Belkin out the tunes
BELKIN SOUNDFORM ELITE
In last month’s Hot Stuff we brought you news that fancy French audio
firm Devialet had collaborated with Huawei on a HomePod-esque
smart speaker. Now it’s packing the same 360° audio tech into another
such device, from Belkin – only this one has a wireless charger on the
top. And unlike the Huawei Sound X, the Soundform Elite isn’t solely
being released in China with a Chinese voice butler, making Belkin’s
Google Assistant speaker the first to be widely available with Devialet
hardware. The SAM (Speaker Active Matching) tech is designed to
reduce distortion at higher volumes – and as anyone familiar with
Devialet’s Phantom series will know, loud is very much its forte.
£280 / belkin.comHex in the lounge
NANOLEAF UNIFIED
Nanoleaf has been working its way through a shape-sorter of
geometric figures for its smart LED lighting panels. First triangles, then
squares, and now hexagons – so it’s ushered in a new Unified system
where they can all work together. Nanoleaf says this makes them the
first ever modular smart lights with shape interconnectivity – and more
shapes will launch throughout 2020 and 2021. This offers the freedom
to design bespoke configurations, from abstract layouts to replicas of
favourite characters, like a massive LED Caitlyn Jenner. Touch-reactive,
the hexagons (and presumably Caitlyn) are ultra-thin so they appear
to be almost floating. They arrive in May.
£tbc / nanoleaf.meThis is going to be a talking fridge,
isn’t it?
Not quite. Samsung has indeed announced
a new Family Hub connected fridge to go
alongside a tennis-ball-cum-droid called
Ballie that controls your smart home, but
Neon is something else: its mildly terrifying
project to invent artificial people. Described
as realistic humanoid AI chatbots, they’re
not meant to actually replace humans
(after all, Samsung still needs those to
sell stuff to) but to somehow “make us
more human”.
That sounds equally absurd.
Neon’s virtual digital people behave like
most real humans by showing emotions
and intelligence, and the video chatbots
are designed to look and act like you and
me – but they’re not smart assistants,
so they can’t tell you the football scores
or play you music. Instead they have real
conversations, form memories and learn
new skills. They can act as teachers,
financial advisors, spokespeople or
TV presenters.
So we’re being made redundant? Great.
Well, it’s been on the cards for a while,
hasn’t it? Samsung insists Neons will be
our friends, collaborators and companions.
They can borrow traits from real people
and look and sound similar, but can’t be
exact copies of existing humans. So that’s
alright then.
Who’s making these rules up?
We’re not entirely sure, but the project
comes from the mysterious Samsung
Technology and Advanced Research (STAR)
lab that Stuff columnist Matthew Griffin
mentioned in our 250th issue. Whether
you find it exciting or sinister, there’s
something very ‘uncanny valley’ here,
where the uncomfortably familiar becomes
sinister, eerie and slightly repulsive – and
so we reserve the right to kill it with fire.
WTF IS
SAMSUNG
NEON?