: [ Robots | Ugobe | WowWee | Toys ]

Flag this post

Ugobe to be the "Pixar of Robotics"?

Thanks for helping to keep our community civil!