The Digital Pets Company: Virtual Dogs for the Metaverse

Artificial Intelligence-powered 3D digital dogs are now a reality thanks to The Digital Pets Company.

The company’s goal is to secure digital dogs as non-fungible tokens (NFT), which would help owners to properly authenticate themselves to get unique digital items.

These digital pets will be able to interact with their owners in virtual reality and augmented reality worlds, both from mobile devices and VR glasses, with the option also to be with the digital dogs from web applications running from the browser.

It is a mix between AI, extended reality (XR) and blockchain technology that makes each dog unique, both in appearance and personality. They use a technology called PetOS, owned by the startup, to make sure this is the case.

It is not easy to get realistic interactions, neither with voice nor with touch or gaze, but in this case they believe they have succeeded. We can name it, train it and play with other people and their digital dogs when there is a digital encounter in our metaverse.

Both the physical appearance and personality is protected as NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, and each NFT will belong to a digital wallet owned by each user, so no one can alter anything about our pet.

For training, users will be able to use tokens providing positive incentives, and there will be digital playgrounds where people and dogs can socialize.

The company has been working since July 2021 to make this dream possible. They are dog-loving engineers and developers, and they already have a solid base of investors who believe in the idea and are betting on it.

You can see a demonstration with the dog Laika at laika.thedigitaldogs.co, where we will have the possibility to train her.

And you can also participate in her Raffle!

To commercialize its technology, The Digital Pets Company raised pre-seed funding from Outlier Ventures, Hawk Digital, MaxStealth and angel investor Rafi Gidron, who launched Chromatis and sold it to Lucent for $4.8 billion. The startup is in talks with other potential investors.

Interoperable digital companions in a persistent state will allow their owners to interact with them, in virtual reality worlds, augmented reality, mobile devices or web applications.

The company’s mission is to create realistic interactions through vocal, visual and tactile communication so that people can interact with their digital dogs in the same way they do with their physical pets.

All digital dogs, along with their visual and personality traits, are secured as NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. Each NFT will belong to a specific user’s digital wallet. The startup’s unique implementation of the blockchain allows users to care for the digital dog and train it with other users, such as family and friends.

As in real life, a digital dog can be a pet or an office dog. The NFTs will be stored as ERC-721 tokens and hosted in the Interplanetary File System (IPFS). Each NFT is connected through the owning PetOS to an actual Digital Dog.

The Digital Dogs will be used in various virtual environments in the Metaverse through the company’s proprietary software development kit (SDK). The Digital Pets Company will sell NFTs that will allow Digital Dog owners to meet their dogs and train them through one-on-one digital interactions.

Owners will use the tokens to help train digital dogs by providing them with positive incentives, just like real dogs. The startup will develop social interaction in digital playgrounds where people and dogs can socialize.

“Over the next decade, we will see more and more virtual spaces where people hang out and create new interactions,” says Itay Hasid, CEO of The Digital Pets Company, in a statement. “These spaces will be very empty and lonely without relevant content that connects people and builds meaningful social relationships. Dogs, who are man’s best friend, make us happier and help us connect with new people. I believe that artificial intelligence, animation and multi-sensory communications that combine voice, sight and touch will create real relationships, just like in the physical world, and meet social and emotional needs.

The Digital Pets Company will allow you to own NFT dogs

Digital identity is becoming increasingly important. Many people buy avatars to represent them in online social experiences, dress them in appropriate clothing and footwear, to express the owner’s unique digital identity. Giant companies such as LAIKAMeta Platforms (formerly Facebook) even offer to create avatars that can accompany users through different virtual worlds, in order to establish a unified and lasting digital identity.

The company Digital Pets has made available the demo of the web application Laika. As a proof of concept, Laika laid a solid foundation for a new living, self-learning species, using voice AI, extended reality and blockchain technologies in ways that have never been done before.

In addition to Laika, The Digital Pets Company is finalizing the construction of its digital lab. These are still growing in incubators. Owners will have access to the same space where they will be able to watch the dogs develop, as well as name and train them in the near future. The company has 10 employees.

“The first is a personal experience I had in a virtual world using a VR headset, where I learned that it is not at all easy to create meaningful social interactions, especially with strangers. In the case of VR, it’s not easy to create meaningful social interactions, especially with strangers, with avatars in the game,” he said. “In this virtual world, there was an ‘ice-breaker box’ with strange questions like ‘what’s your favorite color?’ ‘ I thought, ‘mmm, I’m not going to do this, it’s too embarrassing,’ but then I realized something important Digital life is real, and the same rules apply People are anxious, people sometimes feel lonely, it’s hard to break the ice, group dynamics, etc. That’s where the idea came from.