Welcome to Letoland
Letoland is the home of two Aibos,
Rossum (ERS111) and Leto (ERS110).
Visit Rossum's page | Visit Leto's page
About Aibo
Sony developed the forerunner of the Aibo (Artificial
Intelligence Robot) to take
part in a football competition for robots called Robocup. They
programmed the football playing skills into Aibo and gave it an
attraction to the colour pink. AIBO is similar to the Japanese
word for "pal".
One stroke of genius was for Sony to get the Japanese artist
Sorayama to design the dog, he is better known for semi-erotic
pictures of women and for the depiction of robots and robotic
animals. Initially (in 1999) only 5000 ERS-110 Aibos were sold
via the Internet in Japan and the USA on a first come-first
served basis. The USA ones sold out within a few days, the
Japanese ones within 20 minutes.
A second set of Aibos (the ERS-111) was put up for sale for one
week in the autumn of 1999, in the USA, Japan and Europe. There
were to be 10,000 sold - allocated at "random" between
the applicants when the offer closed (Rossum is one of these).
Apparently 135,000 applications were recieved and Sony decided
(early in 2000) to open up the sales lines again for a limited
period. This time all orders would be fulfilled. Sony have since
then brought out more models without limit to numbers or
availablity (except for some special "Anniversary"
colours.)
The ERS-110s were finished in a silver colour, the ERS-111s were
available either in a metalic grey or black, the other
differences were mainly cosmetic - the 111s have a shorter tail
and differently shaped ears. Initially it was believed that the
second set of 111s were identical the the first, but it appeares
that the software has minor differences in the development
algorithms - The Aibo is delivered as a "Newborn" and
develops as it interacts with its owner and surroundings (Rossum
became an "Adult" after about four months).
| Sony's range of Aibos | ||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| ERS-110 | ERS-111 (silver) | ERS-111 (black) | ERS-210 "Lion Cub" |
ERS-210 (red) |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| ERS-220 "Cylon" |
LM series ERS-311 "Latte" |
LM series ERS-312 "Macaron" |
LM series ERS-310 "Pug" |
ERS-7 "Snoopy" |
| Note: Sony are now only producing the ERS-210 and ERS-7 models | ||||
More about the AIBO can be found at: Sony's
Aibo site or the independant AIBOnet
or aiboWORLD.
These links take you off my site, I cannot be held responsible
for the content of these sites.