Germany's T-Mobil Unleashes Power of GPRS with 'Virtual Pet'

Motorola End-To-End Solutions Team's First Offering Could Outpace 1990s' Popular 'Giga Pet'
Feb. 19 -- Caring for a dog just got easier -- an electronic dog, that is. Motorola's Global Telecom Solutions Sector (GTSS) has teamed with T-Motion to deliver mobile gaming that engages users wirelessly and intuitively with the care and nurturing of a virtual pet dog.

Using WAP-enabled phones and T-Mobil's new General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) infrastructure from Motorola and Cisco Systems, Inc., T-Mobil customers can choose one of three different types of virtual pet dogs, and they can give their pets commands either in German, English or Hungarian.

Motorola GPRS handsets allow users to care for the artificial lives of their pets through virtual feeding, drinking, exercising, sleeping, and even medicating, if the dog becomes ill. Handset screens allow users to see if their pet is tired, hungry or thirsty. With Motorola's GPRS technology the user is charged for using the network only when there is an interaction, for example when it's time to feed the dog or give it a drink of water. Each pet interaction starts with the display of the current pet state (e.g., tired, hungry, thirsty, etc.) as either a short animation or a single frame. From any frame of the animation the user can select 'Go', which will display the main menu.

The pet's lifetime is compressed, so that a typical lifespan is measured in days rather than years, in order to retain the user's interest and use of the GPRS network. The pet's life progresses the same as the user's, which means one day for the user is equal to one day for the pet. The pet has three lifecycle phases, namely child, adult and elderly. The pet spends four days in the child phase, six as an adult and four more days in the elderly phase. If the user manages to keep the pet alive through the full duration of the current phase, it then will move into the next phase on the following day, exhibiting different characteristics.

The pet will notify the user if certain thresholds are exceeded, for example if it is extremely hungry or in pain, but most interactions are based on the user's own initiative to simulate the care and nurturing of a real living pet.

Motorola GTSS is hosting and supporting the Virtual Pet application on servers in Swindon, UK, and users access it through a link from a WAP gateway operated by T-Mobil. Consumers can use this application by accessing the T-Motion portal, the new internet service designed for WAP-enabled mobile devices. T-Motion is the first truly international product of T-Mobile International and T-Online, both part of Deutsche Telekom. T-Motion delivers a wide selection of Internet services for WAP-enabled mobile phones. Each night through the T-Motion Application server, the pet is forcibly put to sleep by the Motorola virtual pet server at 10 p.m. and awakened the following day at 8 a.m. During this period the pet will not wake if these sleep thresholds are exceeded. However, a user can wake their pet during any sleeping period if they so choose.

Motorola's plans for developing the Virtual Pet further revolve around the introduction of artificial intelligence and online gaming functionality, while improving the graphics to take advantage of Motorola GPRS and 3G (third generation) mobile terminals scheduled for market entry during 2001 and 2002.

SOURCE Motorola, Inc.
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