Sony AIBO (1999-2006)

When a Japanese pet is ceremonially cremated, the owners return after the ashes have cooled to sift through them with special chopsticks, picking out the bones one by one and transferring them to their final resting urn.

This was the strangest thing I knew about Japanese funeral rites until I discovered that Buddhist priests there now hold services for robot pets as well. Between 1999 and 2006, the Sony corporation made and sold 150,000 small robot dogs, known as Aibos, which animated at the joints, and were equipped with a microphone and speakers so that they could respond to simple commands. Unlike real dogs, they required no exercise and no food, and they never excreted either. They did, however, mime peeing, lifting their legs and producing what one owner described as “an indescribably beautiful tinkling sound”.