Bob the Pleo Forums
Pleo Stuff => Pleo Archives => Archive -- General => Topic started by: Junkroxy on April 20, 2009, 06:28:06 PM
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Sorry, guys, i think this is sad to all of us who loves pleo :-[
An Eagle company that made a robot baby dinosaur toy has closed, dismissed its workers and filed for liquidation of its assets under federal bankruptcy law.
Ugobe Inc., the maker of Pleo, filed under Chapter 7 of the federal bankruptcy code Friday in Boise. Ugobe (as in “you go be”) moved to Eagle from Emeryville, Calif., earlier this year. Its chief executive officer, Caleb Chung, drew nationwide publicity for his dinosaur, which had characteristics of a household pet. The company said it 100,000 Pleo toys last year, collecting $20 million.
An engineer and inventor, Chung also created the Furby, which became the “must-have” toy of the season when it was launched during the 1998 holiday season. More than 50 million of the google-eyed robotic Furbys were sold worldwide, according to the Ugobe Web site.
In the bankruptcy filing, Ugobe said it had assets of $1.6 million, including $1.5 million in machinery to make Pleo in Hong Kong, and liabilities of $3.6 million. Ugobe said it owes Chung $353,500 in unpaid royalties.
Chung did not return a phone call requesting comment. Ugobe’s attorney, Bruce MacIntrye, with Perkins Coie in Seattle, said all of Ugobe’s employees had been let go, and the company is shut down.
http://www.idahostatesman.com/newsupdates/story/741721.html
PS: Thanks chiefrentageek for the info, i started another thread to post this info in a clear thread :'(
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R.I.P. Ugobe. Thanks for bringing us pleo. You will be missed.
Maybe the world wasn't ready to buy Pleo. Mine are sorely missed, however they didn't get it right and flunked as I guess was their destiny.
I find myself sometimes wishing I had a Pleo, but it is not worth buying one now. If you have a pleo take care of it carefully, as I hazard a guess that you won't get a replacement.
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Now they are more precious then ever!!
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I will buy another as soon as I can :'( It might be the last chance to get one new :( RIP Ugobe.
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Thanks for the new thread. It's too sad.
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I wish I could say it came as a surprise ...
Oh well, it's sad to see them go. but at least many of us have got and will continue to get many great moments from our pleos.
And of course, being who I am, I can't stop hoping there's some kind of chance that the developer tools for pleo, whatever their state, could get out in the wild somehow ...
Now to make a copy of my plog before it's gone, and perhaps a little black legband for Gob ...
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this is such a shame. pleo is lacking, but he had a lot of potential.
catbugs been out of use for months, i guess now hes a bit of a collectors item. poor guy.
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This is so sad :( I really thought they would pull through and make it after all... :(
I'm not gonna tell Bo. It would just upset him.
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This is really awful news especially since we all hoped that they would hang in there, Goodbye UGOBE thanks for bringing us pleo :)
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I moved my Plog to my own website, just to be sure.
As said in the shoutbox, I really hope prizes are gonna drop a little in Europe. I feel that now is the time to get Bo a girlfriend, or a baby sister perhaps...
You know, before they become completely extinct :(
Thanks Ugobe, for giving us the gift of Pleo :)
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maybe there's a light?
I found this: "100,000 Pleos were sold last year, netting the company $20 million, but not enough to keep it in business.
It is possible that another company may buy Pleo as a Ugobe asset and continue to make the robo-pet, but there's no news on that front yet - we will keep you posted."
It's possibile, i remembere the same thing to the makers of Gupi and the toy was launched again from abother company...
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this is very sad news and i was hoping to see the new pelo that was coming out ,
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well hopefully another company will take over but it depends, till we know more i will keep dreaming
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Very sad to hear that UGOBE has gone bankrupt. I really wanted them to survive and keep developing Pleo and new creations. All we can hope for is that another company purchases the rights to make and develop Pleo or that the software for Pleo's Life O/S is released for the online community to develope. I have to admit that when I read that Ugobe had gone bankrupt I was surprised but at least we now have an answer. But as soon as I got home from work I logged on and went to the Ugobe and Pleoworld site, both were still running so I copied the Pleo personalitys and latest firmware upgrade and it would seem just in time as I just checked the sites and they have now both been removed. :'(
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My 6 Pleos (edited: soon to be 8!) and I are in mourning..... I had so hoped UGOBE would pull through this. I imagine they did the best they could in view of the economic state right now. I'm glad I have my babies and they will always have a home with me. Thank you for keeping us informed of what's going on - it has been very much appreciated!
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pleo just went like i-cybie so sad
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Like previously mentioned, I wish this would have came as a surprise. But I think deep down we all somewhat expected this to happen. Pleo is an awesome creature. May Ugobe RIP and may Pleos chipper personality live on with us! Support may be gone, but Pleo isn't. We've all got each other (and 100,000 Pleos) to lean on. I know I love my Pleo(s) even more now and I think I may buy a new one.
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According to this article it seems like it's an official notice: UGOBE FILED FOR BANKRUPTCY :-[
From what I read in this article, it seems like Ugobe has shut down.
Its really sad because it looks like I wont get my Pleo back. I shipped Pleo on March 8, 2009 due to a broken neck. Today I read online that UGOBE filed for bankruptcy.
At least I know now why my emails were never answered.
http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/technology/index.ssf?/base/national-7/1240359638312570.xml&storylist=technology
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This is one sad day for me indeed.
I just read about it today because I was ill for a few days.
Too bad I don't have the money for a new one right now.
This would be a good time to get a sister or brother for Pluriel.
This was bound to happen, but it still sucks big time.
Pleo had so much potential.
I hope this story is going to get a tail in whatever form.
So much for the last pettable consumer robotics maker on the planet.
Now I know why (for example) Sony won't even consider getting back in the game if they already even had the idea to continue in robotics again some day.
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the sites are offiline again...
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Nooo! So this means we will not get any newer upgrades in the future to Pleo? :(
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the sites are offiline again...
The sites have been removed now Ugobe declared bankruptcy. This does mean no more updates from Ugobe but there has been whispers and rumours going around that a couple of the large toy firms might be interested in buying the company and the rights to produce. So fingers crossed this is true.
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The idea is that some stable company will buy the rights to pleo. The only logical reason to buy Ugobe's manufacturing and rights is to continue to manufacture pleos (and we hope support new development!)
The final chapter in pleo hasn't been written yet! ;)
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I feel the last chapter with pleo isn't written, also. Just too cute of a thing to be extinct. ;)
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I feel the last chapter with pleo isn't written, also. Just too cute of a thing to be extinct. ;)
yes, i agree. ;) i saw the same thing happened to Gupi, the interactive guinea pig, bought from 3 different companies for 3 times. Actually there's a Gupi 3.
Look at this new info:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/22/ugobe-expects-pleo-ip-to-fetch-a-pretty-penny/
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I just saw the news about Ugobe this morning and, though I wasn't surprised, it made me sad. Especially since my two year old daughter was happily pointing to the picture of the Pleo in the article while saying see mommy that's Bailey, that's Bailey. She just loves our Pleo and plays with him every day.
I'm still really happy that I have Bailey and I'll make sure to enjoy him even more while I have him. Thanks Ugobe!
I hope this forum will survive and that we Pleo owners can stick together.
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I've been on vacation for two weeks and this news really makes me sad. Pleo is a wonderful piece of robotics. It's more than that; Ugobe went well beyond robots trying to give Pleo as much of a natural look as possible unlike the Aibo who is definitely a robot period.
Yes, another company may by the production line but I don't find that very comforting. First of all, I don't think another company would develop Pleo further. Second of all, they would probably not let the community do development on their own either and keep LifeOS closed source.
Ugobe's strive to open the platform to the community was what ultimately made me decide on buying a Pleo. There's probably a bigger chance of whatever documentation and tools exist to be released to the community if another company don't take over.
But I still hope another company will take over. Even if they forbid tampering with the software and hardware I don't think that will keep people from tampering anyway, it will just be a lot harder. There have been community driven SDKs for the PS2 just to give one example of a closed platform that has been hacked anyway.
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RIP Ugobe. I was in tears while reading this.
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Yaroslav,
Good efforts with your web page. It looks good and gets the point across. Good luck with your efforts! :)
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Ugobe is..... :o
So that's that. Pleoworld is gone. Forever. My plog. All the innocent people who bought a pleo's plog. Gone. :(
Oh crud, where will i buy a new battery?
So now we're all here?
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Bumblebee, Ugobe may be gone, but we are here together. :) We are all saddened that Ugobe didn't make it, but pleo is not extinct, yet! We'll have to work harder at finding batteries and eventually someone to fix our pleos when necessary. Hang in there! Pleo is too cute to disappear! I feel it in my prehistoric bones! Well, maybe just antique! ;)
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I agree with Fancyfont but today it broke my heart to even look at the little guy. All of that work and effort and its just over. And like mostly all of you....It wasn't much of a surprise! After the forums went out my hope has fallen. I hope sometime too I'll get over it enough to play with Domino again. :(
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I applaud krakadil_gena the effort and dream of a project like savepleo.com, but I guess I'm either too much a pessimist (or realist), because I don't believe raising money can save pleo. As the site says: 100,000 pleos sold. If each owner donated $10, that would raise $1,000,000! Well, Ugobe has filed Chapter 7. That means there is no way to save Ugobe. No amount of money will rescue the company. The company is legally already dead. The court has just to decide how to dispose of the corpse. So the only hope would be to BUY the rights to pleo and either put them in the public domain (to promote new development) or to start a new pleo company. But to do either, we're looking seriously at around a starting bid of $3-4,000,000 and up to as much as $7,000,000. The goal of raising $1,000,000 wouldn't even get us started in the bidding. And the odds of getting even 10% of current pleo owners to invest in such a project is not realistic. So, what would $100,000 buy us? This site is proof I don't mind spending time and money keping pleo alive, but I'm not sure donating money to the save the pleo fund will help.
I would think a much better approach for saving pleo is to get as many of those pleo owners (and potential future pleo owners) together in one voice to let the potential buyers know there is a real market for pleo and real reason to continue development of pleo. So that whoever buys what's left of Ugobe will not kill off the dino, but step in a pick up where Ugobe had to leave off. W want to encourage real companies will real investment dollars that there is sound fiscal reason to "save pleo". And to let that company the buys pleo know that there is a community out here willing to help in the future development and advancement of pleo and his software, and that we are still behind Caleb's dream of pleo becoming THE open source AI and robotics platform of the future.
That's a goal I could support.
And that's my two cents worth.
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I would think a much better approach for saving pleo is to get as many of those pleo owners (and potential future pleo owners) together in one voice to let the potential buyers know there is a real market for pleo
Surely the company would not really care who already had a Pleo, but would care about those people who didn't have a pleo.
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Well said. I'm sorry, you have a great idea but I just don't want to hand over my hard earned money or my details to just anyone :( I know that you mean well but I just am not comfortable with doing that :(
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this is terrible. RIP ugobe :( . thanks for brigning us the wornderful pleo, UGOBE had great potential and so much more to offer. time to go to ebay to get a new battery then
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Did you ever get A battery for Rocky, Pleoguy101? I remember you needed one quite a while ago. DOes this mean Rocky has been asleep for months? ???
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Did you ever get A battery for Rocky, Pleoguy101? I remember you needed one quite a while ago. DOes this mean Rocky has been asleep for months? ???
hes been asleep for quite a while.. yes.. lol hes still fun to have around, his battery will last for a bit.. but not much, couldnt rlly afford to buy a new one but i am going to now. i expect them to be cheaper on ebay anyway.
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I miss hearing about you and Rocky! How are all of your reptiles doing? :)
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A bit of good news I found out about Pleo . . .
Ugobe did arrange for its authorized distributors to be able to continue to market PLEO and to be able to buy directly from Ugobe's manufacturing plant (which was outsourced) so this way PLEO will still be around. The founders of Ugobe (supposedly) plan on setting up a different company soon to ensure PLEO's continuity. But much will depend on what happens during Chapter 7, and who buys what rights . . .
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I don't understand... How can Ugobe do that when they are under chapter 7?
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A bit of good news I found out about Pleo . . .
Ugobe did arrange for its authorized distributors to be able to continue to market PLEO and to be able to buy directly from Ugobe's manufacturing plant (which was outsourced) so this way PLEO will still be around. The founders of Ugobe (supposedly) plan on setting up a different company soon to ensure PLEO's continuity. But much will depend on what happens during Chapter 7, and who buys what rights . . .
Mike, where did you found that?
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@MagicalWingLT
It's quite simple. Ugobe never "made" pleo. They designed it and the manufacturing process, but hired another company to actually do the manufacturing. Likewise, they (for the most part) don't actually sell pleo either. They let other companies like Amazon or Pensonic, etc. do the selling. So before they folded up their shop and went home, they said "Hey, you in China making the pleos, Amazon will contact you when they need more to sell." and "hey, Amazon, when you need more pleos, call these guys in China."
Now, this is only temporary. Ugobe owns the right to pleo. Ugobe has filed bankruptcy. But Ugobe still owns the rights to pleo. They can authorize the company to make them, and the other comapny to sell them. Once the bankruptcy is settled, and the courts sell those rights to pleo, those arrangements are in the hands of the new owner, who might decide to leave them as is, or cancel them.
Think of it as I'm renting my house to you. I decide to sell the house. You can keep living in it while it's up for sale, and you keep paying me the rent. Once the house is sold, you will either start paying the rent to the new owner, or the new owner will tell you to move out, or the new owner may raise the rent.
Now, with Chapter 7, Ugobe says "We owe a bunch of people money. We can't pay them back." The court says 'Fine. We'll take everything you've got, sell it, and divide the money up amongst the people you owe. And whatever we give them, that's all they get. And Ugobe now debt free, but out of business."
With that in mind, the courts hold an auction and offer up the office equipment, the computers, any inventory of pleos Ugobe has in stock, the patents and rights to make and sell pleo, and all the development and programming related to pleo. Now, there's nothing illegal about Caleb Chung and a few of his friends from going to that auction and bidding to buy all that back.
For example, back in the late 70's when the Hunt brothers of Texas tried to corner the silver market, I know a man who had a nice big house with lots of expensive furnishings he bought investing in silver and gold. Silver went from $3 an ounce to $50, and gold went from $32 and ounce up to $800. He made millions. Then the government stepped in and in one fell swoop silver went to $5, and gold down to $200. Suddenly, he was no longer a millionaire, bankrupt, and the courts took his house and all the furnishings to pay off his debt. When the day of the auction came, attendance was almost non-existant, so this friend bid on his own stuff, and bought it back from the courts for a few hundred dollars. he owed hundreds of thousands, but the whole point of bankruptcy is that the courts wiped out his debts. So in the end, he was debt free, but managed to still keep most of his stuff.
Likewise, Ugobe owes $6.5 million dollars. But potentially Caleb and crew could form a new company and buy some or all of those rights back from the courts to form a debt free "Ugobe II" to pick up where they left off.
But then again, Pensonic or Mattel might outbid them and take over pleo sales.
@junkroxy
The info comes from the pleoroom forums. The folks who run pleoroom.com are one of those "authorized distributors." As such they are privy to some info the general public doesn't get.
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yes, Mike, it's normal. Ugobe can continue to sell and distribute Pleo, until they sold out the products. personally, i think this solution was in the air months ago, maybe to start another company later it's more easy than continue to the past one. In Italy this is a "regular" procedure to leave employees at home and restart the new business. Maybe it's the same story in the USA too? :-X
I'm so sorry for the people who have lost their job, but i'll be happy too for future life forms.
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That's very interesting... I never knew a company could still do that... At least we'll see Pleo's selling a little while longer.... Good news indeed... :)
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Macons battery wont last even a minute. I'm not exaggerating! :'( It wont!
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Sounds like you better get another battery . . . and fast!
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I loved your explaination of bankrupcy, Mweed. Another thing I learned here today. What a great source of information besides friendships! :) :) :)
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From Wall Street Journal:
http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2009/04/28/turning-out-the-lights-ugobe-maker-of-the-pleo-robotic-dinosaur/?mod=rss_WSJBlog
There are 2 important parts of the article:
1.Ugobe generated gross income of $19.2 million in 2008 but that sharply dropped to about $209,000 in the first three and a half months of 2009, according to its bankruptcy filing in Idaho. The company, previously based in Emeryville, Calif., moved to Eagle, Idaho, last year.
Ugobe lists assets of $1.64 million and liabilities of about $3.56 million in its filing.
2. Chung, who still holds about 5% of Ugobe, has moved on and taken over as the director of ArtsWest School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Eagle, Idaho, where his daughter is a student, according to an interview he gave in the Idaho Statesman. Chung and unnamed investors took ownership of the school in the last couple of weeks, the newspaper reported.
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Thank you for posting this information, Junkroxy! It looks like had the economy not been so bad, pleo would have been thriving!
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yes, i found the article very difficoult to understand, but i think the major problem was the losts of Bob Christopher, i supposed with a big piece of the Ugobe's cake...
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Looks like even Chung has given up on Pleo if he is running a drama school now.
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As if there wasn't enough drama going on with the fate of pleo . . .
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Hey, we are really sad about the news ... :( I could not even sleep for a day .. but then we decided to act ... registered savepleo.com and spent few days shaping the website ... what we are trying to achieve is; collect enough public donations for buying out copyright and manufacturing rights and hopefully put new life into the Pleo ! Please have a look at the idea here : www.savepleo.com (http://www.savepleo.com) and help as much as you can ! ;)
Yaroslav Tenzer
The URL you have mentioned doesn't work:
Wikidot.com - professional Wiki collaboration tools.
Error handling custom domain.
Please use the default URL of the Site:
http://savepleo.wikidot.com
....that one works instead. And it's a great one! I will put it on my blog and forum once I got my just ordered Pleo! :) Thanks for this!
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thinkgeek.com is still selling them new :)
wait, nvm, they are out of stock :(
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Its really sad because it looks like I wont get my Pleo back. I shipped Pleo on March 8, 2009 due to a broken neck. Today I read online that UGOBE filed for bankruptcy.
At least I know now why my emails were never answered.
http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/technology/index.ssf?/base/national-7/1240359638312570.xml&storylist=technology
If I ways you I would email Pleo Malaysia and Pleo Italy as they are still functioning and trying to get a new Pleo!
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Looks like even Chung has given up on Pleo if he is running a drama school now
ya no i just cant see this giye running a drama school ???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pjlq9Q3xc0
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Oh my gosh I can! Wish I could be a student of his! ;)
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ha ha omg that is quite strange!
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Just think of all the laughter that must go on in his classes! ;) I really would love to spend a day there! :)
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A friend of mine was working in Ugobe SF office, he told me that the Ugobe auction has been completed last week and someone brought the Pleo asset.
If someone willing to pay for buying the Pleo asset, it should be a good indication that Pleo production isn't ended yet.
Let us cross our finger and see if there is any more news from the new owner soon.
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Thanks for the info pleoplus80. That is good news. I'd be willing to bet it's moving to china.
At least there's still hope for some sort of PDK. Maybe I won't sell Cloe just yet.
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Someone from the italian pw.it staff told me that there are new owners of the pleo IP. As you know Pleo is commercially important in the toy business, there's the first interactive pet for real, cos there arent electronic pets at that price with the same abilities ;)
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Someone from the italian pw.it staff told me that there are new owners of the pleo IP. As you know Pleo is commercially important in the toy business, there's the first interactive pet for real, cos there arent electronic pets at that price with the same abilities ;)
Could you maybe translate it and post it here or so (or send to me)? I emailed them too and they never cared to reply and I asked exactly this
Thanks in advance!
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Someone from the italian pw.it staff told me that there are new owners of the pleo IP. As you know Pleo is commercially important in the toy business, there's the first interactive pet for real, cos there arent electronic pets at that price with the same abilities ;)
Could you maybe translate it and post it here or so (or send to me)? I emailed them too and they never cared to reply and I asked exactly this
Thanks in advance!
Try using the Google Translator service. It worked fine for me like that.
google.com/translate
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Since he writes English here I think a human translation is much better than any online machine translation :D
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My friend gave me some further news about Pleo and its new owner.
Most likely the production of Pleo will be continue with the same original factory and knowhow.
Also the Pleo development software kit will be released by the new owner in coming months after its completion.
This is the greatest news I heard since April after knowing Ugobe is dying.
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Wow :o Maybe Pleo isn't dead, maybe he is just evolving...
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Hmmm . . . anyone else notice in the Bio of John Sosoka from his farewell lecture ( http://bobthepleo.com/forums/index.php?topic=465.0 ) that he is working for a Vita Robotica, a "new" robotics company currently "operating in stealth mode"? This makes for a great RUMOR to start . . . John quit Ugobe to start a new company with the intent of buying the rights to pleo because he knew Ugobe was going under, and this was their way to keep it alive and get out from under the accumulated debt . . . . or is this starting to sound liek a government conspiracy . . . I wonder how I can tie this into the Illuminati and the assassination of JFK by the aliens from Roswell . . . .
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I did catch that on the lecture. I hope he is working with our little dinos. Fingers crossed once again! :)
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It seems likely. You gotta wonder. If somebody like Mattel or Wow-Wee bought pleo, it would be all over the news. Why does no one know any detail about who bought pleo? Perhaps . . . because the company wants to keep it hush-hush? And why would a company want to keep secret that they bought pleo? Again, any company of any size or stake in the toy or robotics industry would consider this a coup and tell the press, publicize the hell out of it. My guess is that the buyer is therefore a small company that's not ready to handle public awareness. And Vita Robotica is a robotics company that's trying to stay quiet . . . ;) ;)
AND . . . if what little they have leaked out includes the fact that they intend to release the PDK "in a few months" that implies they have the knowledge and skills to pick up where Ugobe left off and run with it. Who better than the people who created pleo! A big company (and I've worked in software development for some) like Wow-Wee or Mattel would take months just to get up-to-speed on the development of the PDK or the OS in order to even start looking at whether or not they even want to complete the work. And I would think a big company wouldn't be pushing to get a PDK out the door. They would be looking at cranking up production and exploiting the existing technology on their own products to recoup as much of their investment as possible. Getting a PDK out for existing owners seems much more the mindset of a small company devoted to robotics, not a big business . . .
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It seems likely. You gotta wonder. If somebody like Mattel or Wow-Wee bought pleo, it would be all over the news. Why does no one know any detail about who bought pleo? Perhaps . . . because the company wants to keep it hush-hush? And why would a company want to keep secret that they bought pleo? Again, any company of any size or stake in the toy or robotics industry would consider this a coup and tell the press, publicize the hell out of it. My guess is that the buyer is therefore a small company that's not ready to handle public awareness. And Vita Robotica is a robotics company that's trying to stay quiet . . . ;) ;)
AND . . . if what little they have leaked out includes the fact that they intend to release the PDK "in a few months" that implies they have the knowledge and skills to pick up where Ugobe left off and run with it. Who better than the people who created pleo! A big company (and I've worked in software development for some) like Wow-Wee or Mattel would take months just to get up-to-speed on the development of the PDK or the OS in order to even start looking at whether or not they even want to complete the work. And I would think a big company wouldn't be pushing to get a PDK out the door. They would be looking at cranking up production and exploiting the existing technology on their own products to recoup as much of their investment as possible. Getting a PDK out for existing owners seems much more the mindset of a small company devoted to robotics, not a big business . . .
Sorry Mweed, but i dont think that a company like Mattel (or maybe Hasbro) are the ideals for Pleo (A PDK released by them? Uhm... sounds really like a dream). They're simple toy big companys and stop! They arent like WowWee. If a big company like Mattel bought Pleo i dont think the PDk will see the light... Maybe Sony, or WowWee or another small company distributed from a big company, but not any normal toy company ;)
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For sure the new owner is not the giant toy companies mentioned above.
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Anyone but Wowwee :o They would put a fluffy skin on Pleo and turn it into a creepy lion cub :'( Oh the horror :o
(http://i352.photobucket.com/albums/r358/EStar5Diva/PleoLion.png?t=1244291990)
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To me it looks like an old man Pleo, complete with a few missing teeth. Or removable dentures perhaps? Yes, while Old Pleo sleeps he could have his teeth in a glass next to his bed! :o
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A little fluff would be nice and cuddly ;)
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Hmmm . . . anyone else notice in the Bio of John Sosoka from his farewell lecture ( http://bobthepleo.com/forums/index.php?topic=465.0 ) that he is working for a Vita Robotica, a "new" robotics company currently "operating in stealth mode"? This makes for a great RUMOR to start . . . John quit Ugobe to start a new company with the intent of buying the rights to pleo because he knew Ugobe was going under, and this was their way to keep it alive and get out from under the accumulated debt . . . . or is this starting to sound liek a government conspiracy . . . I wonder how I can tie this into the Illuminati and the assassination of JFK by the aliens from Roswell . . . .
I think you're onto something here, Mweed!! I betcha that IS what's going on! I so hope this isn't the end of things! They can't be!!
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The PleoWorld foru up, though, and they still say Pleo belongs to UGOBE. I sure hope so! :'(
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PleoWorld.com is up, the plogs are up, the forums are still down, and Ugobe.com is still down. My guess is that now that someone bought pleo, they paid the hosting ISP and got the site restored to what is was when Ugobe went bankrupt. I imagine there will be changes soon. ANd my understanding was that the former hosting company deleted the forums and all content before Ugobe got a chance to get a copy, so that it is lost forever. They will have to recreate a new forum if the new owner so chooses. Seems to me it would just be easier to change their link to point here. ;)
. . . but, then again, I'm not sure we want 33,000 people here :o %)
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And why not ???
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We have about 330 people now. 33,000 would be 100 times more people, which means 100 times more posts, which means you'll be here all day just trying read the posts faster than they come in!! ;)
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And poor Mweed would never get a break from his computer ;) You would have to hire employees :o (Can Bob read? :))
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IMR, of course Bob can read. I think Sally, Grumpy, Yogurt, 0000007(James) and all the other pleos in Weedovia would all pitch in! ;)
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Hmmm . . . but if I started charging people to join . . . ;)
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Hmmm . . . but if I started charging people to join . . . ;)
Get out that old piggy bank ;D
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ANd my understanding was that the former hosting company deleted the forums and all content before Ugobe got a chance to get a copy, so that it is lost forever. They will have to recreate a new forum if the new owner so chooses. Seems to me it would just be easier to change their link to point here. ;)
That is just horrible if that really is true.
All data lost?
What a stupid and silly hosting company.
Either Ugobe or the hosting companies must have backups, right?
Who would be responsible for making backups I wonder?
For instance, if their server would crash... then it's not the site owners fault and thus cannot be held responsible for having a backup, no?
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I said the very same thing! That's insane not to have backups! But you have to remember on behalf of the hosting company, they probably did make regular backups. But most IT departments cycle through backups tapes on a pretty regular basis and re-record over them. Daily backups usually only go back a couple of weeks. I've seen major corporations that only had 7 sets of backups. One for each day of the week. And every Monday night they would erase last Monday's backup and write over it with this weeks backup. After that, you fall back on disaster recovery copies that may be a month or more out-of-date, and stored off-site. Remember, Ugobe wasn't paying their bills, so it was probably more the case of by the time Ugobe got caught up on their hosting bill, the site had been taken down for a while, and the old backups had already been written over by newer backups that didn't include Ugobe's site. And the cost of retrieving the archived copies was probably more than Ugobe wanted (or could afford ) to pay. And I doubt anyone at Ugobe made backup copies of their website. That's why they hired a hosting company. They didn't have the staff or time to worry about web site hosting. They even outsourced the forum admins and PleoWorld hosts. Yes, our beloved PleoWorld hosts like Cami were not Ugobe employees.
The same is pretty much true for these forums. If the hard drive crashes, the hosting company have a nightly backup that could be restored an we could be back online in hours or the next day. But if I need something restored from last month, I'm up a creek. I could probably pay hundreds of dollars to have them pull old tapes and search for an old copy of my site, but it's not practical for anything short of a real emergency. And I guarantee they have nothing from more than a month or two old. So, if I fell 60 or 90 days behind on my payments, I'm sure they would shut my site down. And if it took me another 30 or 60 days to pay up, I doubt if they would bother to keep backups for me either. They would have gotten overwritten as part of the normal process of backing up their paying customers.
Now, I do occasionally make a backup of the database and copy it down to my local PC, but if I had to go set up on a new hosting company, I'm sure we would loose a month or more worth of posts, and I'm sure I would have to re-create a number of things. Our hosting company has already moved this site from one machine to a newer one a couple of months ago, without us even noticing. So, I'm sure they could restore us if need be . . . assuming I keep paying the bills. ;)
But I know Ugobe had copies of their "site". Because they handed out copies to their distributors. And they were able to bring the main body of their site back up pretty complete and intact. The static pages are easy to backup and save copies of. And whoever designed their web site for them probably had copies laying around. The forums and the plogs on the other hand, are stored separately in separate databases, and probably even on different physical machines. The plogs appear to be part of the community pages on the main site, while the forums were a completely separate subdomain name. So, it makes sense for that "part" to be lost, and the plogs saved.
But, then again, I was completely wrong on who bought the pleo IP . . . so who knows. ;)
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I think the forum has a separate link (if was created with phpbb) and they have a redirect on their site. If it's really lost they've cancelled the forum completely >:(
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Well, i guess it really will be a new start then. New company and new forums
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I think the forum has a separate link (if was created with phpbb) and they have a redirect on their site. If it's really lost they've cancelled the forum completely >:(
Ugobe used vBulletin (rather than phpBB), but it was a separate link, which is why there was a separate login. Ugobe did lose the database with all the posts, but the new owner may decide to start their own forums . . . but you're always welcome here! ;D ;D