I wondered whether my dog would meet the Pleo, which does not require early morning trips to the back yard. But she had no interest in the Pleo at all from the start. A few days later, I’m a little underwhelmed with the Pleo, too. Cute? Oh, yes. But the Pleo doesn’t come when he’s called, and he doesn’t quite have the brains to chase after the plastic leaf that you’re supposed to periodically “feed” to him. The whirring of his 14 internal motors and gears is just loud enough to remind you that it isn’t flesh and blood.

Most of my gadgets get smarter on a regular basis, thanks to the magic of downloadable software updates. Ugobe plans to release a big update for the Pleo’s software early next year, and I get the feeling that a lot more of the Pleo’s capabilities will come to the surface then. (Or perhaps that’s when the robot endgame will kick in...)
-mike musgrove (LAT-WP)