Children across the US will likely spend the coming days and weeks saying goodbye to an AI-powered friend named Moxie. The small dog-sized companion bot--which used a ChatGPT-style large language model and expressive features to hold open-ended conversations with children--will soon be taken offline due to its creator's financial struggles. The decision to abandon the 799 product four years after its release, first reported by Aftermath, has left some customers bemoaning the loss of an artificial friend and others angrily demanding refunds. Videos of confused, crying children saying goodbye to their companion flooding social media. It's part of a larger trend of companies cutting off software support for hardware to cut costs.

With its blue body, big anime eyes, and head shaped like a teardrop, Moxie wants to be friends with your child. The robot companion is designed to support social, emotional and cognitive development in children between the ages of five and 10, through play-based learning and lessons on turn-taking and eye contact. Launched in 2020, Moxie was developed by Embodied, a robotics company based in Pasadena, California. "Our collective vision is to create robots that are going to benefit society," says Paolo Pirjanian, the founder and CEO of Embodied. The roboticist and former NASA scientist founded the company in 2016 and oversaw the creation of Moxie.

If the death of Jibo taught us anything, it's that it doesn't take much for humans to become emotionally attached to their robot companions. But I suppose that's something we learned when Roomba owners started dressing up their vacuums and kids became obsessed with Tamagotchis. Moxie is a bit different. Developed by Embodied, a company co-founded by former iRobot CTO Paolo Pirjanian, Moxie is a companion robot made specifically for kids to play with every day. During a 15 to 25 minute session, your child can chat with Moxie, play some games, or read alongside it. It can learn to recognize a child's face and their particular learning needs.

It's hard to imagine anything less personable than a vacuum cleaner--until you give it a mind of its own. Almost as soon as iRobot released the Roomba into the world, a community of autonomous vacuum enthusiasts started giving their Roombas names, backstories, and custom wardrobes. One of the company's early TV ads acknowledged this unlikely bond, featuring people talking about their Roomba like it was a person. It's a big emotional investment in a tool whose sole purpose is to suck up filth, but Paolo Pirjanian, former CTO of iRobot, totally gets it. "There's something innate in our mind that triggers when you see something move on its own," says Pirjanian.

Apps have helped people share their homes, cars and technical skills. But stuff -- specifically, the kind that spends most of the year in garages, closets and sheds -- hasn't proved as easy to share. Rather than own stuff you'll seldom use, the start-up offers on-demand rentals. Joymode delivers a package of beach chairs, blankets and sand toys. Want to have a backyard movie night on a whim?