In response to this article, we created a page, “Pets and Other Animals Interacting With Robotic Virtual Pets and Other Robots“, pulling together several sources of information on interactions between real pets, wildlife, birds, and other animals with robotic animals and similar devices. It includes several very interesting videos, scientific research, and anecdotal evidence.

Pleo is a realistic robotic dinosaur that will evolve through life stages and and develop a unique personality based on your interaction with him.

He is modeled after a one week old Camarasaurus sauropod, or long necked dinosaur and incorporates the basic traits of artificial life. He expresses his emotions through his actions and sounds.

Pleo includes two 32 bit microprocessors for central and image processing, four 8 bit subprocessors for motor control, 14 motors, over 100 gears, infrared and camera based vision, two microphones for hearing, eight skin sensors, four feet switches, fourteen force feedback sensors, a tilt sensor and an infrared mouth sensor (for food detection).

He also includes a mini USB port and as SD card slot (for add ons), and an infrared transceiver.

“First Hatch” 30 Day Shipment Notices were sent out to pre-orders on 8 November 2007, so Pleo is expected to be on the street, at least in limited numbers quite soon.

Amazon is taking orders for sale right now for a December 18th release.

It features realistic animal behavior, mood dependent behavior, and responds to stimuli with mood specific animations and sounds.

Technically, the chimp features infrared vision, detects movement, reacts to human interaction, has touch sensors on its chin, head and ears, and can be ran by remote control or on automatic interactivity.

Initially released in 2006, the Alive Chimpanzee is still for sale on Amazon.

Is this the first case of digital reverse evolution? (Going from a virtual community to an plush pet instead of from a plush pet to a virtual community).

A 26 September 2007 Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products (NVCP owns Neopets) press release announced they signed a licensing agreement with JAKKS to create a plush line of toys based on Neopets. They call it a collectable roll out strategy and say JAKKS will create new ways to interact with the site in the months ahead (maybe they will use some of the concepts we have mentioned in the past to better integrate the plush toys?) .

Neopets began with an online virtual community. As they began to add merchandise, they started selling traditional plush pets. Now that everybody else is launching virtual communities based on plush pets you purchase for the secret codes (tokens) to enter their virtual community, it sounds like Neopets is going to back up another step and follow suit.

The new plush Neopets are expected to hit the stores in early spring 2008. The plush toys will contain codes that allow players to unlock virtual extensions of the toys to use as part of their Neopets Key Quest experience. (sound familiar?). They say the plush pets are part of their “multplatform strategy”.

Sounds a little more like they (or their major stockholders) think they may have left some money on the table and are coming back to get it.

An example of one of the current (non token containing) Neopet plush pets is shown above. It is currently available from Amazon. The press release does not specifically say a plush pet will be required for entry, but points out they will be required to unlock virtual extensions of their plush pets. You may still be able to enter without one?

With the continued rash of entries into the plush pet virtual community category, Neopets may be able to bring some real innovation to the category through JAKKS who has also been involved in several interactive toys. We hope so. In their haste to hit the streets in a hurry, they may just copy everybody else and sell standard plush pets with a code on them as Generation I. Maybe Gen II will open some new doors. Time will tell.

JAKKS recent list of signed licenses is very impressive. It can’t help but make us think of the history of Dream Pets and the companies involved. We sure hope JAKKS comes out better than Applause did. We also hope all the new signings don’t detract too much from the time they have available to work on truly interactive Neopet plush pet designs.

She opened with a quiz to guess where you would find a Webkiz toy, the answer was tossed aside and forgotten in the corner of the bedroom. Her article is right on the theme of our earlier post, Hasbro Joins in Chase of Webkiz, Webkinz are being purchased solely for the ID tag to access their virtual world.

Bratz and MyePets are mentioned as following the Webkinz model (buy a plush pet or toy for access to the online community).

Other virtual communities for youth that do not require purchase of a something to enter are also briefly discussed (Barbie Girls, Club Penguin).

Its nice to see we are not the only ones noticing the “throw the Webkinz in the corner” mentality. However, we do still seem to be the only ones recognizing that somehow incorporating the physical pet into your online experiences or otherwise increasing its play value of the physical pet might differentiate you from the rapidly crowding field. Plus it could make you look more favorable to mom when she makes the purchase.

I tried to respond to Ad Age’s post in their system, but after spending many minutes signing up, giving them my life history, and finally writing my response, the form died. I hate it when that happens. Especially later you get bombarded by their advertising materials in your email box.

Anyway, my never sent comments mentioned the opportunity for third parties to create “add-on” additional features to bring new life to the tens of thousands of Webkinz and “Webkinz like” plush pets tossed in the corner right now.

If not, at least a toy drive to collect them and give them to poor kids might be in order?

Plus I pointed out their list of Webkinz wantabees missed Hasbro’s quite recent addition, the VIPs.

The pets are anticipated to list for $14.99 and are targeting young girls. Just like Webkinz, purchase of a pet will allow you to enter an online community of pet owners. You can customize a virtual home for your pet, purchase apparel for them and buy pet accessories. The virtual world uses a currency called Kibble.  You earn Kibble by keeping your virtual pet healthy and happy. (I wonder if Kibbles ‘n Bits pet food bought into this ?)

One nice feature is an adoption desk. You can sign up at littlestpetshop.com, borrow a pet for a limited time and check out the virtual world before actually purchasing a pet to gain continuous access to the world.

VIP owners can play 16 mini-games or get involved in ten different activities in the virtual world. Games include hang gliding, snowboarding, and skate boarding.

Hasbro’s new VIP games, MyePets.com from MGA, Webkinz, and others chasing Webkinz use an unusual approach. They provide you with a free online virtual community experience, but make you buy a plush pet as a token to enter. Its like you go to the store to buy the plush pet, get the secret codes to sign up online off of it, then just throw it in the corner and forget about it. Seems like a waste. But, they can’t get zillions of people to pay for access to the virtual community, so they use this as a monetizing method. Hard to knock it when they are being this successful.

Nonetheless, seems like if someone took a similar approach BUT also created and promoted some more ways to interact and have fun with the “real” plush pet, they could separate themselves from the pack.

No mention in the Littlest Pet Shop press release if their online pet vanishes in a year like  Webkinz does unless you buy another one.

Current versions include a Mutt, Chocolate Lab and and Golden Retriever (shown).

Myepets.com were announced in a 16 August 2007 MGA press release. They are another version of their Rescue Pets product line.

Earlier, we covered the booming success of Barbie’s new online world, Barbie Girls.

Now on the heels of major product recalls in several other industries surrounding products from China, Mattel has been hit hard twice. The first recall covered about 1.5 million of their Fisher Price toys with concerns about lead paint. Now about 265,000 “Sarge” cars from the “Cars” movie with lead paint concerns and 9.3 million toys with tiny magnets.  Overall 18.6  million magnetic toys and 436,000 die cast toy cars are being recalled.

A list and photos of Mattel toys being recalled with 1 August 2007 and 14 August 2007 recalls is online at Mattel Consumer Relations

Several Elmo items are on the list.

The lead paint issue has been in the news a while and nobody was releasing the name of the company involved in China. Lee Der Industrial Co. Ltd was recently identified as the Chinese company and a co-owner, Zhang Shuhong, committed suicide over this past weekend, reminiscent of the death of Robert Solomon over financial troubles with Dream Pets in 2004. Once again we are reminded,  the toy industry has intense pressures. Its not all fun and games for those employed by it.

Mattel’s Barbie is an icon in the doll industry. As we continue to try to put together a history of virtual pets, we become more aware of the contribution of dolls through out the ages. In addition they have been behind Pixel Chix, Barbie Girls, and many other virtual pet efforts.

Some writers are starting to question if Mattel will make it through this recent recall. Consumer confidence among those with young children is going to be hard to restore. The current recalls are all over the news, the morning shows, and now I see the legal arena – a company in Seattle is suing them in a class action for the lead paint issue.

The bulk of toys in many categories are made in China to keep the price low, but with the rash of recalls, there may be a new push for Made in America in virtual pets as well as other toys?

Mattel tries to make a case for their efforts in the future on their Voluntary Safety Recall Facts Page which includes an online video with Bob Eckert, Chairman & CEO talking straight to their plans as well as apologizing for the problem.

Panasonic showed a new fiber at the Tokyo Fiber 2007 Senseware Exposition in late June 2007. Other reports indicate it could have been introduced at a similar show in Omotesando in late April.  Panasonic’s new patent pending No-Constraints carpet available in white, brown, and a combination of white/black that looks like a skunk’s tail comes in two large snake shaped lengths (1.5 meters and 7 meters). The carpet has “built in” heating units that only warm the portion of the carpet you are touching to give it a lifelike, cuddly feeling. There intended purpose appears to be as “warmers”, something to wrap up with on the couch on a cool night or curl around your feet. Its very easy to image plush virtual pets that warm to your touch built from this fabric.

It looks like they currently actually “plug into” the wall via a longer thinner hair cord (see the white tail running to top right corner of the image from the skunk colored snake). Control panels for the snakes are modeled after paw pads. Cuddled virtual pets would need to be battery or solar powered and heat takes a lot of power. They might somehow be able to reflect heat from the user to feel more lifelike?

We have seen some microwaveable dolls (built with the small heating beads called thera-beads, thermi-beads,  medi-beads, etc.) that can be heated and then held. But not seen true heated virtual pets to date that I recall.

The photo comes from IN-duce on Flickr.

Per a BaldwinCountyNow.com article dated July 18, 2007, Page & Pallete Bookstore will offer the workshop on Saturday afternoon “due to popular demand.”  It will focus on the fun things kids can do online with their pet and how to care for their virtual pets. A local chiropractor will talk “about the importance of selecting healthy foods for themselves and their Webkinz.”

The chiropractor said her goal is to “teach the children why it’s important to feed their Webkinz well.”

By the way, the store is selling Webkinz and has a promotional punch card tracking your purchases. Buy 5 and you get one free.

Maybe there is a market for “imaginary pets” kids can care for to work their way up to caring for virtual pets?

The full article titled, Workshop Invites Children to Enter the World of Virtual Pets,  is available from BaldwinCountyNow.com