COMPUTING AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TAKES LEAD AT DIGITAL BATTLE

The fierce battle to be at the heart of your digital life has taken on a new twist amidst a rapid growth of connected devices mostly in COMPUTING AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

Immediately after smartphone wars, platform wars, and browser wars, a fight is now on the “hub” which links many of connected objects from wearable devices to light bulb or washing machines.

At a Consumer Electronics Show which ended recently, the main contenders included televisions, robots, speaker hubs and wearable trackers operated by artificial intelligence. And the connected car plunged into the mix.

Many exhibitors varying from small start-up companies to big electronics giants are contending to be the sole controller of the vast array of Internet of things in your car, home or elsewhere.

South Korea’s consumer electronics giant LG released Smart ThinQ home hub, a speaker that allow users to communicate with and receive alerts from linked security systems, appliances and even talk to cars. This lets the smart home and the connected car communicate with each other. It can as well link with other older appliances with attachable sensors.LG Company refers this as “the future of the smart home” and it uses an open platform that can link with other devices using Bluetooth, Google Nest, and Wi-Fi.

Samsung has announced its TVs will work as command centers in the smart homes by integrating various technologies from Silicon Valley start-up company, SmartThings, which Samsung Company took over in 2014.

PERSONAL ROBOTS

It is now possible to have a smart home basically for free as a starting point. Chinese consumer electronics company Haier has unveiled its Ubot, personal assistant robot, which is a near-humanoid device and can control operation of home appliances.

This gadget is like a personal assistant which can turn on your all your appliances, TV, and when you are not at home it can assist with surveillance. The main goal of this computing and artificial intelligence technology is to simplify our lives and to sort the things that worry us a lot.

Segway Company which is owned by China’s Ninebot has released a personal transporter which changes into a cute robotic personal assistant. This gadget which was made in collaboration with Intel Company and China’s Xiaomi Company is open to all developers which could add on applications for entertainment, security or other operations.
Immediately after riding it, the gadget sprouts arms and navigates; interact with users using its artificial intelligence and sensors. It is anticipated to be commercialized later this year.

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In another twist of events, a Chinese start-up company UBTech Robotics released Alpha 2, a kind of prototype personal assistant humanoid robot which can respond and entertain people. This gadget can talk to and answer its users. It can as well demonstrate the weather. It is very lifelike. It has 20 joints and can walk like humans; it can dance and demonstrate to the user yoga pose.

These new giant contenders will face a fierce battle against existing companies like Apple and Google which each has their own artificial intelligence assistants and ecosystems for connected wearable and homes.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has claimed that he intends to build a robot butler “like Jarvis in ‘Iron Man’” which can manage household tasks. These comments and the innovations at the show underscore the massive progress being made in computing and artificial intelligence which can invent new innovations.