I'm going to start emailing out blog drafts that were abandoned here (and cc'ing the author) to see if they or anyone else wants to pick it up. Otherwise, at least the info will be stored somewhere for the world.
This first one is from November 23rd, 2004, by andy scudder. http://wiki.freeculture.org/User:Scudmissile Robosapien: The Robot you can Remix There's been a lot of geek hype about Mark Tilden's robot toy that came out earlier this year. Obviously, the Christmas toy blitz is already heating up and Wow Wee <http://www.wowwee.com/> is trying to market Robosapien as hard as they can to make it the next Tickle-Me Elmo, but I think they're really missing what could make the Robosapien the most important toy since Lego. Why? Well, in his talk at OSCON 2002<http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2002/08/15/lessig.html?page=2>, Lessig reminds us of a certain tech toy that didn't want to be tampered with: Aibopet.com <http://www.aibopet.com> said, "Here, here's how to hack your dog to make it dance jazz." If anything, it would be a fair use of this piece of plastic that costs over $1,500. You would think, "This is a fair use," right? Letter to the site: Your site contains information providing the means to circumvent Aibo, where copy protection protocol constitutes a violation of the anticircumvention provisions of the DMCA. Even though the use is fair use, the use is not permitted under the law. Fair use, erased by this combination of technological control and laws that say "don't touch it," leaving one thing left in this field that had three, controls copyright, [thereby] controlling creativity. Compare this to Tilden's response to the question "How does it make you feel when you see the many modifications and hacks others have made to your creation?" in GadgetMadness's interview<http://www.gadgetmadness.com/archives/20041122-hyper_cool_interview_with_robosapien_creator_mark_w_tiden.php> : It's what the RoboSapien is designed for. A single screwdriver takes the RS completely apart, and inside everything is labled, colorcoded, and socketed for convenience. Furthermore, we heartly support any third party additions or modifications, and have supplied all the necessary info through many websites. I wanted a toy I would have killed for as a kid. Open him up and the possibilities skyrocket. Easy to hack, tones of extra space, power to spare, modular sealed gearboxes, gold-plated solder pads, etc, etc. So, what we have is a robot toy that's pretty limited out of the box. It's certainly no contest when you hold it up to the complexity and ability of Sony's Aibo and Qrio, but that's not the market or goal of the Robosapien. Instead, what we have is a product that's designed to be 'open-source.' Mark knows that after awhile, your kid (or kid-at-heart) will get bored with the limited functions that the Robosapien comes with out of the box, so why not unleash the possibilities of, what is essentially, a pre-built electronics kit? Hacking sites have already popped<http://www.robosapien.tk/> up <http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS4750901902.html> all<http://www.aibohack.com/robosap/supersap.htm> over <http://www.therobosapien.com/forums/>, with guides on disassembling your Robosapien <http://zodiak.f2o.org/extra.php?id_extra=23> to get to all the good stuff, to
_______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.freeculture.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss FAQ: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Fc-discuss
