Keepon, the adorable bot meant to help autistic kids with its jovial dance moves, seems to finally be getting a cheaper version. The original cost $30,000 and did a lot more than dance. Actually, we got to play with it a little bit at CES a couple years ago. The commercial version most likely won’t have facial recognition or any of the other fancy features of the first one, but we hope it can dance well. We’ve actually seen a couple home made versions and we’re hoping that the new one has some major hacking potential. The temptation to have one of these cute little bots around is made even stronger when you see that some of the money is going back into autism research.
Might be worth it at $40, if they make it hackable. $30,000 is pretty ridiculous, but I suppose your paying for the engineering pretty directly there.
that’s supposed to be a robot?
WIN
That “thing” looks a little bit like Heidi: http://www.zoo-leipzig.de/img/original/galerie_vom_17.07.2005_18.48.38/heidi-220-2.jpg *fg*
30k for an autistic robot?
@Aero
he can count Pi to 1k bacwards
indeed i blew redbull out my nose when i read the original was 30,000 good god do we wanna know what the first furbee cost?
Redbull is not recommended for nasal consumption…
@Aero
That was the funniest thing I read so far today, thanks!
Okay I pulled mine apart. Doesn’t really look like it’s too hack friendly. I’m debating bypassing the micro-controller in their and running it off something with a more powerful processor. The thing really doesn’t like the dance the way the 30k one does.