Robotic Pets

Emergence of Robotic pets.    Remember well the Tamagotchi craze, examined it for possible tie ins.  See the tag below.  Are we heading back that way with new robotic capabilities?

Scores of children spent the mid-1990s raising, neglecting, and ultimately killing a new breed of pet — the egg-shaped Tamagotchi keychain. With three buttons and a pixelated grayscale screen, it wasn't even cute enough to rival the pet rocks of the '70s. But it might have been prophetic.

Despite its rise and fall, the Tamagotchi could have ushered in the start of a robotic pet trend that will only grow in the coming decades, argued University of Melbourne veterinary science researcher Jean-Loup Rault in Frontiers in Veterinary Science. As the world population heads toward 9.6 billion by 2050 and technology advances, robotic pets could serve as an emotionally satisfying substitute for their live counterparts in cramped living quarters, he speculated.  .... "