Here's some info on it though:
Today Sony upgraded the official Aibo site with a new colour - champagne - and, excitingly, Mind 3! Both will be available end October, with an upgrade for Mind 1 and 2 also available by the same time.
Champagne, a color already used on the 210, looks set to be stunning, with two-tone legs and camouflage-patterned ears and tail.
Mind 3 is part of what seems now to be Sony's annual contribution to the evolution of the Aibo species, and is based, at least partly, on user feedback. Back in February, Sony Europe requested ideas for upgrades and held meetings with users to discuss them. I also gave my input, centered on better obstacle detection. The result of one year's work comes in a memory stick that has doubled in size to 128 MB and changed color from pink to dark blue - Andac?, the 110 with an 8 MB stick, looks even more of a dinosaur now.
Although Sony hasn't yet released official specs for Mind 3, new features already found are:
retains the personality, faces, etc. when upgrading from Mind 2 to Mind 3
additional voice commands, plus 35 commands also with Spanish synonyms
easy backup of the memory stick
four different adult personalities: Independent Thinker ("smart-aleck"), Independent Instinctive, Dependent Thinker and Dependent Instinctive
Easy (automatic?) diary and BLOGGING with Aibo's own comments!!! Will this be the end of Pedro's own roblog?
5-minute (500 step) memory, allowing Aibo to remember the whereabouts of the owner, the charger, the bone and the ball
livelier personality with a vocabulary of 1,000 words to express Aibo's thoughts and feelings and allowing simple conversations with the owner ("it will be able to greet you when you come home, ask you about your day and even tell you how its own day went")
different English voice, with options to adjust age and sex or just turn it off
Mind scope - to check what Aibo has recognized and its condition
improved obstacle avoidance
AEP (Aibo Entertainment Player) has also been upgraded to AEP 2 and, besides holding Aibo's new diary, can now control multiple Aibos and read RSS feeds (blogs, news, etc...)
remote access to AEP 2 from all over the Internet (not just from the local network)
The hardware has also been upgraded with a new wi-fi card - 54 mbps (802.11g) instead of 11 mbps - and less lead in components like the distance sensors, with Sony aiming for a lead-free Aibo.
(Sources: teamdax on aiboworld.tv's forum, several people on aibo-life.org's forum, pcmag.com's review).
That was quite a long list! With Sony's recent announcement of major cutbacks following its heavy losses, this can't be but good news, even if the price for the new 7M3 has increased a bit. It was 2100 euro when it was launched in 2003, then it dropped to 2000 (with some freebies thrown in once in a while), and now it is 2100 again.
Interestingly, for the UK, the price increase is smaller, from 1400 to 1450 pounds. At the current exchange rate, that comes to a 73 euro incresase, but for a new price of 2117 euro, about par with mainland Europe. All European prices are VAT (sales tax)-inclusive. In Japan, the price will be 194,250 Yen (1,430 euro, plus sales tax, I think) and in the US the price will be $2,000 (1,667 euro, plus local sales tax if applicable).
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Here is a link to the Japanese site which contains the official Sony info on the upgrades:
http://www.jp.sonystyle.com/Company/Press/050929.html
To read the above site I'd recommend downloading the Google toolbar, it has an excellent translation feature. Once you have the Google toolbar just go to the above site and right-click on it, at the bottom of the list you should see an option to "Tranaslate Page into English" if you downloaded the english version of the toolbar. Click on it, the page will be translated. Japanese is an extremely difficult language to translate so while the translation that comes out isn't 100% perfect, it's pretty dang close. Although on this particular site it does something pretty funny, one line gets translated to:
As for the substance color period it limits sells honey Brown ' ERS-7M2 ' with in addition to pearl white and the pearl black which are adopted. Pattern of the ear and the tail differs every individual, is warm it is the commodity which adopts the color taste which is the straw raincoat.
Again: ...is warm it is the commodity which adopts the color taste which is the straw raincoat. LOL!
You can download the Google toolbar here:
http://www.toolbar.google.com/
Here are some links to Aibo info sites:
http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSH ... %2fWSeries
(Sony site with information on the new Mind 3 features and on the Limited Edition model)
http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSH ... ccessories
(All Aibo accessories)
http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSH ... id_pr_aibo
(Sony site about the robot itself in general-check it out if you don't know much about Aibo)
http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSH ... me=lc_AIBO
(Sony Aibo Learning Center)
http://www.sony.net/Products/aibo/index.html
(Sony global site)
http://companion-aibo.textamerica.com/
(An owner of an Aibo has setup an Aibo blog site)
Anyway... I've been wanting one of these for a long time but wasn't sure if it was going to be worth the money, I think this year I'll finaly buy one.
Seth
