20 Whirlpool voice-activated smart appliances steal spotlight at CES

AI assistants like the ones in the Amazon Echo and Google home have mostly taken over the living room. The next space to conquer is the kitchen, and Whirlpool is more than happy to open the flood gates.

Twenty new models of smart appliances were recently unveiled at CES 2017. GE says that all these devices will have Wi-Fi connectivity and will be voice-activated as a standard, reports Digital Trends.

This lineup includes dishwashers, fridges, microwaves, ranges, and wall ovens, to name a few. Homeowners will soon be living the future where they can simply tell the stove to preheat or shut off before dinner gets overcooked.

Jason Mathew, senior director of global connected strategy at Whirlpool, describes the features of these smart appliances as ‘Scan-to-Cook.’ People will one day be able to simply take a picture or scan a bar code for the oven to heat up, say, frozen pizza, at just the right temperature.

Whirlpool’s broader version includes working with Innit, a company that is figuring out a way to digitize food.

Finally, as current AI assistants learn to adjust to specific user preferences, so too will these smart appliances in the future. For example, ovens will learn how chewy or crispy the users would like their cookies, and the ovens would adjust the cooking time accordingly.

There are big things in store for AI assistance in the household. Next thing we know, the fridge will be suggesting what to get from the grocery. Alfred Bayle

source: technology.inquirer.net

DingDong takes on Amazon Echo

Many Chinese electronic products are now coming out to challenge their Western counterparts. One of these has a rather catchy, if not humorous-sounding, name.

The DingDong smart home device created by LingLong, or LingLong DingDong, is offering smart home functionality similar to an Amazon Echo, reports The Next Web.

Priced at $118, DingDong offers answers, plays audiobooks and music, as well as manages schedules. It also responds to three voice commands to wake it up, namely, DingDong DingDong, Xiaowei Xiaowei and BaiLing BaiLing. Because it is currently lacking developer support, customers mostly use it to play music from their digital libraries.

Despite similarities to the Echo, which debuted in 2014, DingDong apparently is no knock-off as LingLong engineers have already been working on it beforehand. However, senior marketing manager Charlie Liu did admit that Amazon’s launch of its device influenced some decision-making on their end.

DingDong is able to understand Cantonese and Mandarin, but not in the same device. This is due to the complexity of the language engine, which simply cannot fit both in a single unit.

While the device is currently “limited,” LingLong hopes that developers will take advantage of DingDong’s hardware overtime to get it up to speed and have more functionality similar to Amazon’s Echo.  Alfred Bayle

source: technology.inquirer.net