Akihabara News had the scoop of revealing that Sony was going to stop making AIBO’s, and we are very proud that a huge number of websites used our news to report on this decision by Sony… but that’s not all… a number of (French) AIBO owners are deeply saddened by this horrible news, and they have started this petition:

Following the brutal advertisement of Sony to stop the developments for Aibo and Qrio, its two general public robots, the signatories want to express by this petition to the Sony group their surprise and their very great disappointment. We wish this decision provisional and hope that the Aibo project does not remain without a future.

Indeed, beyond the ludic aspect of this robotic dog, Aibo is a tremendous dream carrying future, a symbol which shows that robots can be more than science-fiction concepts or simple tools. Aibo is conceived to be attaching and Sony, through this machine, concretized the dream to see machines and humans to cohabit; it showed that human engineering can make beautiful things at one time when many doubt science and progress. Through this petition we also say no to the diktat of finance which chokes the dream with the profit of some and we ask Sony to continue the Aibo adventure and to reconsider his decision

Cyril and Techno.

Even though I think that it will be impossible to change Sony’s mind concerning the AIBO, it’s important to make the company understand that their customers, admirers of AIBO and QRIO, are really sad because of this decision. I was also touched by this news despite the fact that I was never a huge fan of AIBO. I did find the little robots were incredible during the RoboCups… and these events will never be the same again without AIBO.