I nearly cried when Sony gave up on the Aibo robotic dog. I figured I could still get one used, but then what? Things are looking up. Make Magazine’s blog reports that the Technische Universität Darmstadt in Germany has picked up where Sony left off (kinda). The price tag is still out of my reach, but hope is renewed.

Make says:

The Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany has developed a new four-legged robo-critter they’re hoping will be a worthy successor to Sony’s defunct AIBO (at least among researchers, hobbyists and the education market). The bot is basically a big, badder 21st century take on AIBO. It works with both Linux and Windows CE, has a color headcam that’s 10 times higher-res than AIBO, and uses a 500 MHz AMD-Geode-LX800 32Bit processor with 256 MB (extenable up to 1 GB) DDR-SODIMM main memory on a PC104 board from Digital-Logic. They never use the term “open source,” but they say the bot will sport “open, modular and reconfigurable hardware and software structures.” They hope to have it on sale by the end of 2007 for around (gulp) US$4800.

Oh, and what’s it called? Apparently the “New Four-Legged Robot” or the “New4LR.” And all through the site they talk about the “Old Four-Legged Robot” and the “New Four-Legged Robot.” Why, I can’t *imagine* who they’re talking about.

[via Make: Blog]