Play

It’s been more than a decade since Sony put down their iconic robot pet dog. However, they just announced their new and improved robot dog, Aibo (Short for artificial intelligence bot), that you can watch in the video above.

The newly resurrected pet now comes with artificial intelligence, internet capabilities and heart-melting puppy-dog eyes, made of OLED panels. It can also do pretty much everything a “real” pet dog can do, like walk, sit, shake hands, scratch itself, or play with a ball, apart from expressive dog behaviours like wagging its tail, moving the ears and head or opening its mouth.

The chargeable pet, with a battery life of two hours, is equipped with sophisticated touch sensors to detect “petting”, a speaker for making dog-like noises, and microphones, for processing commands, as well as a camera in its nose to take pictures.

Sony claims that the new Aibo, which is set for release in January in Japan, “can form an emotional bond with members of the household while providing them with love, affection, and the joy of nurturing and raising a companion.” Aibo’s behaviour is also allegedly adaptable, which means it adapts to its owners, learns what makes them happy, gradually gets accustomed to wider environmens, and uses deep learning technology to analyse the audio and visuals it picks up through its sensors. The pet also uses cloud computing to learn from the experiences of other Aibos.

Now, while this robot may not require potty training, trips to the vet, long walks or your constant attention, it does require a rather hefty payment, of about $1,740. This, along with a mandatory contractual monthly subscription of about $26 to the My Aibo app, which gives the Aibo owners Wi-FI and LTE connectivity, cloud backup of pictures taken by Aibo, and features like new tricks.