| Sega Toys designed and developed the iDog, a robotic pet dog that listens to music with the owner and provides a non-verbal feedback. It reacts to any music when played, through expressions such as wagging its tail, dancing around, or lighting up the LED lights on its face. It is programmed to “listen” to any music being played from any source including Apple’s iPod. There are a number of switches disguised as its nose, the underside of its ears, and its tail that allow the user to interact with it.
The robotic pet dog has an in-built microphone and digital signal processors that decode the sounds being played and react accordingly. The reaction is relayed to the motors fitted into each of the legs, the head and the ears enabling them to mimic a dancing pattern. iDog can also be fed music from an external source through the 3.5mm jack socket located in the hind leg. It has a speaker built into the body to reproduce sounds fed into it via the 35mm socket, with better clarity and higher amplification. It can pick up music from sources such as speakers, headphones, and most portable music devices such as a Discman, an iPod, or Rio MP3 players.
It is also programmed to display emotions or varying moods through the 7 LED lights fitted on the face. These LED lights light up in various colors, each color representing a different mindset, such as green for happy, red for unhappy, and orange for a more neutral emotion. The user can interact with the iDog using hand gestures on its face or gentle touching of its tail due to the presence of light sensitive sensors in both the places. iDog will change its mood according to the kind of affection directed to it via these sensors. It can remember the moods for up to 70 songs and asks for playing back music when it is “hungry”. It runs on 3 AAA batteries and comes in two colors – white and black. It is distributed by Sega as well as Hasbro across the United States, across Europe and is christened eDog in certain regions. |
