Do Robot Cats Dream of Electric Mice?
01/11/2001 . Source: Stephen Hunt 
Last month our weird science team dug up the Universal Translator for pets – a device that allows you to communicate with your dog, bringing a whole new level of closeness between man/woman and their Fido. This month, our chums in Japan have gone one better, and decided to do away with the organic altogether by the cunning crafting of the robot moggy! Yes, the nation behind Tamagotchi and Aibo are launching NeCoRo the RoboCat in time for Christmas (surely not a Japanese holiday?). Initially, only five thousand of the odd looking beasts will be constructed, at a wopping $1700 US each. That’s nearly twice the price of Sony latest Aibo robot pets, which can recognize more than 75 simple words, take photos and mimic human intonation. 
NeCoRo’s Robo-Moggy is obviously hoping for a repeat of Xmas 1999 when the entire world stock of Aibo pets sold out in twenty minutes – quickly selling secondhand on exchanges like Ebay.com for triple the retail price. NeCrRo may sound like a flesh-dropping undead villain from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but apparently it is a play on words on the word ‘cat’ in Japanese. South Park recently did a sidesplitting episode where they took the piss out of incomprehensible Japanese cartoons, comics and toys – painting a Japanese plot where James Bond-like Japanese baddies planned to take over the world using these cultural oddities to brainwash kids into a world army of anime fanatics. Some of the funniest scenes were where kids and the marketeers behind the merchandise started talking to each other in weird manga-speak: lines which could have come straight out of this corporate statement about the RoboCat found on the NeCrRo web site. "Envisioning a society embodying a wide diversity of values, where everyone can live comfortably at peace (what Omron calls the Optimization Society), Omron sees the importance in the realization of a machine that can communicate with humans and understand them. A machine that is gentle to humans and responds appropriately to an individual's needs. Natural communication between humans and machines is made possible with the cat type communication robot NeCoRo." Well, that’s clear then. Anyway, this odd RoboTiddles has tactile sensors on its ears and back, and an audio visual sensor array which lets it recognizes its master’s noises, movements and the calling of its name (which you pick, of course). As well as a vast range of cat speech, this refugee from a BladeRunner pet stall can wiggle its ears, squint its scary-looking eyes, and move its head and legs to express emotions ranging from anger to happiness and shock. Going for new levels of realism, the NeCrRo creature has a realistic fur skin - synthetic of course, no skinning of foxes involved – that expands and contracts in time with all its other expressions and motions. The scientists behind NeCoRo have designed the beast to develop a unique personality depending on how much care its owner lavishes upon it – just like the Tamagotchi pets of yesteryear that were so needy in their demands for love and virtual food. Strangely, the thought of a sullen RoboCat moping around the house because its been abandoned by the spoilt kids that are going to end up owning this contraption is just a little too close to Spielberg’s A.I. movie for comfort! If you want one of these beasts, then pop on over to ... www.necoro.com 
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