Check Out ‘Cozmo,’ The Teeny Little Gaming-Bot

  Now, pets are pretty damn cool. Don’t get me wrong here. Whether it’s cats wanting to haz cheeseburger, piano-playing puppies, fish that can burp the alphabet or whatever other stupid BS you’ll find on the Internet, pets make up about 87% of all stupid-ass viral emails. And Facebook posts, Tweets and whatever else. 

Where would online procrastinators be without other people’s pets? They’d probably be getting some work done or something, and who the hell wants that? Nobody, that’s who. Nuts to it.

Now there’s something awesome for the lonely gamers among us: a robot pet that can get their game on with you. Remember ROB the Robot, the NES peripheral? This new concept is a little like that, just not woefully shit. Let’s take an ogle.

The little guy is named Cozmo. If you ever had one of those robot dogs, you’ll get the basic idea here. It’s like a super-advanced version of those, with a developing personality, intelligence, curiosity, almost sentience about it.

Creators Anki Drive and Anki Overdrive showcased the device for Polygon, who almost fouled their undercrackers at the little guy’s abilities.

‘As a toy, Cozmo is much more than Sphero's real-life BB-8,’ writes Polygon’s own Samit Sarkar. ‘I saw this in action when I played a game called Speed Tap with Cozmo. (Anki CEO) Sofman initiated the game for us on a smartphone — Cozmo works with most modern Android and iOS devices, and it's the device that does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to the processing required to power him — but Cozmo and I played on a couple of small blocks. The blocks light up in a variety of colors, and whenever both blocks are illuminated in the same color (except for red), the first person or robot to tap their cube wins a point.’

‘Playing on easy mode, I defeated Cozmo 5-3, which caused him to throw a tantrum that left him writhing on his back and struggling to right himself. With his ego bruised, he demanded a rematch. Sofman turned the difficulty up to hard, and Cozmo beat me 5-1 and crowed about his victory. It turns out he's both a sore winner and a sore loser.’

This all sounds freaking fantastic to me, in a holy-hell-SkyNet-is-coming sort of way. Before a naked Arnold Schwarzenegger turns up wanting your clothes, boots and motorcycle, head on over to Polygon for the full skinny on Cozmo.