Sad news. Actually this has been out since early February but it's still sad news. Sony is
stopping production of
Aibo, the intelligent robot dog and first mass marketed robot. I love robots and it's a shame that Sony won't be making Aibo any longer. I haven't ever gotten an Aibo (too expensive for me for a long time) but I would have loved to have that little robot dog.
The fact that Sony killed off Aibo is actually a bigger hit to consumer robotics in general. As pat of their corporate restructuring they are stopping all robotics production and thus killing of other (really cool) projects like
QRIO the consumer level humanoid robot.
I'm going on a quest to see if I can find an Aibo before they're all gone. Sony said it will support Aibo, with batteries, replacement parts, etc, for the next seven years. Guess that'll be about 41 in dog years.