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On the first day of PopTech! Conference Caleb Chung, inventor, board member & co-founder at Ugobe, a company that “develops revolutionary robotics that transform inanimate objects into lifelike creatures” delivered a mind-boggling demonstration of one of the products of Ugobe's new product line of “living toys”. Chung showcased his new invention – Pleo, a little toy dinosaur powered by an open-source operating system (Life OS) that has a capacity to learn. It should go retail at 350$ right before Christmas.

How does one arrive at the very concept of “living toys”? Chung (who is half German and half Chinese, “hungry for power family” he jokes) began his toy invention career with Mattel in 1985, designing toys for its New Business Concepts R&D Division which targeted the Infant & Preschool, Boys Toys, Barbie, Activities and Games markets.

He starts his presentation by showing a video of some of the most bizarre and outlandish toy inventions he had dreamt up and some of which he actually convinced Mattel to develop: all sorts of toy cookie and apple pie makers, a bunch of fighting robots that fought each other almost to virtual death, some sort of Barbie on wheels and many other toys that “you wouldn't want to give you kids at Christmas”, as Chung puts it. “There are many hits and misses in this business; you have to be prepared for it”.

 The toy extravaganza had earned him appearances on TV, including one on David Letterman's show, where he made Letterman scoot around in a chair that could set fire at the push of a button (that almost looked like a tank). However, Chung's fortunes got even better after he co-invented the 1998 hot toy of the year, Furby, which sold over 50 million units worldwide, generating over $1.2 billion in sales. That was probably a precursor of things to come; Furby was cute, but in a very special, perhaps, even “robotic” way.

Chung tells a tale of how he came up with the idea for Furby; he was visiting a toy fair with his friend. Chung has the mind of a designer rather than programmer – but he plays on TV, he says—while his friend had a much more technical mind, so they were a good match (matching art with science is very important, says Chung, it's like yin and yang, that's also where business can successfully step it in the area around yin and yang – Chung pulls up an interesting chart). So after spending countless nights in his garage trying to build Furby, Chung's wife finally came to the rescue and helped him design a much nicer looking toy.

The global success of Furby allowed Chung to retire; yet, he was too restless and started working on Pleo, the dionsaur product he always wanted to build. The idea was to create a real life-form by trying to replicate a little baby dinosaurs. Who needs another life form? Why do it? Chung says that he believes that humans need empathy and we don't get enough of this in real life. So there is a place for these new life forms in our society and they do serve a real purpose of comforting us.

It's interesting how Chung went about designing his dinosaur. He spent a lot of time in museums and reading obscure books about the creatures, trying to get as close to the real product as possible. For example, the skin that Pleo has resembles the dinosaur skin that was discovered some time ago almost undamaged and they also spent an incredible amount of time to create an eye that would look realistic.

The philosophy behind Pleo is based on what Chung calls three laws of Ugobe life forms. First of all, these life forms should feel and convey emotions about how they feel what they are thinking. Second, they should become aware of itself and its environment. Finally, they should be able to learn and adopt over time, just like the real creatures do. Thus, although Pleo is filled in with all sorts of gadgets and little particles -- the motors, the gears, the software, what you as really react to is the human part of it. “You get a character that you can fall in love with”, says Chung.

Pleo is really heavy on the gadgets part. It contains 32-bit microprocessors and four 8-bit subprocessors, as well as 100 customized gears, 38 sensors, 14 motors and a camera-based optical system (it also has a special card and USB slots on its stomach). On top of that it's powered by an open-source operating system Life OS; eventually, each of us may end up writing our own applications for Pleo.

Chung brought the beta prototype of Pleo and showcased to the audience. Pleo was making weird sounds and behaving rather naughty – at one point, Chung had to turn it off, as Pleo was competing for the audience's attention. It would be very curious to observe Pleo's learning process; at least while on stage, it didn't really improve its behavior in real-time!