I realize this is seemingly more gadgets than hacking news, but not for me. The Aibo, the goofy, expensive toy that Sony discontinued in 2006, was my introduction to hacking in college. For two years, I hacked this thing with a fury I'd never known. I got into 'RoboCup', aka Robot Soccer, and making these Aibos autonomous were my mission. Through this project, I learned how to code, run a project, and succeed. After two years of hard work, this summer my team, the fiery Northern Bites from small Bowdoin College, won the World Championship of robot dog soccer. Now I'm in Silicon Valley trying to take all that I learned from RoboCup and do something big. The chance of a new Aibo, a robot I got to know a lot of, brings back a lot of hacking memories for me. Anyways, just thought I share. Rock on.