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AIBO (''Artificial Intelligence Robot'', homonymous with , "pal" or "partner" in Japanese) is an iconic series of robotic pets designed and manufactured by Sony. Sony announced a prototype robot in mid-1998. The first consumer model was introduced on May 11, 1999. New models were released every year until 2005. Although most models were dog-like, other inspirations included lion-cubs and space explorer, and only the final ERS-7 version was explicitly a "robot dog". AIBOs were marketed for domestic use as "Entertainment Robots". They were also widely adopted by universities for educational purposes (e.g. Robocup) and research into robotics and human-robot interaction. AIBOs have been used in many movies, music videos and advertising campaigns as futuristic icons. On January 26, 2006 Sony announced that it would discontinue AIBO and several other products in an effort to make the company profitable. It also stopped development of the related QRIO robot. Sony's AIBO customer support was withdrawn gradually, with support for the final ERS-7M3 ending in March 2013. Some third party support is available, such as repairs and battery refurbishment. In 2006, AIBO was added into Carnegie Mellon University's "Robot Hall of Fame" with the description "the Sony AIBO represents the most sophisticated product ever offered in the consumer robot marketplace." From July, 2014, Sony no longer provide repairs for AIBO products and will not give any kind of customer support or repair for AIBO products. ==Development== AIBO grew out of Sony's Computer Science Laboratory (CSL). Founded in 1990, CSL was set up to emulate the famed innovation center at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). CSL's first product was the Aperios operating system, later to form the base software AIBO's. When Nobuyuki Idei became president of Sony in 1995, he sought to adopt a digital agenda, reflected in the new motto he gave the company, “Digital Dream Kids,” and the prominence he gave to CSL. Famed engineer Dr. Toshitada Doi is credited as AIBO’s original progenitor: in 1994 he had started work on robots with artificial intelligence expert Masahiro Fujita within CSL. Fujita would write that the robot's behaviors will need to “be sufficiently complex or unexpected so that people keep an interest in watching or taking care of it”.〔(M. & Kitano, H. (1998). Development of an autonomous quadruped robot for robot entertainment. Autonomous Robots, 5, 7-20. )〕 Fujita argued that entertainment robots might be viable as "A robot for entertainment can be effectively designed using various state-of-the-art technologies, such as speech recognition and vision, even though these technologies may not be mature enough for applications where they perform a critical function. While there exists special and difficult requirements in entertainment applications themselves, limited capabilities in the speech and vision systems may turn out to be an interesting and attractive feature for appropriately designed entertainment robots." His early monkey-like prototype "MUTANT" included behaviors that would become part of AIBOs including tracking a yellow ball, shaking hands, karate strikes and sleeping. Fujita would later receive the IEEE Inaba Technical Award for Innovation Leading to Production for "AIBO, the world's first mass-market consumer robot for entertainment applications". In 1997 Doi received backing from Idei to form Sony’s Digital Creatures Lab. Believing that robots would be commonplace in households by 2010, but aware of the shortcomings of available technology for functional uses, he decided to focus on robots for entertainment. Almost ten years later, Idei's successor, Howard Stringer closed down AIBO and other robotic projects. Doi then staged a mock funeral, attended by more than 100 colleagues from Sony.〔http://www.theskinny.co.uk/tech/features/whokilledaibo Who killed AIBO the robotic dog? ''The Skinny'', 27 July 2015〕 At the funeral, Doi said that the Aibo was a symbol of a risk-taking spirit at Sony that was now dead. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「AIBO」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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