If you were looking around at the smart speaker field and feeling like the whole idea of an audio device with microphones and a voice assistant has stagnated, I have some pertinent news for you: it apparently has.
If a report from The Information about OpenAI’s first hardware is any indication, we have run out of ideas, folks. Per The Information:
“The speaker will have a camera, enabling it to take in information about its users and their surroundings, such as items on a nearby table or conversations people are having in the vicinity, according to one of the people. It will also allow people to buy things by identifying them with a facial recognition feature similar to Apple’s Face ID, the people said.”
So, if we’re to believe the reporting, OpenAI’s major contributions to the smart speaker space are being able to look at objects on a table and online shopping. I’ll concede that the first one is almost novel. Computer vision isn’t new—Amazon’s Echo Show, its smart home hub with a screen and camera, can identify objects already using its “Show and Tell” feature—but it’s just catching on. That being said, I don’t know that this particular example screams “useful.” Computer vision, at least in my experience, is kind of a trap. It’s novel, but not altogether useful on a consistent basis—at least in gadgets like the Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses. The best use case here will likely be for accessibility purposes, helping blind or low-vision people identify things.
As for shopping, well… that’s definitely already a thing. If you own a smart speaker made by Amazon, you can already add things to your cart using just your voice and have those things delivered to your house without ever opening an app—there are voice passcodes to verify purchases instead. So, I’m going to give OpenAI zero points on that front for originality.
If anything, I also suspect that a smart speaker with a camera and face recognition would be used to deliver some kind of personalized information. You might, for example, be able to walk up to your smart speaker and have it give you information about your calendar for that day or some other kind of customizable notifications. Whether you trust OpenAI with your face and access to looking around your room is another story entirely, but it would appear the company thinks you’ll be chill with it.
If those ideas aren’t original enough for you, The Information reports that OpenAI has some other tricks up its sleeve, including the potential to release smart glasses as well as a (drum roll) smart lamp. I’ll admit, I’m weirdly intrigued by the smart lamp part of things (Apple has also dabbled with the idea), but if the lackluster potential features of its smart speaker are anything to go by, I wouldn’t get your hopes up.
One thing is for certain, and that’s that OpenAI seems to have its sights trained on a lot of different categories. There were already reports that the company is pursuing a wearable in an earbuds-like form factor, for example, as well as a pendant, and even a pen. The playbook, if I’m to read between the lines, is that there is no form factor that’s off the table necessarily, except for maybe a phone. I look forward to seeing OpenAI’s vast resources flow into making the world’s most sophisticated smart pants or whatever inane idea that only OpenAI’s deep wallet can cook up next.
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