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[degers]

Dear all,

I have secured an interview with John Sosoka, formerly Chief Technical Officer of Ugobe!  If anyone knows everything about Pleo, he does!  He has been involved with Pleo right from it's inceptionn and now is your chance to suggest a question for me to ask him!

Please feel free to post any questions you would like asked below.  I will pick the best 10-15 or so and they will go to interview!

(Please only make one post each, if you think up any more questions please go and edit your original post!  I will only take questions from your first post!)


Many Thanks guys!

Degers

[Crewella]

Wow - that's exciting!  Well done you!

I'll have a good, long, think for an intelligent question and come back to you!

Edit 1

OK - it might fall short of 'intelligent', but I would be interested to know if Ugobe had any input into the recent O2 upgrade.  Were there changes/improvements made that Ugobe had already planned, or were they all created by a new team at Innvo?


Edit 2

I remember Ugobe originally talking about other products, and one that caught my imagination was the idea of making everyday technology, like cameras, more interactive and more like a 'life-form'.  Did they ever take those ideas any further, or plan to?  (If you think it's appropriate to ask that, of course).

[ohnart]

Awesome Can't wait to hear the interview! I will post a question if I come up with one

[Raieth]

Wow, that's so cool.

Questions:

edited for lack of paying attention.

[shadowmice]

I'd be curious to know to what extent our Pleos are really able to "see" things and interpret them. What would be the limitations with the current hardware on their abilities and how was their firmware (talking the final Ugobe version of course) structured to make the most out of them considering these limitations.

Similarly, how much can they really hear and interpret, and how much does their own inherent noise (motors, gears, electrical) compromise their abilities. (ie how loud would the music or a voice have to be for them to be able to react, if they can).

ETA Aug 4:

Gee, I had thought there would be tons of question too. Ok - a couple more technical questions:

Do Pleos have any protective circuitry built-in to prevent reverse voltage, overvoltage? I'm thinking about others who have constructed or are thinking of constructing their own power packs. If there is no internal protective circuitry, then presumably anyone tackling such an endeavour would need to proceed with real caution to avoid damaging their Pleo.

Some people who ran OS updates or downgrades ran into problems and their Pleos ended up bricked. Does the upgrade process erase everything on the Pleo's internal memory? If so, is there any way to manually access the memory or leftover code within the Pleo and force a reset/reload to "unbrick" the Pleo? When is the most vulnerable period of the update process? ie when should we never, ever, turn off the Pleo once an update has been started?

On the not-so technical side:

If it's possible to discuss, what were some of the long term plans for Pleo? How many were going to be achievable with the hardware as it is in our original Pleos?

As a technical person fully aware of the internal operations of the Pleo, did you find you were ever able to see past the hardware and see them as the "lifeform" they were advertised as and as many owners have done, forming bonds with their Pleo 'pets"?

[gucci_boi7782]

I'm convinced I will edit this a million times before it's all said and done.

How much difference is there between the original concepts of Pleo and what Pleo is today? What are the limitations, if any?

Was there initially in the plans to make more robots? If so, other than dinosaurs or specific to dinosaurs? Would they all be domesticated household pet robots or would they advance to other fields of robotics?

What work do you do now? Do you care to elaborate?

THANK YOU Degers for asking our opinion!!

EDITED TO ADD:

Did UGOBE plan to make Pleo better overtime? Such as improved physical and technical aspects. Does John Sosoka agree that not publicly advertising [when they actually had the funds] was one of the falls of UGOBE? In John Sosoka's opinion, why did UGOBE fail, and what happened? In John Sosoka's opinion, what are the greatest pros and cons to INNVO LABS? Why did UGOBE never produce more software? Or make Pleo more open source? Why did Ugobe go in so head strong just to fail so brilliantly in the end? Why did Ugobe fail? Why hadn't there been more publicity about Pleo? What was the intent of Pleo? Why did they even think to make a robotic lifeform, camarasaurus in the first place?

I last heard John Sosoka was working in robotics again, does he care to shed some light on his projects? Will John Sosoka ever work will Pleo again? How connected is John Sosoka with all his old comrades? Such as Caleb Chung and many of the old UGOBE board and employees? Oh and what is the exact size of the neck cables?

Thanks again, I'm sure there will be more...

[degers]

Well I am really surprised and disappointed at the lack of questions from all of you.  Thank you to those who have asked a question!  I am surprised that there is not a huge stack of questions that everybody would like to ask the person who turned Pleo from an idea into reality!

[gucci_boi7782]

You know? Goodness, I could write a book about all my questions! Want me to edit my post and add more??

[fancyfont]

Degers, I would love to know at any time did the makers of pleo think we would fall in such love with these robots,  that they would become part of our families? Had the makers of pleo given any thought to  have some kind of repair facility for those pleos that were injured, knowing that replacing a pleo for another pleo isn't an option for some.

[shadowmice]

I had thought there would have been a lot more questions too; maybe the more senior members here already know all about the innards of their Pleos but there is so much I do not know. I've added a few more questions to my original post in case you can still use them.

[InmemoryofRomeo]

I posted on the admin thread but...

I want to also know was anything about Pleo a compromise? Due to differing opinions or price concerns?

I also want to know, would they have done anything different if they could start it over again.

[ohnart]

Question: Did you guys wanted Pleo to be an awesome toy or a really different pet?

[gucci_boi7782]

When is the interview?? I love my last question, in bold....Geez I'm on the edge of my seat waiting!!