Among the gadgets and stuff that popped up at CES 2024, there is one particular gadget that has gotten all the hype and attention – more than any device at the show. It is an AI-powered device called Rabbit. Like many novel techs, it has a lot of promises to better your life. This pocket-size device, fueled by a natural language operating system, wants to help you manage your life.
Designed in collaboration with Swedish consumer electronics company Teenage Engineering, the Rabbit R1 is an AI-powered handheld device, presented in a striking orange colorway with a 2.88-inch touchscreen, a rotating camera, and a push-to-talk button for interacting with the onboard Rabbit AI.
The device uses Rabbit OS and a Large Action Model (LAM) for executing tasks through user interfaces rather than apps or APIs. It can perform various tasks like booking services, suggesting recipes, and more. Mind you, though, it is not a single-task device.
It can execute multi-layer tasks like planning a trip to another country for you. R1 will book the accommodation, the flights, and whatnot for you. Obviously, you will have to provide it with parameters like dates et cetera.
Anyhoo, whatever you want it to do, all you have to do is press a button and speak to it.
It is lauded as the next evolution in mobile devices but none of the distractions. It uses AI to speed up tasks or do them for you so that you will have more time away from the device to, you know, interact with the real world.
You can teach the device to do things for you, such as recording a snippet of you logging into work virtually. This will allow R1 to do it for you every day, whenever you prompted it to do so.
It is so intelligent that when you take a photo of the content of your fridge, it can generate a recipe if you prompt it to. TBH, I think that is a stretch because if R1 were to look at my fridge, it’d be lost for, well, words. My wife had it packed to the edge. There’s no way Rabbit R1 will be able to identify the stuff and come up with something.
Rabbit R1 is real. It is priced at US$199 and available for pre-order with shipping expected in March or April. Last checked though, two batches of 10,000 R1s have sold out in just two days.
Images: Rabbit.
