I don't have one, but I seriously considered it until I saw that the batteries only gave it about an hour of run time per charge. I hope your son enjoys it. It looks like a really cool toy.
Pleo is more than just a really cool toy though, IMHO. I was really excited when I saw the ads. I see Pleo as a bit of turning point. Pleo moves, "sees", "hears" and reacts independently. It is almost lifelike. Pleo is the first commercially affordable application I have seen of multiple inexpensive processors dedicated to the task of creating a lifelike creature - a synthethic lifeform of sorts.
Processing power has finally become simultaneously cheap enough and powerful enough to start producing intelligent nearly thinking synthetic "life forms". Pleo is still fairly simple but think ahead two or three years, when Pleo's two processors can be replaced with 8 or 16 processors all for the same price and likely lower power consumption from stronger batteries. Lets see, one processor dedicated to vision, another to hearing, another to "speech" (Pleo makes noises), another to balance, another to front legs, another to rear legs, maybe one to co-ordinate and control the others, and finally, a "personality" processor. Pretty soon, you could make a really lifelike Pleo.
...and why stop there? This is what excites me about Pleo. I see it as the start of the era of commercially available meaningfully intelligent robots. Pleo moves, "sees", "hears" and reacts independently. With a bit more processing umphh and better batteries, Pleo can become a truly realistic synthetic lifeform. As processing power gets cheaper and faster, robotics can quickly move from lifelike dinosaurs to more complex animals and finally to humanoid type robots. C3PO anyone?
