I own both an old ERS-7 and a Cozmo. It's striking how much Aibo is a likeable thing, full of surprise compared to Cozmo. I really noticed it when I got Cozmo. It's a shame given the amount of computational power Cozmo gets from the smartphone, and its way better camera. But I guess the constraints forced Aibo engineers into a more subtle and intelligent design. I'm disappointed, I really hoped for something unbelievable like Aibo was ten years ago.

I am thinking of getting Cozmo. What's your review on it? I'd also be interested in knowing how much we can tweak Cozmo (e.g. can we implement new features using computer vision, does it have its own programming language, etc,)

The toy itself is not very fun. Even pretty annoying sometimes (like the stupid daily calibration task). It has no brain, you have to dedicate a smartphone to this. It's a very wrong move I think, though I understand the cost benefits. But the worst part is that almost every interaction with the robot goes first through the smartphone UI (like triggering a request for a game). It totally kills the experience, and makes it painful for parents of small kids, too young to have a phone. I have read somewhere that they hired some expert game designers and hollywood concept artists from Wall-E to design the actual experience. My harsh feeling is that it's the worst idea ever, it feels very much like a bad hollywood blockbuster, no subtlety but only misplaced costly special effects and tricks. I had little expectations though, I bought it to tweak it (someday). It uses a python SDK, you have to connect a dedicated smartphone to your computer, and the python SDK connects to the Cozmo app on the phone to send commands. Apparently the SDK is good, and the team seems serious about supporting this.

Someone's been reading Fred Brooks ;)

I have not, does he write about the Aibo development history ?

He writes about Design, and also likes to call it a game of constraints(paraphrasing).

It's actually a feature. It saved you one day of your life. And if this free service just disappears some day, you are just one day away to build your own. You got your number from Twilio, there is no lock-in.

Personally if I built this I would probably open source it. Then anyone can run it. Although I suspect this is just a marketing ploy for http://aworldforus.com/ or they built it for their own use and decided to release it.

It's hosted on a paid Heroku instance, our own company number is served by this. The server didn't break a sweat with this HN traffic.

That's not reassuring. It's a free service that could shut down at any time. It's lovely, but I would never use it directly for anything serious unless I could pay for it.

Thanks ! I'll fix this.

You keep control over your number, which you bought on Twilio.

You control the number of Google Voice and it has the same features too and is free. Clearly if you wanted to use Twillio platform with the same number there are things Google Voice could not do, but as is, I don't see the difference. What is the difference?

I don't live in the US, so Google Voice is not available, and I don't know much about it. Using Twilio seems right to me, because it's basically a low level phone number provider, you don't feel that locked.

Yes, that's correct, here's Twillio's information on international support: https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/223183068-Twili...

And a Google Voice support covering the topic too: https://support.google.com/voice/forum/AAAAjq5-_rMgML2a7pJrj...

I once tried to find interns for my startup at Epitech (42 is a copy of Epitech). Their level in mathematics was abysmal. I mean they didn't even understand how to use basic trigonometric functions. There is a very good reason if the best engineering schools in France only admit students after a 2 years curriculum of pure math/physics/chemistry.

I have quite a few friends in Paris who have also told me that 42 is good at teaching most standard CS concepts but they were definitely not a good choice for "mathematical" projects.

I'm currently reading all your old posts on factor. It's so sad that it seems almost dead, it's incredibly good and mind bending. Have you lost interest for this language ?

Factor is still maintained and there is activity in the mailing list. I still use it. Recently I restored from backup an old project of mine that is written in factor, http://tinyvid.tv. It was fun hacking on it again - reminded me of what a great language it is.

The name has an history, but the fact that UK (and US) have a problem with it is probably the very reason why it's been kept like this. After all "bit" in french has exactly the same meaning as "cock" in english. french devs deal with it. I guess it's some kind or revenge...

We actually joke about it! Take a 'bitfield' for example, in french it becomes a 'field of cocks' :)

I'm pretty sure I remember hearing fairly direct word-of-mouth confirmation that the double meaning was completely deliberate.

Why does it have to be a girl/woman? Why would it be any different for a boy/man to say they love Coq?

This actually happened to me. A classmate said something about Coq, and I did a double take. He explained it was a language, but for a second he got my hopes up.

Anything to do with Aurora ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6iUm_Cqx2s

We renamed Aurora to Eve, though it's changed significantly since that video. We found lots of issues with that way of thinking about the world and so worked to find a better model. The name Aurora didn't seem to test very well, but we've found Eve to work rather nicely.

Any serious entrepreneur in France can double the company income or raided funds with the help of national and local R&D grants, funds and tax credits (Crédit Impot Recherche). Add to that two years of salary for the founders paid by the agency the help unemployed people. It's super easy to get ramen profitable in France, and you don't really need to get angel funding. This is huge and often undervalued.

If you start just out of college your don't get unemployment.

Tax Credits comes with a lot conditions that a lot of startup can't afford. For example, you have to hired university PHDs to do mainly abstract research, startups don't have this kind of money.

You don't need to hire PHD at all. Engineers are fine, and not even mandatory. You can do a lot of tasks on tax credits, even graphic design or testing.

From the CIR (The structure in charge of this tax credit), you can only do: applied science, pure research and experimental development. Sounds more PHD tasks than regular designer or regular engineer tasks.

Nope, it's totally ok. Tested for 4 years with a control from a government agent lately with 2 engineers and a 3D artist without any engineering degree. CIR is way broader than what people think, and it has been made even broader this year (you can now include tasks from pilot programs). This is really super undervalued, CIR and other grants is totally a game changer in assessing if France is a good country to start a tech business.

Totally agree, I've been leading our R&D program for 4 years. No PhD at all, a product owner, 4 engineers (some with an engineering degree, some without) and a UX designer. Design and testing are eligible as far as it is related to R&D operations. Some of the support costs, such as accounting, technology watch or hardware requirements, are eligible.

We also obtain the JEI status that allows huge tax discounts.

The fact you can't innovate in France is a myth.

Interesting. So you can get unemployed benefit and run a company at the sametime?

Absolutely. It's not a trick, it's an official system to help entrepreneurship. You need to have worked at least 2 years to have unemployment right though. So as hartator said, you don't get it straight after college.