Jordan O'BrienIf you thought the LingLong DingDong, the Chinese equivalent of the Amazon Echo, was weird then prepare to meet Gatebox – a Japanese competitor that takes weird to whole new levels.
The Gatebox may not have a ridiculous name like the LingLong DingDong, but its rather ordinary sounding name is more than made up for by the completely ridiculous virtual assistant called Azuma Hikari.
Unlike the Amazon Echo, Google Home and Harman Kardon Cortana speaker, the Gatebox is more than just an ordinary speaker with a virtual assistant tacked on. In fact, it houses a screen and a projector to bring to life a holographic character with oodles of personality.
In true Japanese style, this virtual assistant has been designed to be as ‘kawaii’ (cute) as possible. Her aesthetic is what can only be described as ‘naughty school girl’, while her big eyes should endear her to any user.
The reasoning behind a character that you can see and interact with on a visual basis is that it’s more likely to give users a connection with their virtual assistant. Essentially, the developer of this speaker, Taro Minoboshi, wanted to recreate the film Her. Which we would totally believe, given he is most known for developing the Konami game series Love Plus – a dating simulator.
Azuma Hikari is described as a 20-year-old anime fan, who also enjoys eating donuts but dislikes insects. Her dream is to become a heroine for anyone working hard.
So what can she do? Well, primarily her function is to keep lonely people company – but she’s far smarter than that. Azuma is able to control smart home devices like Alexa or Google’s Assistant, meaning users can turn on and off lights using nothing but their voice. Azuma can even recognise the user’s face to set the scene based on personal preference.
As it stands the Gatebox is only available to those in Japan, as Azuma can only converse in Japanese. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon, but one thing that will is the personalities that users will be able to get on the Gatebox. While Azuma is currently the only personality available, in the future Vinclu, the technology company behind the Gatebox, plans additional holographic characters to keep users company.
The Gatebox is offered at a significant premium to the Amazon Echo or Google Assistant, with a limited production run of 300 units set to be made available. Users will have to pay $2,600 each just to get their hands on one.