Reported by the Heart of the Machine
Heart of the Machine Editorial Department
Another portable AI device has emerged.
At the recent CES 2024 show, Rabbit, an AI company that develops a next-generation operating system based on large action models (LAMs), unveiled a palm-sized AI smart device, the Rabbit R1, priced at $199. The founder and CEO of the company is Lv Cheng, the founder of Raven Technology.
The R1 is a completely self-contained device that is primarily driven by natural language. The tiny device has everything you need, including a touchscreen, buttons, scroll wheel, microphone, speakers, a 360-degree camera, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support, and a USB-C+SIM card slot.
You can ask R1 a question and get a response in 500 milliseconds by pressing the dialog button, without any wake-up method:
R1 Answer the questioner's question about philosophy
The answer process is also subtitled:
When asked what Coca-Cola's stock price is, R1 will also look online:
When a user asks who the cast of Oppenheimer is, R1 can not only give an accurate answer, but also briefly summarize the main content of the movie:
In addition, the study also released a portal called Rabbit Hole, where users can log into different services to unlock features for R1.
Instead of building an API for developers to support R1, Rabbit chose to adapt R1 to existing applications. They developed the Rabbit OS system, which allows users to go directly to the app through the Rabbit Hole portal. On Rabbit Hole's portal, follow the link to access programs like Uber, Spotify, Doordash, and more. Click the link, and the rest will be similar to signing in to the app on a new device. Once you've logged in, Rabbit OS will be able to perform actions on your behalf.
Compared to mobile phones, there are new features for listening to songs on Spotify on R1:
Not only can it look up the song, the author of the lyrics, but it can even know which band sampled the song.
You don't need to look for a "soulmate" in the comment area, R1 can accompany you to talk about the feelings of listening to songs.
There will also be a new experience when ordering takeout, there is no need to manually enter a long list of addresses, and there is no need to choose "more ice, less ice or no ice" one by one, just move your mouth, and the takeaway brother has already taken the order.
Activities such as planning trips, which require the use of multiple apps, now only need to provide it with a complete request, and R1 can do it all in one place, such as air tickets, tickets to scenic spots, route directions, and specific itinerary arrangements. If you feel that the itinerary is too "special forces", you can turn it into a leisure trip by asking for it.
Rabbit has a built-in translation system for R1 that will automatically detect languages in the environment and provide two-way translation, removing the last communication barrier between people.
At the same time, a built-in camera based on computer vision technology provides it with vision, and the R1 can analyze its surroundings and act in real time. Show it the roadside poster, which it can identify by the picture, and the protagonist of the poster is the singer of the famous hit song "Never go na give you up".
If you don't know what to eat, show R1 what it's stocked in the fridge, and it will identify all the ingredients and provide you with a fat-reducing meal with detailed instructions.
In the office scene, R1 can also shine, give it a look at excel, say goodbye to the Vlookup function, R1 will match the items in the table, and send the summary version to your mailbox. You can also reply to this email to instruct R1 to complete more tasks and enjoy R1's services outside of the device.
There are some things that the R1 can do, phones can't do right now. Because each phone has relatively fixed functions at the factory, the "Teaching Mode" allows you to teach the R1 to learn unlimited new features, no matter what your technical background is.
In "Teaching Mode", show R1 how to generate images with images and text prompts, and then alert them to some problems, such as entering not only the image hints in the example, but any image. Soon, the Midjourney feature is now available in R1's Family Bucket.
Netizens hotly discussed: The direction is right, or it doesn't make much sense?
Why do you need a new device like the R1 if you already have a smartphone?
Lv Cheng said at the press conference that the goal of R1 is not to replace mobile phones, app-based mobile phones have been around for 15 years, and a new generation of native AI devices has just emerged, and R1 is just a new generation of new devices.
This palm-sized AI smart device has some people very optimistic, calling it "the iPhone moment in the AI era".
This netizen thinks that Rabbit R1 solves a problem that we didn't realize but needs to be solved, and solves the problem that ordinary users have to press the keys. As a physical device, the Rabbit R1 makes it unnecessary for us to carry a smartphone with a larger size, and it's much cheaper.
Twitter @doganuraldesign
Some people think that while the direction is right, it's not clear what problems the Rabbit R1 can solve for which people. Most of the features it showcases are exactly what we'd expect from an app like ChatGPT. As a result, a well-done UI for your app leads to a more convenient user experience.
Twitter @toshiyori
There is also the admitting that developing such a smaller device that fits in your pocket is a very interesting idea, but it is still unknown whether such an interface and core functionality will be used more widely in the future, and it is clear that the Rabbit R1 is not an upcoming game-changer.
Twitter @FutureD4N
Once Apple integrates ChatGPT-like large language models into its voice assistant Siri and natively integrates with iOS, Rabbit R1 will no longer exist.
Twitter @errphoto_
Some people even ridiculed that it seems that Lao Luo's TNT came out early.
Twitter @ailiangzi
Rabbit R1 is equivalent to a portable voice AI that integrates many functions, which can be fully met by future mobile apps. So, why buy one more of these devices?
Twitter @DextorWong
In addition, if mobile phone manufacturers integrate this "control of applications and processes through voice commands" function in their systems in the future, then there is no need for Rabbit R1 to exist.
But the official Rabbit account claims that 10,000 units were sold in the first day after the release, and the product is expected to be delivered in April or May this year.
Rabbit isn't the first practitioner to use AI models to empower wearable devices. Last November, Humane launched the Ai Pin, touting it as a "replacement for the iphone." The $699 (about 5,009 yuan) product comes with OpenAI's GPT model built-in. In addition to the touchpad, you can also interact with it through the screen it projects in your hand, and with the movement of your fingers, you can switch music and search online.
Before it was officially released, Ai Pin was named "one of the best inventions of 2023" by Time magazine, garnering more than $200 million in investment from Silicon Valley giants like Sam Altman, Salesforce, and Microsoft.
Ai Pins will start shipping in March this year, but before the product is delivered to users, sources have revealed that Humane laid off 4% of its employees this week, and the founder's CTO will also leave.
Derived from https://twitter.com/alexeheath/status/1744878066248360365
Do you think the Rabbit R1 represents the future of AI smart devices, or is it a design overstep?