At the 2024 Lenovo Innovation Technology Conference, Lenovo introduced the prototype for a smart home assistant, codenamed “AI Buddy.” Designed to compete with popular devices like Amazon’s Echo, the Lenovo AI Buddy brings unique design elements and innovative features that set it apart from other smart home assistants on the market.

Lenovo AI Buddy Specifications:

The Lenovo AI Buddy is shaped like an oversized, foldable MagSafe charging base, with a circular display on top that displays animated eyes as emojis to simulate emotions and enhance user interaction.

The facial expressions are reminiscent of the JoyfulRobotics Android Desktop Robot, developed by an ex-Xiaomi Employee last year. The display also shows basic information like time, weather updates, music options, and personal photos.

The AI Buddy also incorporates USB-A and USB-C ports, as well as a headphone jack on the base, making it versatile for users who want connectivity options in their smart home devices. The device is sleek and minimalist, aligning with Lenovo’s approach to design, while also providing essential functionality in a compact form factor.

Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing unveiled the AI Buddy alongside Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, announcing a partnership between Lenovo and Meta to launch AI Now, a personal AI assistant for PCs based on Meta’s Llama large model.

The AI Buddy incorporates this advanced technology, delivering a more natural and adaptive user experience. It uses sentiment-based AI to customize responses, handling tasks like scheduling, reminders, and daily tasks while learning and adapting to user preferences over time.

The product stands out with a rotating display that can adjust to maintain visual contact with the user, much like Amazon’s Echo Show 10. This feature makes interactions feel more personal and dynamic, as the AI Buddy follows users and adjusts based on where they are in the room.

With the integration of AI Now, the AI Buddy can assist with task management, helping users organize their day efficiently. Additionally, Lenovo emphasizes data security in this device, ensuring that sensitive information is handled with care and that user interactions with the AI Buddy remain private.

During the event, Lenovo also unveiled several other prototypes alongside the AI Buddy, such as the AI Mouse, which includes a dedicated AI Now button for seamless integration into Lenovo’s AI ecosystem. Furthermore, Lenovo teased the Lenovo Home AI Brain, which is designed to manage, organize, and safeguard family memories, creating AI-generated highlight reels for cherished moments.

(Source)

The post Lenovo unveils AI Buddy, a smart assistant that interacts like a friend appeared first on Gizmochina.

Hey, Alexa, what time is it? Alexa, turn on the light. Alexa, play Boy with Luv by BTS. These are just a few of the retinues of commands Amazon’s Alexa smart assistant processes daily in millions of homes around the world. Well, in one US home the use of the command has left the couple’s eleven-month-old baby confusing her name for “Alexa”.

A video shared by the New York Post shows how 11-month-old Emily wouldn’t respond when her mom called her real name while pushing her in a stroller. But as soon as she called “Alexa”, she snapped to attention, turning her head towards her mother’s gaze. “No, your name’s Emily, not Alexa,” her mom retorts.

The thing is, Emily’s parents had acquired an Amazon Echo smart speaker and usual calls “Alexa” to awaken the smart assistant since she was five months old. Like the quote by Haim Ginott; “Children are like wet cement. Whatever falls on them makes an impression.”

Smart home assistants are all the buzz right now, with Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Xiaomi and others with significant stakes in the market. While the current assistants available offer a wide range of capabilities such as answer queries and commands, provide answers, play music, etc. This has made them useful for smart home applications and is a regular in many homes. You may want to exercise some care when waking up the voice assistant in front of an impressionable child. Else, a child might just go thinking his/her name is Ok Google or Hey Siri. Changing such an impression is sure going to be a tough nut.

UPDATE: We couldn’t embed New York Times’ video on this post so you can check out the video from the source link or from the YouTube channel below.

UP NEXT: Xiaomi Mi Band 5 Review: A Worthy Upgrade to the Mi Band 4

(source)

Apparently, there are a few more videos on YouTube of a couple of other cuties who think their names are “Alexa”. Quite hilarious.

The post “Hey, Alexa” leaves an 11-month-old baby thinking her name is Amazon’s Smart Assistant appeared first on Gizmochina.

Thanks to the rapid growth of the communication technology as well as the hardware industry, this is now becoming an era of connected devices using technologies such as Internet-of-Things (IoT).

As per the report, the smart assistant devices or the IoT devices in China are expected to grow rapidly and is expected to reach 5.8 billion by the year 2023 as per the industry estimates.

The report from the technology market analyst firm Canalys says that devices such as ACs, Door Locks, TVs, and Refrigerators will be able to be operated through smart assistants and will reach 3.6 billion in 2023.

It further goes on to mention that the rise of smart assistants built into the speakers has catalyzed the growth of smart home products and IoT-powered devices that can be controlled through voice commands.

The report adds that the installed base of devices with support for smart assistants built-in will reach 2.2 billion units in China with a compound annual growth rate of 42 percent between 2018 and 2023.

Analyst firm Canalys predicts that every Chinese household will own an average of seven smart assistant-compatible home devices by 2023. Cynthia Chen, Canalys Research Analyst says that the large appliance category, which includes refrigerators, washing machines, and air conditioners, is expected to contribute the biggest growth.

However, it claims that the smartphone will continue to be the leading device category for smart assistants until 2023. But, over the years, with the increasing awareness of saving energy and creating a healthier living environment, will be a major factor in choosing the type of device for the Chinese IoT market.

(Via)

Up Next: Google confirms that it paid people to scan their faces for the ‘field research’ of upcoming Pixel 4

The post China’s Smart Assistant market to see a rapid spurt in growth in the coming years appeared first on Gizmochina.

Last year, Xiaomi launched its own voice-activated smart assistant named XiaoAI which is not just powering its smartphones but many other products, including smart speakers and smart home products.

Today, Xiaomi’s chairman Lei Jun announced through Weibo that Dr. Cui Baoqiu, vice president of artificial intelligence and cloud platform at Xiaomi has revealed that XiaoAI voice assistant has crossed the benchmark of over 100 million activations.

While there are many voice assistants in the Chinese market, XiaoAI is seeing the success mainly because of its deep integration with Xiaomi’s products. Also, other voice assistants such as Google Assitant, Amazon Alexa, and Apple‘s Siri are not up-to-the-mark in China because of the language barrier.

However, XiaoAI voice assistant from Xiaomi is remarkably similar to Google Assistant. It has the same colorful bars that appear when you are issuing voice commands. It can perform various operations such as open apps, take photos, translate menus, check weather information, among others.

Also, since it is also integrated with the smart home products from Xiaomi, it can also be used to turn on the lights, start a vacuum robot, and all sorts of other commands that Google Assistant (also Siri and Alexa) can also perform.

According to the data revealed by Xiaomi, the company’s smart speaker wakes up over 853,000 people every day with its alarm clock while the 800,000 housework per day with IoT devices. The company also says that the speaker plays 1354221 hours of music every day in Taiwan.

Read More: Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 latest MIUI 10.2.1 update brings a fix for rear camera flash problem among others

Xiaomi has been working on IoT devices since 2014 and has supported around 2,000 devices with a connection to smart devices exceeding 132 million. At the AIOT Conference in November last year, the company had revealed that XiaoAI had over 34 million monthly active users.

The post Xiaomi’s XiaoAI Voice Assistant has over 100 million activations so far: Lei Jun appeared first on Gizmochina.

The LG G7 is coming much later than its predecessor, the G6, and when it does launch, it will be wearing a moderately revamped design. We already know what it looks like, thanks to a video and photos from an Israeli publication that got a private hands-on at MWC 2018.

Nevertheless, Popular leaker @OnLeaks in collaboration with @TheMrPhone have provided 3D renders of the upcoming LG flagship.  Actually, it is not much different from the prototype seen at MWC.

The LG G7 sports a FullVision display with a notch at the top. It is still surprising that a manufacturer as big as LG will join the notch trend. However, the video from MWC shows that the phone has an option to blacken out the area around the notch so it appears as if it doesn’t have one. There is still a bit of bezel at the bottom even with the new design.

There are other big changes coming to the LG G series. First, the rear cameras are now arranged vertically. They share the same housing and flanking them on the left is the LED flash and laser focus module. There is also a fingerprint scanner beneath the setup.

[envira-gallery id=”182721″]

The second big change is the hardware buttons. The LG G6 has its power power button buried under the fingerprint scanner. So to turn it on, you have to push it down for a few seconds. For the G7, the button is now on the right side but the left side still has three buttons.

If two of those buttons are the volume rocker, what then is the third button? Reports say this is a dedicated button for activating the smart assistant. Sounds familiar? Yup, reminds us of Samsung’s Bixby button.

READ MORE: LG K9 Launched In Russia, Is A Rebranded Model Of LG K8 (2018)

The LG G7 has a SIM tray at the top along with a secondary microphone while a 3.5mm audio jack, USB-C port, and a speaker grille sit at the bottom.

The LG G7 will launch with a Snapdragon 845 processor, 4GB/6GB of RAM, 64GB/128GB of storage, and measure 153.2 x 71.9 x 8.2 (8.5) mm.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDsQXjMq4P4[/embedyt]

(Source, Via)

The post LG G7 3D Renders Shows Off Vertical Dual Cameras appeared first on Gizmochina.

Even if you are not a Xiaomi fan, you should recognize it’s Mi Bunny mascot. The Mi Bunny has now evolved from being a mascot to being a smart assistant speaker named Kuri.

Kuri was released at this year’s edition of CES which has seen a lot of manufacturers including automobile makers debut products that have voice control or some sort of artificial intelligent assistant built-in.

The smart speaker works as a kids’ companion that reads stories out loud to them and helps them develop their speech and social interaction. Xiaomi says it can read from a database of 10,000 different books. In addition to that, you can also use it send and read messages on the WeChat messaging app and use it to access Xiaomi’s voice assistant.

When you talk to Kuri it’s ears lights up, and while it’s facial expression is sort of fixed it is welcoming and will be loved by kids. Kuri gets better at speech recognition as interactions become more frequent and you can also pair it with the Kuri companion app.

READ MORE: Xiaomi Mi Note 2 Gets Three New Colors: Pink, Green and Purple

Kuri is about 20-inch tall and is covered in food grade AB casing that is resistant to wear from being tossed around by toddlers. There is an 1800mAh battery which should last for up to 7-hours on a single charge.

It costs just ¥199 ($29) but will only be available in China like it’s other products, the Pearl White Mi MIX, the Mi TV 4, and the Mi Router HD launched at CES.

(Source)

The post Xiaomi’s Mi Bunny Mascot is Now A Smart Assistant called Kuri appeared first on Gizmochina.