The $430 Casio Moflin is a pointless but adorable robot you can't help but love. My friend's dog Wylie sits watching it, suspicious of its every move. Moflin is an AI companion robot made by the Japanese electronics manufacturer Casio. Via the companion app, I have chosen to name this one Puff, because--well--that is what it looks like. Wylie immediately clocks it as something to be wary of, a device that moves on its own but is not alive. Wylie barks, then runs out of the room, growling. When I found out Casio--yes, the same Casio that makes watches--had made an AI pet bot, I figured I was exactly the type of person it was made for.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been tidying our attic, and while the general aim has been to prevent its contents from collapsing through the ceiling, I have a side-mission. My most valued possession when I was twelve was a Casio GD-8 Car Race watch – a digital timepiece that included a built-in racing game on its tiny monochrome LCD display. Two big buttons on the front let you steer left and right to avoid incoming vehicles and your aim was to stay alive as long as possible. I lost count of the number of times it was confiscated by teachers at my school. I used to lend it to the hardest boys in the year, thereby guaranteeing me protection against bullies.

It looks faintly like one half of a small pair of very fluffy slippers. It squeaks and wriggles and nestles in the palm of my hand, black eyes hidden beneath a mop of silvery-white fur. It weighs about the same as a tin of soup. It doesn't need to be fed or walked and it doesn't use a litter tray; it's guaranteed not to leave "gifts" on my doorstep. Which is just as well, because Moflin is about to become my pet.

Casio, perhaps best known for watches and calculators, is expanding its product line to include hypoallergenic, robotic pets. Say hello to "Moflin," a "soothing" and "adorable" AI-powered fur ball that "becomes attached to its owner," according to the company's October 10 announcement in Japanese. While currently only accepting pre-orders in Japan ahead of a November 7 release, the hamster-like device is described to be based on the concept of "Always by your side in your heart." Available in either gold or silver fur, the palm-sized companion sort of resembles a rabbit without ears, or even a Star Trek tribble. An owner is shown turning to her Moflin in times of stress or relaxation, cuddling with her pet, and even taking it out with her on a picnic. It doesn't seem to be able to really walk, and instead wriggles in place depending on the interaction.

If you watched that Star Trek episode about the tribbles and thought, I need one of those in my life (minus the rapid reproduction problem), Casio's got just the thing for you. The company is now taking pre-orders in Japan for Moflin, the adorable robotic plushie with AI "emotional capabilities" that debuted during CES 2021. Moflin, developed in a partnership with the Japanese startup Vanguard Industries, is meant to work like an emotional support pet -- snuggling is its specialty, and the creators say each robot has its own distinct personality, can shift moods depending on the situation and will form attachments to people over time. It's available in gray and blonde for a hefty 59,400 (roughly 400), and is expected to ship on November 7. There's no word on a release outside of Japan. Moflin doesn't just respond to cuddles. You're supposed to talk to it, too, and it'll react with movements and cute sounds.

Casio has unveiled a new digital watch made in collaboration with Bandai Namco, paying homage to not one but two digital classics from the late '70s and early '80s. The A100WEPC Pac-Man edition has a design based on the Casio's F-100 digital watch from 1978, and celebrates one of the most famous games of all time: Pac-Man. The F-100 was one of the most advanced watches you could buy at the time, offering a stopwatch, digital alarm and calendar features. It was also the first watch with a resin case, as Casio notes in a press release. It's perhaps most famous for being the watch worn by Ripley and other characters from the 1979 movie Alien. At the same time, the watch face features the Pac-Man and ghost characters, with the center illuminator logo rendered with the Pac-Man font.

Generative Adversarial Networks use a pair of machine-learning models to create things that seem very realistic: one of the models, the "generator," uses its training data to make new things; and the other, the "discerner," checks the generator's output to see if it conforms to the model. Rutgers comp sci prof Ahmed Elgammal runs an Art and AI Lab where they use "Creative Adversarial Networks" to produce new artworks: CANs use a "discerner" that seeks out "novelty," not fidelity to the statistical predictions of the model. The underlying theory is that art evolves "through small alterations to a known style that produce a new one," which, as Ian Bogost (previously) points out, is "a convenient take, given that any machine-learning technique has to base its work on a specific training set." Elgammal recent exhibited a show called Faceless Portraits Transcending Time at Chelsea's HG Contemporary gallery; and his choice of portraiture as a means of showcasing the capabilities of CANs has proven to be controversial: as art historian John Sharp says, "You can't really pick a form of painting that's more charged with cultural meaning than portraiture." Portraits use extensive, coded symbology to say something about their subjects, and CANs do not, by themselves, understand or correctly use these symbols in the works they create.