Bloomberg: Apple’s tabletop robot is “centerpiece” of its new AI strategy
On the heels of failing to successfully bring its AI iPhone to life, Apple is hoping to turn things around with its next AI effort: a tabletop robot that serves as a virtual companion, Bloomberg reports. Apple plans for the robot, along with a number of other AI hardware devices including a smart speaker with a display, to be accessed through a revamped Siri voice assistant.
The new Siri is slated to have a lifelike visual personality, an approach the company code-named “Bubbles” — something presumably closer to a talking Wall-E than Microsoft’s loathed Clippy.
Like with the iPhone, the success of the unreleased device, which “resembles an iPad mounted on a movable limb” that “can turn toward a person who is speaking or summoning it,” will rely on a functioning AI Siri that can correctly respond to and anticipate people’s needs.
With the current version of Siri unable to consistently answer basic questions about the day’s weather, the new one will have to come a long way before Apple can hang its hardware hopes on it.
The new Siri is slated to have a lifelike visual personality, an approach the company code-named “Bubbles” — something presumably closer to a talking Wall-E than Microsoft’s loathed Clippy.
Like with the iPhone, the success of the unreleased device, which “resembles an iPad mounted on a movable limb” that “can turn toward a person who is speaking or summoning it,” will rely on a functioning AI Siri that can correctly respond to and anticipate people’s needs.
With the current version of Siri unable to consistently answer basic questions about the day’s weather, the new one will have to come a long way before Apple can hang its hardware hopes on it.
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