Tag Archives: home console

EmoSPARK Brings Artificial Intelligence Into Your Home

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EmoSPARK

Smart homes are getting one step closer to reality, thanks to this crowdfunded AI home console. The fact that it interacts with humans and intends to change their mood makes EmoSPARK a quite nice virtual companion.

Unlike other products that intend to change your mood by tightening the connection between you and your smartphone/tablet/computer, EmoSPARK also adds your friends to the equation. This real-life companion cube does more than just measuring your emotions and making activity suggestions based on the results. It actually promises to radically change the way you use your smartphone, tablet and TV, as well as the way you play games.

EmoSPARK relies on face detection technology to identify you and your emotional state. It then creates an emotional profile graph, and if things don’t look right, the cube breaks the silence, either via your smartphone or via the home console itself. The device makes suggestions when it thinks you are bored, brings you the latest notifications from the social networks you’re connected to, and can even act as a timer when you want to cook and don’t have a watch handy. The best thing of all? It can track multiple people simultaneously, acknowledges when a new person enters its visual field and can even interact with the ones it does now know yet. On one hand, this project is definitely interesting and revolutionary, while on the other hand, it may seem a tad bit creepy. Because of that, it’s probably better to place the cube in a room that’s empty during the night.

As I mentioned before, this is a crowdfunded project. EmoSPARK’s Indiegogo campaign still had 6 days to go at press time, but the company had already exceeded its $100,000 goal by 23 percent, so there’s no doubt that the intelligent cube will enter mass production soon. If you still want to get one while it’s hot, you’ll have to contribute $249. The devices are expected to be delivered in April, which means that manufacturing these things really doesn’t take a lot of time.

Remember The Sims, the life simulation video game where you tried to help a virtual character evolve, while also changing his or her mood several times a day? Well, I’ve got some bad news for you, sunshine. You’re the Sim now! Watch the following video if you still don’t believe me.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the acquisition of artificial intelligence company DeepMind and of home automation company Nest by Google.

Ouya Goes 2.0, Gets Improved Specs and Higher Price

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New Ouya

The indie gaming console that went from being 2012′s Kickstarter darling and a somehow revolutionary product to a disappointment, has now been updated with a refined controller and a boosted Wi-Fi.

Many people who backed the project on Kickstarter were disappointed when they found out that they would receive their open-source gaming console later than the ones buying it from retail stores. On top of that, Ouya taught its Kickstarter backers a tough lesson: they got the beta version, while the retail one was the finite product. Despite all this, Ouya did not disappear of the face of the Earth. On the contrary, the manufacturer had quite some great sales and even introduced a white limited edition last year, back in October. The new Ouya comes in black, but it remains to be seen if the new features justify the higher price.

Among the major problems of the first generation were a terrible controller lag, a weak Wi-Fi receiver, no visible download queues, hidden prices in the store, and the inability to truly expand the storage. The old Ouya came with 8GB of internal flash storage, and the manufacturer only extended this to 16GB in the white limited edition. Fortunately, the new Ouya also comes with 16GB, so space restraints won’t appear that quickly.

The weak Wi-Fi receiver also deteriorated the whole experience, but luckily, the manufacturer claims to have fixed this problem, as well. Not at last, a lagging controller can ruin gaming on any console, and I understand why people were unhappy with the first Ouya. The new controller is said to be more responsive. Still, this doesn’t stop people from being skeptical, and some even say that Ouya replaced its square wheel with a triangular one, meaning that the improvements are really insignificant, and they can’t turn Ouya into a successful product.

The new Ouya is available now for $129, but the old $99 will still be available. Amazon sold the first version right after the official launch, but the new one is nowhere to be seen. Still, the price of the new one is still pretty decent, when compared to the $344.95 white special edition. Chances are Ouya won’t manage to change people’s minds, especially since now it has quite a lot of competition, both better priced and with better technical specs.

If you liked this post, please check Ouya, the game-changing open-source Android console and PlayJam’s GameStick, one of Ouya’s competitors.

OUYA: The Game-Changing Open-Source Android Console

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OUYA has great chances of becoming the video game console that makes you forget about Wii U, PS4 and XBox 720.

Android seems to take over the world, as it has long passed the boundaries of smartphones and tablets. Now it is available in portable multimedia players, network media players, ...
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