Samsung revealed a concept
AI-powered robot called Ballie (pronounced Ball-E) at CES 2020. Called a life
companion robot, Ballie is designed to offer personalized care by interacting
with its surroundings, people, animals and connected devices.
The robot is meant for doing
basic tasks around the house, although the full extent of its capabilities
isn't known at this point. Samsung's concept video shows Ballie running around
the house opening curtains, turning on the washing machine and television,
sending a feed of your dog to your phone when you're not home and turning on
the vacuum when the dog spills something.
It does all this with a camera
on the front and using AI to figure out what it's seeing and what it needs to
do. The ball-shaped design has two semi spheres on either side that spin and
allows the ball to move and turn on the spot.
Samsung claims that Ballie's
"On-Device AI capabilities enable it to be a fitness assistant and a
mobile interface that seeks solutions for people’s changing needs." and
that "It does all this while maintaining stringent data protection and
privacy standards."
There's no word on when this
product will go from concept to reality. As is usually the case with these things,
the limiting factor in deciding how well it works or if it is viable at all is
the AI, and while we have made good progress in that field, it's still not good
enough to integrate seamlessly in our daily lives.
In other news, Samsung has
said that it will be releasing its Galaxy Home Mini speaker in early 2020. It's
not quite an AI robot but it is small and sort of round.
