Sony Rolly demo 2007
January 1, 2008
WIKIPEDIA | Rolly was an egg-shaped digital robotic music player made by Sony, combining music functions with robotic dancing. It had several motors that allowed it to rotate and spin, as well as two bands of LED lights running around its edge and cup-like “wings” (or “arms” according to the Sony sonystyle USA website) which can open and close on either end, all of which could be synchronized to the music being played.
Sound-sensitivity components detected beat, rhythm, voice and pitch, which could be allowed the device to automatically react to music. It also had a G force sensor (accelerometer) which detected if the player was moving up or down. Preprogrammed movements along with music could be downloaded from PCs using Bluetooth, having been composed on the computer or obtained from Sony’s repository of user-made movement schemes. It had 2 gigabytes of flash memory to store music files.
Sony unveiled Rolly on September 20, 2007, and it was for sale at the sonystyle USA website for $229.99 USD, down from $399.99 USD. According to a Sony assistant, the Rolly has been discontinued.