Alexander Falk's Blog

Sony officially announced a new cross-breed between robot and MP3 player (so far in Japan only). The Rolly is a hand-sized device that not only plays your tracks but also dances to the music. In other words, it's a dancing iPod killer-wannabe...

An off-spring of the now defunct Sony Aibo robotic dog division, the Rolly uses robotics to "flap its wings" and "roll around" to the beat of the music.

I must admit that I've always been a big fan of robotics. Case in point: in addition to two (live, real-world) cats, we also have two Sony Aibos in our home (an early first generation version and the last and final third generation model). And I do, of course, also own the Lego Mindstorms Robotics system (again both the original and the NXT generation) and my son and I love to program them.

Robotics and XML have been very connected, too: every since the creation of RoboML in 2001this XML Aficionado has followed those endeavors closely and was delighted to learn this summer how to interface the Microsoft Robotics Studio and Lego Mindsotrms NXT using XML manifests.

But when it comes to MP3 players I've been a big iPod fan for years now, and I somehow doubt that a dancing iPod is something that would tickle my fancy.

But then again, even though I have a Facebook profile by now, I may not exactly be the target audience (or age group) that Sony has in mind...