In late November, we reported that NEON, the artificial human product that was announced at CES 2020 by Samsung Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Labs will be coming to phones this December. Now, the CEO of STAR Labs, Pranav Mistry, has said that will not be the case.
Apparently, a few days after we reported that the AI product will be coming to smartphones, Mr. Mistry had posted a tweet saying that NEON View, the version made for mobile devices, “will not be coming for general availability in the near future”.
In the tweet, he said that NEON is “first targeted for Business-to-Business, as an API” that makes use of its “real-time conversation capability to mobile apps and web services”.
Also, NEON is an independent service, in making. Its not coming with S21 or any other Galaxy devices. Available in 2021, as of now only for B2B via View API integration, and NEON Frame.
— Pranav Mistry (@pranavmistry) December 13, 2020
Today, there was a tweet from the leaker that goes by Tron (@cozyplanes) that NEON would be available only on the Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G. Another leaker, Chun (@chunvn8888) also said that there would be a press release. Turns out both were wrong.
NEON is your AI friend. It has a face and you can name it. It doesn't make calls for your boss or tell you today's weather. There is Bixby for that, your smart assistant. You get all of these in your pocket. Only on Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G.
— Tron (@cozyplanes) December 13, 2020
Neon will be revealed via a press release and website update in a couple of hours. And it's way more cooler than you might think
— Snapdrachun 888 5G (@chunvn8888) December 13, 2020
In a now-deleted tweet, Pranav Mistry clarified that there will be no press release and that NEON will not be coming with the (Galaxy) S21. The head of the research lab then posted another tweet saying that NEON is an independent service and it will not be coming with the Galaxy S21 or any other Galaxy devices.
So if you were excited about NEON coming to phones, sorry to burst your bubble, but that will not be happening soon. The NEON website does say that “My NEON”, an artificial human friend, will be coming in 2022 but we don’t know if it will come with phones or in a different consumer device.
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