If you like a robot with artificial intelligence to stalk like Portal’s GLaDOS, but in a good way and not try to manipulate you to do anything, well, you are in luck. The future has just presented itself in the form of an AI robot designed to stalk, no, wait, I mean, follow you in a living room or office space.
Everyone, meet Rabbit 3-in-1 AI Robot. It’s a strange name to adopt, not because it is an animal but because the last time “Rabbit” and “AI” were used in the same sentence, it did not quite deliver at launch. But rest assured, this Rabbit from tech outfit Penguins Innovate has no relation to the other Rabbit.
This Rabbit floats along a fixed air path, all wrapped in an inflatable polyester shell that looks more like a quirky balloon pet than a machine running on an Nvidia Jetson processor. Inside this puffball is where the magic happens: four panoramic 1080p cameras, a pair of 3 W HDR speakers, and a whole lot of lighting—30 sets of dual-color temperature LEDs plus five RGBs, hitting up to 16,000 lumens. That’s more than enough to turn your living room into a rave or an interrogation scene.
It responds to voice or gestures, automatically adjusts brightness to your posture, and switches on or off when you stroll in or out. Think of it as Alexa, if Alexa were a glowing, inflatable orb that followed you with the commitment of a puppy. It can live-stream your meetings, provide motion detection alerts, and basically reinvent what “smart home” means, with its WR-1 White Rabbit OS keeping it all together.
Penguins Innovate is pitching it as both home and office-friendly. As for the price, that remains to be announced. But we do know it will be launching on Kickstarter soon. If you want one, be sure to sign up for the launch-day-only deal.
Images: Penguins Innovate.
