Internet Enabled Robot Penguin Wants To Be Your Friend
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Tuesday, 23 of June , 2009 at 4:55 am
This little penguin, called MyDeskFriend, is sort of like the robotic love child of a Furby and a Nabaztag (just picture that). It’s designed to wander around your desk, responding to simple voice commands and using IR sensors to follow your finger and edge sensors to keep itself from committing suicide. An accelerometer allows it to react to poking and prodding in various ways, and light up eyes convey different emotions.
The specific appeal of MyDeskFriend (besides its robopenguin-ness, which we all know is a winner) is that it can connect to the internet, specifically to Facebook, and keep you abreast of the all of the OMG status updates made by your friends. It can read updates and instant messages to you directly using its robot penguin voice, and it’ll also ingest basic RSS feeds (like weather) as well as email and calendar alerts. Slightly less fun (depending on what you call “fun”) is that MyDeskFriend acts rather like a Tamagotchi, demanding “food” and “walks” and stuff like that. No word on whether or not it’ll die if you neglect it.
It’s a whole bunch of features in a cute little penguiny package, and it should be available in September for $99.
[ MyDeskFriend ] VIA [ GetRobo ]
Comments (3)
Category: Consumer, Novelty, Toys
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Comment by Joey1058
Made Tuesday, 23 of June , 2009 at 3:03 pm
It’s smaller than I thought. The thing that turned me off was the key word “Tamagotchi”. I’m NOT gonna invest in another “pay attention to me so I can suck all your free time from you” toy.
Comment by Robotguy
Made Tuesday, 23 of June , 2009 at 6:36 pm
I…need…to…hack…that!
Wonder what the processor is?
Comment by Seb
Made Wednesday, 1 of July , 2009 at 1:36 pm
er…
is that funny/useful at all?