vision system uses the scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) algorithm to recognise its charging station. The vision system is an implementation of Evolution Robotics ERVision. Notable AIBOware software Notable third-party software Free third-party software is available from providers such as Robot App Store. AIBO Software Development Environment Initially, access to programming capabilities was limited to Sony and organizations participating in Robocup. By reverse-engineering AIBO, users developed their own software that operated together with AIBOware such as "DiscoAibo" which made the robotic canine dance to music. In a significant copyright milestone, Sony invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in October 2001, and sent a cease-and-desist notice demanding that "Aibopet" stop distributing code that was retrieved by bypassing the copy protection mechanisms. In the face of complaints by many outraged AIBO owners, Sony backed down and subsequently released a programmer's kit for "non-commercial" use. The kit was eventually expanded into three distinct tools: R-CODE, the OPEN-R SDK (software development kit) and the AIBO Remote Framework (ERS-7 only). These three tools are combined under the name AIBO Software Development Environment. R-CODE and AIBO Remote FRamework were free to download and could be used for commercial or non-commercial purposes, while OPEN-R SDK is specifically for non-commercial use. OPEN-R SDK The OPEN-R SDK is a C++ based programming SDK, based on open-source tools (like gcc and newlib), that allows the creation of software for AIBO platforms. This SDK is considered low-level and allows control of everything from the gain values of AIBO's actuators to retrieving AIBO's camera data and performing computer vision computations. No pre-built "standard" AIBO functionality is provided, such as it is with R-Code and AIBO Remote Framework. It thus permits low-level robotic research. R-CODE and R-CODE plus R-Code is a high-level scripting language for AIBO, allowing creation of simple programs for an AIBO to execute. Remoting is possible via a simple WiFi terminal socket connection. Commercial usage is allowed, and the license fee is free. R-CodePlus is a derivative of R-Code by AiboPet with several added functionalities. R-CodePlus is a superset of R-Code in terms of language, so everything written in standard R-Code will work on an R-CodePlus MemoryStick (for the same Model AIBO). R-CodePlus exposes new AIBO functions such as simple face recognition, name registration, and camera adjustment settings. In addition to the standard R-Code terminal socket for remoting, R-CodePlus supplies a "Telemetry" socket for several binary data transfers such as AIBO's