I can honestly say that I haven't been this excited about a product demo since Sony brought in the first AIBO. This little robot, Ugobe's Pleo, is still in prototype form, but it did not disappoint. (Take a look at our first post on Pleo; he's really come a long way since then!)

Pleo is cute, fairly cuddly to the touch, and even more fun to watch. It did tricks, responded to vocal and tactile commands, showed emotion, and even danced to beats it provided itself. Ugobe's CEO, Bob Christopher, kept swapping SD cards with different behavior modules in and out of a slot in poor Pleo's butt (the slot will be located elsewhere on production models) so it could walk, make sounds, pretend to be injured, and more. The prototype shakes a bunch and is still too noisy, but expect all these kinks to be worked out in the final product...

Post by Lance Ulanoff

Christopher talked a bit about Ugobe's aim of making the robot interface more accessible and acceptable to the mainstream public. The key to that, he says, is giving bots an "emotional interface," with lifelike gestures and expressions, which Pleo has in spades, thanks to custom servos and motors Ugobe has commissioned, but especially due to its sophisticated software. (SDKs will eventually be made available to the community.)

The robot's ship date has already been delayed once, but with the prototype so far along, we're ready to believe Ugobe's promises of a 2007 Q2 ship date. It's too late for the 2006 holiday season, but a look in my robotic crystal ball puts this $250 autonomous bot on my own shortlist for the 2007 holiday buying season.

Read my full report on PCMag.