Posted in Design, History, Live pets, Plush Pets, Robotic Pets on Jun 15th, 2008
A recent front page Wall Street Journal article, “When Dogs and Robots Collide, Somebody Needs a Talking To”. Wall Street Journal. 11 June 2008. Page A1 by Andrew LaVallee talks about the interactions of “real” dogs with robotic dogs, and with Roomba vacuums. In response to this article, we created a page, “Pets and Other […]
Posted in Business, Design, History, Virtual Communities on May 30th, 2008
“Fans Resist End of Virtual Disneyland.” Wall Street Journal. 20 May 2008. Page B1. Reports Disney’s Virtual Magic Kingdom launched in 2005 as part of the 50th anniversary of Disneyland. The free game allowed users to create avatars and explore an interactive version of Disneyland. Now Disney wants to pull the plug. Some think to […]
Posted in Business, Design, History, Plush Pets, Virtual Communities on Oct 9th, 2007
With everybody imaginable jumping in to follow Webkinz’s successful model of selling plush pets as tokens to enter an online community, Neopets has announced they will be creating a plush pet entry path to their virtual community as well. Is this the first case of digital reverse evolution? (Going from a virtual community to an […]
Posted in Business, Design, History, Keychain Pets, Live pets on Aug 3rd, 2007
Bowlingual, a small handheld device for interpreting the barks of your “real” dog was announced by a Takara press release on 10 June 2002. The Japan Acoustic Laboratory’s “Animal Emotion Analysis System” formed the basis for the invention. A database of voiceprints was developed for comparisons. Takara handled the planning and marketing. Dreams Come True, […]
Posted in Design, History, Robotic Pets on Jul 29th, 2007
Released back in early 2005, we include Choro Mode Pet here due to its unique method of control. A little cable connects the small robotic pet to the headphone jack of a Japanese mobile phone. The pet is then controlled by the “sounds” of you pressing the keys. For example: 1 to go left, 2 […]
Posted in Business, History, Keychain Pets on Jul 29th, 2007
Hasbro (Tiger) has relaunched the famous Giga Pets from the early days of keychain pets. The new pets are available in several animals to suit both boys and girls (scorpion and bunny shown here). They are much more rounded in appearance than the early pets. We include a photo here of the original Digital Doggie […]
We find these pets extremely interesting. Although somewhat basic, they reopen an old category (Sea Monkeys) and open a new one (direct Internet to virtual pet interaction via flashing lights) that may provide many opportunities for future virtual pet designers. The brief instructions below come from their online instruction manual. You can also watch a […]
Posted in Business, History, Keychain Pets, Tamagotchi on Jun 29th, 2007
I just recalled, this Thanksgiving will be the 10th Anniversary of the release of Virtual Pet Secrets magazine back in 1997. I edited it for H&S Media. The first (and only) issue covered keychain virtual pets in depth with articles on collecting, displaying some of the larger collections, trends and developments, FAQ and tips, the […]
Posted in History, People, Virtual Communities on Jun 28th, 2007
The Telegraph, a United Kingdom daily paper, reports on deviant behaviors surfacing in Second Life and other virtual communities, in its 2 June 2007 article, Trouble in Online Paradise . Problems include players posing as minors to sell virtual sex, gather in virtual riots, virtually assault one another, human avatars having sex with virtual animals, […]
Posted in History on Jun 28th, 2007
We will be briefly covering each of the latest developments in virtual pets here while we continue to post larger articles and studies on our Virtual Pet Home Page We also welcome any comments or suggestions you may have for our Virtual Pets Blog. Polson Enterprises
