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Volume 2, Issue 22
October 12 - October 25, 2000 |
It's perhaps the most frustrating clause in any lease contract: no pets. True, most people ignore their landlords and the allergies of their neighbors by sneaking in a cat or a small furry rodent anyway, but us lawabiding citizens have been thwarted by the "no pets" line in apartment classifieds for decades. Centuries, even. No longer, friends-- the virtual pet is here, and nobody's bothered by digital dander (or pixelated poop for that matter). Here is a brief history of the digital pet's evolution, as well as a guide to inviting the robotically-inclined into your complex.
TAMAGOTCHI The oldest and most primitive virtual life form. Tamagotchi are small (very small) digital keychains who interact via extremely simple button commands. It's sort of like a long, drawnout Game Boy game that needs constant attention or it dies. Though the things are obviously no fun at all, millions of people flocked to the novelty of the little devils when they first came out in the U. S. in 1997. Together with Pokemon, they represented the first brainwashing wave in Japan's attempt to take over America.
FURBY A year after the Tamagotchi invasion ended, and the wastebaskets of America filled with brightly colored, semiintelligent keychains, in came Tiger's Furbies. A cross between a koala bear and a duck, the cuddly, hugsized Furbies swept the nation at Christmastime, just like Great Uncle Teddy Ruxpin roughly ten years earlier. The difference: Furbies are capable of a sort of communication. Yes, now millions of American children had their invisibile friends supplanted by robots with limited motor skills (they can, for example, shake their butts) and babbling speech used mostly for whining and shouting "wheeeee!" Hackers began to search for a way to make Furby talk like Butthead. Others, such as the proprietor of www.mimitchi.com/html/furby.htm, became irrecoverably addicted. Boo koodoh eday. Neetye kah!
FISH Since robotic, er, aliens failed to catch on, wise toy inventors applied themselves to something more easily replicated: fish. After all, fish were the first virtual pet-- no smell, no walks, no fuss (no fun). But you still had to clean the tank and get Millie down the hall to feed them when you go on ski trips. Now you can purchase a flatscreen television that projects, all day long, the fun and exciting interior of a fish tank! Some models are even encased in a few inches of water, complete with bubbles, to add to the realism of fish on a video (or DVD) loop. Sega's version, called Fish Life and still unavailable in the U. S., allows for some interactivity-- you can feed the fish, tell them where to go, and change their species between 'realistic' and 'cartoon' with the touch of a button. Don't even ask how much it costs.
DOGS Now we're talking. A robotic representation of the actual pet we're not allowed to have in the apartment. You can start humble with Tiger's little robotic PooChi at the price of about $30. PooChi is just like Furby without the fur. His little eyes light up, his little ears wiggle and his little rump remains firmly planted on the floor. PooChi is as close to a real dog as Anna Nicole Smith is to a real woman-- stiff movements, stupid noises, cheap date. If you've got the green, you can do much, much better. Sony makes a nifty robotic dog called Aibo, and it retails for about ... $2,500. Sure, it's lifesized, lifelike and trainable, but you could probably afford a better apartment-- one that allows Fluffy-- for that kind of cash. For the record, Aibo rolls over, plays with its ball, learns tricks, walks, barks, sits, stays ... and doesn't ever emit any waste. All the puppy, none of the newspaper. The latest version, ERS111, was only available for "adoption" for ten days last February, but you can gaze in wonder and envy at the little pup on Sony's website: www.world.sony.com/Electronics/aibo/top.html
To the Internet! The website www.virtualdog.com allows all the fun of pet ownership coupled with all the waiting of slow download times. You can adopt any one of a number of species and walk around a small virtual world cleaning up after the pup, feeding it, watering, taking it to the vet and teaching it stupid little tricks. Each action requires walking into a different room, which takes forever to download. Pretty soon, you start wishing your virtual dog didn't have legs...
No problemo! At www.joecartoon.com/new/lump.html, you can play with Lump, the "nolegged" dog. Here, finally, we have the virtual pet craze boiled down to its essentials-- useless, grotesque and friendly even when it makes fake urine. For the record, Lump is a very talented dog, despite his disabilities-- he can sit, stay, lie down....
--Chris J. Magyar