PleoBot.com – Pleo The Dinosaur

In the market survey that Ugobe is conducting, one of the questions asks you to choose which behaviors and abilities that you think best suite Pleo and your tastes.
The following list is given:

Dances to music (beat recognition)
Over 450 distinct movements and behaviors
Plays games with you (i.e., hide and seek, tug of war, etc.)
Ability for non-programmers [...]

I’ve added a current poll to the site. Right now it’s off to the right, but you can also come back and visit this page to see the current poll.

In the user survey that Ugobe is conducting, they have images of three potential boxes for Pleo. They ask you to vote for which you think is the most attractive and appropriate based on your previous survey question answers. In the survey, I picked the 2nd option, but now that I think about it, [...]

All of you that have signed up on Ugobe’s website to receive updates probably received an email late this afternoon. For those of you that didn’t, I’ll fill you in on some of the juicy tidbits.
First off, Ugobe “officially” announced that it’s pushing back the relase date of Pleo untill March (hopefully).
Secondly, the stated reason [...]

Apparently Toys R Us didn’t get the news about Pleo not getting released till March. Pleo apparently is available for “pre order” (pre preorder?) on Toys R Us’ website, with a release date of 09/15/2006. Can someone clue them in?
Their product description reads:

Pleo is an actual Camarasaurus Dinosaur with fully organic lifelike movements, autonomous personality, [...]

Caleb Chung with Pleo, via Forbes.com
Forbes has featured Pleo and Caleb Chung in this month’s issue. They’re also featured in the slideshow, “7 Amazing Robots That Will Change Your Life.” Pleo is alongside other great robots, such as iRobot’s Packbot and Stanford’s Stanley, the robotic car that won the DARPA Grand Challenge.

I just got an email from Khristine Valdez, Ugobe’s PR person, containing some juicy tidbits relating to Pleo and his release date.
According to Valdez, Ugobe will begin taking preorders for Pleo on December 24th, and will continue to do so until Pleo is released on the world in early March. “Timing for product release has [...]

This month’s issue of ROBOT Magainze features an exclusive interview with the makers of Pleo. In the article Tim Swieter talks with Ugobe’s Bob Christopher (CEO and Cofounder), John Sosoka (Chief Technical Officer), and Caleb Chung (Chief Inventor and Co-Founder).
Chung starts off by describing Ugobe’s vision, saying, “We are going after artifical life, and [...]

Apparently Shift Communications is handling all of Ugobe’s public relations tasks.
The only companies that I recognized on Shift’s client list were Oakley, WebTrends, and, of course, Ugobe.
Shift also has a corporate blog talking about all things PR and marketing. Check it out, PR Squared.

After posting on the controversy surrounding the similarity between the two Pleo videos, I emailed Ugobe about the issue. Here’s what I said:
I’ve been covering the latest Pleo
news at PleoBot and I’ve been surprised to see the reaction to this video.
It’s been rather strong.
I was wondering if I could get some official word from you [...]