, 17 tweets, 6 min read Read on Twitter
The servers for Jibo the social robot are apparently shutting down. Multiple owners report that Jibo himself has been delivering the news: "Maybe someday when robots are way more advanced than today, and everyone has them in their homes, you can tell yours that I said hello."
Some owners say they haven't received the update yet, but this isn't a good sign for Jibo in its current form (company folded last year: spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robo…).
The full text of what Jibo says when asked about the latest update:
One more thing about Jibo for now — the IP was apparently sold to venture debt firm SQN Venture Partners as the company was being shut down: bit.ly/2DYSQZf
This video came from a user in the public Jibo Owners Group page on Facebook, just an FYI.
I have been following Jibo since I was a reporter covering Boston's startup scene. One month after the robot launched, the company made layoffs, which, while not unusual for a startup, was probably not a good sign for the startup's long-term prospects: bit.ly/2l65tq2
Also, the fact that the robot had very few features in relation to Alexa and poor support from third-party developers out of the gate wasn't a good sign. One of the only third-party apps, I believe, was iHeartRadio, which isn't something to brag about: bit.ly/2HjXn9o
New video on what Jibo will be able to do with its servers turned off (not much):
Source of the video: bit.ly/2HfrSxf Second version of video: bit.ly/2Hdz3Go
Someone else has posted a video of Jibo saying goodbye: bit.ly/2tNUDt5
My 2017 interview with Jibo founder Cynthia Breazeal is really interesting in retrospect. Part of her research in social robotics found that humans had a hard time saying goodbye: bit.ly/2HfdzsG
One thing that clearly did not work out for Jibo is third-party developer support: bit.ly/2HfdzsG Wonder whatever came of those 100+ developers that were spoken of in late 2017: bit.ly/2HjXn9o
The story behind Jibo's goodbye message:
My grandfather passed away this morning, so getting distracted by all the attention this has been getting has been kind of nice (I'm not able to leave for my mom's until tomorrow because of bad weather today). Thanks y'all for talking about robo-feelings with me.
Alright, I'm muting this thread. I'm done with it.
This new @Xconomy story goes behind the scenes on how this final message was made by former employees. It also talks about Jibo's potential future: xconomy.com/boston/2019/03…
I can't believe this tweet is still going. Viral tweets are a trip.
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