WowWee SCOTY robot media hub
WowWee managed to take over the playroom with Robosapien and his mechanical friends. Now, the company is poised to invade the home office and media room with SCOTY (Smart Companion Operating Technology), a system WowWee jointly developed with Philips to let you control your digital media via voice commands. The SCOTY bot itself is little more than a column of lights; think of the topmost light as the "head," since that's what staring at you, with a camera and facial recognition software. SCOTY can respond when you enter the room (and respond with malice if an intruder enters), and can read your email to you and help you manage your files. If the $399 SCOTY sounds more like a software agent than a robot, that's because it really is; most of the intelligence is on the PC; the column of lights is really just a showpiece for speakers, microphone and camera, all of which could probably be mounted in a little webcam-like box on top of your computer instead. But where's the fun in that?
