WowWee: snakes, dragonflies, and bears -- oh my!

by Evan Blass posted Jan 7th 2007 at 12:04PM

And now, back to Wowgadget's comprehensive coverage of all things WowWee. The tricky Robosapien folks chose not to display some of their hottest bots at CES Unveiled -- probably because they won't be released in the US for the forseeable future -- but we managed to sweet talk them into hooking us up with some images and a few deets about this unannounced swag. First up is Robopanda, a Teddy Ruxpin-like doll for tots four-and-up that sports "many advanced sensors" along with a head-mounted IR sensor and stereo sound. Besides the usual back-and-forth we enjoy with WowWee's products, 'panda also reads bedtime stories (we hear that it's fond of Bearinstein Bears), interacts with a MiniMe version of itself, and of course, delivers mad bear hugs to love-starved tykes. Also on the docket is Roboboa (we like "Roboa" better, but whatevs), a companion snakebot that performs the varied functions of "smart desk light, wake-up alarm, room guard, disco marquee, roving tank, safety light and playful cannon." Hey, we've always wanted a toy like that! Snakey will be available somewhere in the world, sometime this year for $119, while the roboteddy is expected to retail for $229. Check out the gallery for pics of both of these fine new additions to the robotic zoo, along with a few images of the RS Media, Dragonfly, and that Roboquad spiderbot we saw yesterday...

WowWee: snakes, dragonflies, and bears -- oh my!

Filed under: Robots

Tags: CES, dragonfly, roboboa, robopanda, roboquad, robosapien, rs media, RsMedia, wowwee

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Bad Beaver @ Jan 7th 2007 12:40PM

The bear is creepy. I also love things that turn into "playful cannons". The coolest thing about that 4-legged-spider bot is that it offers lots of room... to mount powerful lasers...

Neutral

Robert Oschler @ Feb 1st 2007 10:47PM

Snakes On A Plane! :)

I read that the Roboboa is supposed to have some new kind of "highly advanced" vision system:

http://www.robotsrule.com/html/roboboa.php

When I heard that I was really hoping it might have some of the technology of the robots like the iRobot models.

There have been numerous rumors regarding WowWee making "advanced tech" licensing deals for their robots. Some of them have fell through like the Segway tech deal for the currently defunct P.E.A.B.O.T robot. But I believe that the Evolution Robotics/WowWee vision systems deal is still going. (Note: I don't have any direct information here, just what I've seen in different places on the Internet.)

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