Robotic Familiar ?
Interesting article in IEEE Spectrum : https://spectrum.ieee.org/familiar-machines-and-magic It's not a pet or a friend, it's a robotic familiar ? The first thing I thought of was Jiminy Cricket - but this robotic familiar is trying to help humans become better rather than trying to turn a puppet into a real boy :) Here's the company site: https://www.familiarmachines.com/ I dunno, seems like a mechanical pet or artificial friend to me. And with real pets or friends you feel bad when they die. This thing will eventually die. I've heard that the Sony Aibo, the robotic dog, was beloved by it's owners and now that Sony doesn't support it anymore, they feel bereft when nothing more can be done. They were called Artificial Friend (AF) in this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klara_and_the_Sun I shudder to think what kinds of short videos will be made by teens for social media - the poor familiar ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.co...