PleoBot.com – Pleo The Dinosaur

Blogger Mike, at Pleo’s Dreams blog, discovered Pleo’s debug port.

The port is under a glued-on piece of plastic next to Pleo’s power switch.

There’s a post on the PleoWorld forums about hacking Pleo’s battery.
The battery pack is a 7.2v pack made up of 6 2200mAh NiMH cells. NiMH’s have a nominal voltage of 1.2v each. The battery pack has three terminals – plus, minus and a thermistor to measure the temperature of the cells. One poster, “pleohacker” points [...]

I got my Pleo. Will post soon with results.

Here is a list of Pleo’s “life stages”, taken from the official instruction manual:

Life Stages
Pleo has three life stages, and his progress depends on your level of
interaction. Listen for his first sounds, look for his first steps, watch
how he adjusts to his world. As Pleo progresses through each
stage, he exhibits a broader range of movement [...]

Here’s a list of the things we are told not to do to Pleo, from the instruction manual:
• Abuse Pleo
• Get Pleo wet (cross off trips to the swimming pool)
• Throw, drop, or violently shake Pleo (isn’t this the same as #1)
• Sit on Pleo (awww … I was looking forward to this)
• Place Pleo [...]

Fast Company has listed Pleo as a possible Christmas hype toy. What do you think?
Furby creator Caleb Chung is back with a robotic dinosaur–the Pleo’s marketers prefer to call it a “life form”–that’s stirring some of the year’s biggest buzz. Modeled on a juvenile camarasaur, the Pleo has two microprocessors and nearly 40 sensors. All [...]