"Astro" is Amazon's new smart robot
Amazon has recently unveiled its new items. The new devices are added to the wide assortment of the company. Also, some of them have been a significant amazement.
The first is an indoor regulator that helps us control usage. Easy to enter, it's only $ 59 and limited by voice through Alexa.
More intriguing was the new individual in the Echo family.
This is the Echo Show 15, with a huge 15.6-inch screen, much larger than the exemplary television we have in the kitchen, and that can even be attached to the wall.
It is anything but a television. The interface is new and shows the significant data of the day. Each family member can add their own arrangements to the agenda, or leave notes for others on their own screen.
The new Echo Show 15 is something like a whiteboard, from which you could manage each of the smart devices in the house, from turning on the lights to checking the different rooms with the cameras.
Obviously, you can also record a wide range of multimedia content, from news to Prime Video or Netflix series or movies.
In the event that we do nothing, we can ask you to pivot images, as a screensaver.
The gadget fuses up to seven new innovations.
The main one comes from another smart processor, the AZ2, which, with its four hubs, replaces last year's AZ1.
Another new element is a progression of personalized sounds that can alarm us, for example, in the event that we have left the entrance to the fridge open.
The new Echo Show 15 will be accessible towards the end of the year at a suggested cost of $ 249.99.
Amazon Glow, just for young people?
Due to an extraordinary joint effort with Disney, the little ones will really want to cooperate with the characters, games and content of the famous company, just by saying "Hello Disney " to their Alexa device.
Just trigger the new experience to appreciate it on the Echo speakers.
For the little ones, however, not only for them, the new Amazon Glow is conceived, a curious gadget that allows us to interact with a solitary touch with our favorite people in our group, young people, grandparents or grandchildren.
The device goes far beyond video conferencing, and allows individuals on both sides of the correspondence to associate by projecting a virtual screen onto a table or floor that can be controlled from both ends of the association.
In this sense, for example, children will want to play with their distant grandparents at any time, do puzzles with them or watch an animation series together. The cost will be $ 249.99.
Astro, Amazon's first home robot
In any case, without a doubt the most impressive was the presentation of Astro, Amazon's first robot.
His face is a screen, his eyes are two cameras, and he moves on wheels.
It is about 50 cm tall, yet it can go all over the house. You can do everything other Alexa gadgets do, check the house, keep an eye on it, make sure everything is okay, and if it isn't, prepare the owner with a message or video of the problem.
You can see high places by extending an adaptive radio cable over your head, equipped with a camera, so that nothing escapes you.
In the event it receives action while we are away, it will explore; And if you hear any questionable commotion, you will go see what happens. He will make a house guide and he will memorize it.
It is not simply a camera on wheels; this device identifies and sees a wide range of circumstances, recognizes a pet from a seat and knows where the inputs are.
It will cost $ 999 starting at the end of the year. It will be redesigning itself, getting smarter and more cunning, for a long time.
Well-being and safety
Within the Halo family, aimed at further developing well-being, Amazon also unveiled its new Halo View initiation bracelet, with an AMOLED screen and from which all Halo measurements can be accessed to control our active work, but also control what we eat.
In terms of security, the Ring range, made up of sensors, alarms and cameras, is also being developed.
Last year, Amazon introduced a solo camera for the whole house. A small robot that flew through each room and saved us having numerous devices.
Another Ring Alarm Pro kit consists of five cooperating security appliances. They cost $ 249.99.
Controversy caused by Amazon's Astro robot
Astro looks at you with his huge round eyes. He blinks, winks, opens and closes them a bit, and makes little shocks in the meantime.
It is suggestive of the charming "Divider E" from the Pixar movie, however, you have to be careful, as appearances can be deceptive.
This is essentially what some spilled files discover that show a secret side: Astro, they say, aims to follow the behavior of its customers.
Individuals who have splintered their improvement say their recognition frame is one more danger to our protection.
Astro will push you down the stairs whenever he gets the chance
The moment you buy an Astro and spend the $ 999.99 (or $ 1,449 after the underlying trailer ) and turn it on interestingly, you are asked to "register" your face and voice, just like the faces and voices of the people who occupy the home in which it will function: so Astro can realize who should be there.
That record, which distinguishes Astro by its codename "Vesta", reveals how "Guard" mode makes the robot go on alert in the event that it does not remember someone who is home or identifies peculiar movements.
In any case, the engineers who have worked on the improvement of Astro show in that report that " Astro is horrible and is very likely to throw itself down the stairs whenever it gets the chance.
Human identification is unreliable at best, which makes the home security suggestion ridiculous. "
This is not, clearly, the only problem of a robot that, according to these sources, "has a crazy cost". The periscope camera pole has broken on some devices, they claimed, and it's basically impossible to ship the robot to Amazon when that happens.
For those engineers Astro is even "possibly dangerous for someone who depends on it for its availability capabilities."
One more source focused on Astro "being a bad security dream that is incriminating our general public and how we penalize the protection of accommodation with gadgets like Vesta."
Facial recognition is as indicated by that sporadic role, somewhat unsettling for a gadget meant to follow individuals and decide if they are strangers in the house.
One more component of concern as stated in that information is the incessant monitoring of the movements and behavior of their owners.
Amazon claims to have protection as a flat center
The goal is for Astro to act autonomously and brilliantly, but to do so these designers highlighted the measure of information the robot collects to figure out how to cooperate more productively with its customers.
At Amazon they guarantee that all that assortment of information ends with protection as a concentration. " The visual personalities of enlisted family individuals," they clarify on their blog, "are safely stored on the gadget locally, and both Astro and Echo Show use neighborhood management to perceive those enrolled customers."
With the guides Astro does when visiting the home, things are single digits: although the route information is handled locally, when Astro does the guide after the sweep it is sent out of the cloud for capacity and then displayed in Astro's portable app.
However, they guarantee at Amazon, that map information is encoded with 256-digit keys. Astro's particular protection data discovers how and when the data moves, and generally the behavior is what we might have from now on on the Echo family loudspeakers.