We have just adopted a robot pet. The head teacher of one of the schools where my wife teaches had this AIBO gathering dust for years. She was tidying up her house and decided to let go of this toy. Before throwing away she remembered I was into robotics, so she asked if I would want it. Believe it or not, she was even apologizing for giving this because the batteries were not lasting much anymore and because it was dirty! That is the ERS-311B (they also had ERS-310 and ERS-312 with similar design), also known as Latte. They released this in 2001 as a budget aibo, priced under k (while the normal AIBOs cost well over k). This design has a less “robotic” or “machine” feel, and was pretty successful inside Japan. It kind of brings the Japanese concept of “cuteness” as seen in Japanese anime — this Japanese cuteness is often misunderstood as “girly” or “gay” in the western world. The sounds it makes are also more dreamy. It was designed by Katsura Moshino. I find it amazing. It has this more “toyish” look, but yet it has the noisiest servo motors of all AIBOs, kind of reminding you all the time that it is indeed a machine inside, despite the cuteness. It also has that ambiguous and cute facial expression that reminds a bit Hello Kitty, so really you cannot readily “read” how the robot “feels”, different than other AIBOs where ears move and eyes change readily indicating the mood. So I feel it is a bit uncanny, and I really like this — this kind of uncanniness is …

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