Robots that teach Chinese, computers controlled by moving the eyes and flying alarm clocks were among the weird and wonderful gadgets wowing crowds on Wednesday at the world’s top high-tech fair.
As the IT sector seeks to bounce back after a disastrous year, firms sought to woo punters at this year’s CeBIT fair in northern Germany with fun and futuristic inventions ranging from the mind-boggling to the downright silly.
Learning Chinese but finding it tough to find people to practice with? Meet Amy, the beautiful and uber-smart talking robot with 400,000 sentences at her command and a brain that is programmed with the entire knowledge of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
PHOTO: AFP
Using artificial intelligence and voice recognition, Amy can chat for hours with her owner, without ever getting bored or tired and never running out of conversation.
About 35cm tall, with a screen for a face and a laser arm to project her image onto a wall, Amy is due to hit the market toward the end of the year, said Bruce Han from Viewmotion, the South Korean firm that created her.
“At the moment, she can only speak Chinese and English, but we hope in a few years to have French, German, Italian and Japanese,” he said.
Big crowds also gathered around the “eye tracking” stand run by Tobii Technology, a Swedish company.
Its system allows users to control computers using just the motion of their eyes, from scrolling through a selection of music tracks to enabling market researchers to monitor what consumers look at first from a shelf of products.
A similar technology was unveiled by the Fraunhofer Institute, whereby users can point at a screen from up to 20m away and “touch” icons or control a cursor just as they would with a touch-screen.
With music devices like the iPod and MP3 players now so common, several firms used the CeBIT to showcase new ways of enjoying music on the move.
The “Tunebug Vibe” is a small device that music lovers can plug into their iPod, place on any surface — a pizza box, a table, a wall, a ceiling — and it instantly becomes a speaker, converting the vibrations of the music into sound.
There was plenty of offer for the practical joker, too. Getdigital.de, whose company slogan is “gadgets and more for geeks,” offered a tiny remote control device that can surreptitiously turn on or off almost any European television.
And from British gadget firm Satzuma, a must for any serious office joker: a small missile launcher controlled by computer that can fire foam rockets at unsuspecting colleagues.
Getdigital.de also proudly unveiled a flying alarm clock for those who all too often hit the snooze button and get back to sleep in the early morning.
When this alarm goes off, the whole clock takes off and flies off around the room, forcing its sleepy owner to chase it, catch it and put it back in its stand, by which time he or she should be wide awake.
However, the real show-stoppers this year were four pint-sized robot soccer players that had huge cheering crowds marveling at their silky skills and long-distance goal-scoring ability.
Named Rajesh, Penny, Leonard and Sheldon, the agile white robots, a mere 60cm high, were part of the team that won last year’s Robot Football World Cup in Austria and hope to defend their title this year in Singapore.
They use color and line recognition to “see” the ball (orange), pitch (green) and goals (yellow and blue). When they sense they are near the ball, they kick out toward the goal, with stunning results.
But beware, as any soccer manager knows, talent like this doesn’t come cheap. To snap up one of these players will set you back a cool 10,000 euros (US$13,500).
This year’s CeBIT came to an end yesterday.
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
TRADE: A mandatory declaration of origin for manufactured goods bound for the US is to take effect on May 7 to block China from exploiting Taiwan’s trade channels All products manufactured in Taiwan and exported to the US must include a signed declaration of origin starting on May 7, the Bureau of Foreign Trade announced yesterday. US President Donald Trump on April 2 imposed a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan, but one week later announced a 90-day pause on its implementation. However, a universal 10 percent tariff was immediately applied to most imports from around the world. On April 12, the Trump administration further exempted computers, smartphones and semiconductors from the new tariffs. In response, President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has introduced a series of countermeasures to support affected
CROSS-STRAIT: The vast majority of Taiwanese support maintaining the ‘status quo,’ while concern is rising about Beijing’s influence operations More than eight out of 10 Taiwanese reject Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for cross-strait relations, according to a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday. The MAC’s latest quarterly survey found that 84.4 percent of respondents opposed Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for handling cross-strait relations — a figure consistent with past polling. Over the past three years, opposition to the framework has remained high, ranging from a low of 83.6 percent in April 2023 to a peak of 89.6 percent in April last year. In the most recent poll, 82.5 percent also rejected China’s
PLUGGING HOLES: The amendments would bring the legislation in line with systems found in other countries such as Japan and the US, Legislator Chen Kuan-ting said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) has proposed amending national security legislation amid a spate of espionage cases. Potential gaps in security vetting procedures for personnel with access to sensitive information prompted him to propose the amendments, which would introduce changes to Article 14 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Chen said yesterday. The proposal, which aims to enhance interagency vetting procedures and reduce the risk of classified information leaks, would establish a comprehensive security clearance system in Taiwan, he said. The amendment would require character and loyalty checks for civil servants and intelligence personnel prior to
RSS