Gold Setaria Technology is an intelligent robot manufacturer famous for its romantic feelings. Their official purpose is very simple. It is to make technological products that young people like. Focusing on the core content of AI, after the launch of the first emotional robot childe Xiaobai in February 2016, Goldold has successively launched Xiaobai S, Xiaobai Youth Edition and other AI products.

On the flagship product holoera holographic projection intelligent robot, Goldold started the attempt of non physical companion robot. In addition to 3D holographic display, voice interaction and more powerful performance, Gold has also added the family's traditional romantic feeling setting, and introduced artificial intelligence developed by virtual life in holoera. Can it become a new inflection point in the industry as Goldold originally envisaged?

Appearance and workmanship

Holoera is packed in a full black frosted cardboard box, which is quite heavy on the whole. The top cover is fixed by magnetic suction, and there is simple product information on the side. Because the machine is equipped with an Intel Z8350 processor, it has an Intel inside sticker. In addition, holoera is also a member of iFLYTEK's voice open platform.

Holoera's accessories include an integrated power supply, silk mirror wiping cloth and manual warranty card.

The adapter outputs 5V/3A, up to 15W, but its wire material is sufficient. The wire is about 1.5m long. It uses a 5.5mm power interface and is manufactured by Tianbao Electronics.

The overall appearance of holoera is like an alien spaceship embedded with a pyramid (according to the setting, the virtual character "Amber · Virtual Face" in it is really from the different world of "Wage"). The outer side of the fuselage is wrapped with fully cambered aluminum alloy, and the processing cost is higher than that of common products. Perhaps to ensure the success rate of face recognition, the camera at the top protrudes a lot from the body.

In front of the pyramid body are the menu, direction and return keys. The confirmation button in the middle is also used to wake up the virtual character. Below is the body sensor. The back of the body is the power button and the power connector with its own cover.

Holloera 3D 265 * 265 * 160mm, which is similar in size to ordinary throw pillows and weighs nearly 2kg. The bottom is also a curved aluminum alloy that has been sanded. The circular anti slip washer is very thick. There is also a 1/4 international standard screw hole in the center, which can fix the machine on a universal support. There are four very aggressive speaker meshes in the four corners. The speaker's extreme volume is impressive, and only 1/3-1/2 volume is used in daily use.

Principle and effect of holographic projection

The real holographic image is generated by laser holography technology, which uses a spectroscope to generate multiple lasers, because the latter can diffract by virtue of excellent coherence. No matter how small the holographic negative is, or how many pieces it is broken into, the complete image can be seen when the laser is replayed, and it contains the entire stereo vision information of the subject.

However, the "holographic projection" used in the film and the actual industry refers more to a three-dimensional perspective. We are most familiar with various cool three-dimensional pictures in Iron Man movies. Holoera and the previous first tone future holographic concert use holographic projection to complete the stereoscopic image through a semi transparent and semi reflective projection film. The medium of projection can be water, air, or even plasma, and its effect is somewhat similar to a mirage.

The core part of holoera is almost all concentrated on the top, where a 9.7-inch 2048 * 1536 resolution IPS screen of the same level as the iPad is placed. The screen is in place in terms of black field, brightness and color saturation. In addition, during charging and daily use, only the top of the fuselage heats up, and the processor and other core components may also be placed behind this screen.

Holoera is different from the holographic projection through stereo film and mobile phone screen a few years ago. Holoera has been specially customized in terms of projection surface, projection angle, projection distance and coating, and its fineness, visual angle and brightness are much better than previous products. The screen is divided into four triangles to display one side of the object respectively, thus completing the stereoscopic image in four directions. In theory, the more surfaces are divided, the closer this "holographic projection" is to the real three-dimensional.

When a simple window is displayed, the projection content of one face can be changed

In actual use, the holoera can display normally even in the normal office light, or even at the window edge. It no longer needs to be restricted to use in the darkroom like previous products.

The actual effect of holographic projection is like an object suspended in the middle of this transparent pyramid, which has a sense of illusion like PS. Even the text description is 3D, and the effect is quite cool. This "suspended" semi transparent picture in the air can overlap with the real picture, so as to achieve a certain AR (reality enhancement) effect.

user's experience

Holoera takes about 30 seconds to boot up for the first time, and then the virtual characters appear and guide in the form of voice. Input the nearby wifi password on the mobile phone, and holoera scans the QR code generated by the mobile phone client through the top camera to complete networking and binding. For the first time, users will be required to input faces in front of the camera, and then face recognition can be used.

The home page of the app is a classic character development design. The left column is simple network and alarm settings. The settings only include user name, volume and other simple settings.

The official even gave the "Getting Along Guide" at one go, and the virtual character "Amber" has a very detailed description of its functions, hobbies and features.

Skill selection interface

We can train "Amber" in various skills such as music, chess, calligraphy and painting, dance, etc. There are so many items in it that it is amazing. There are also familiar songs like "ordinary road" and "meeting" in the learning track.

Electronic pets once popular in the world

Holloera's mode and usage "inherit" from the once popular electronic pets in the world, but the playability and dimensions are completely different. The most obvious difference is the addition of mobile terminals and networks. Even if we are not around Holloera, as long as there is a network, we can remotely view the real-time dynamics of amber through our mobile phones, or send training instructions through APP, no matter where we are.

Buying snacks, props, and even all kinds of clothes was not the ability of pet chickens in those days

In addition to role formation, the app can also set simple alarm clock and schedule. In terms of "irrelevant functions", the manufacturer is very restrained and mainly completes them through voice commands. For the time being, they only provide music playback, weather forecast, news broadcast, alarm clock and constellation functions. What is more unexpected is that holoera supports voice interruption, which can be interrupted by voice commands when playing music and broadcasting, or can carry out simple multi round conversations.

In terms of the system, it uses the bottom layer of Android, and users can only see the virtual characters themselves. The interactions on the machine body are mainly divided into four categories: "mall, clothing, skills, and tasks", which are very simple and understandable in setting. The pictures we see are actually rendered by 4 times of pixels, so the GPU performance is much larger than expected.

Behind holoera and its virtual characters, there are plenty of configurations: Intel Atom Z8350+2G memory+16G storage, dual 3W speakers, 10400mAh batteries. It is rare to have such a configuration. Our frustrating users still prefer the manufacturer to open the system so that they can install third-party applications like normal tablets to achieve more functions. Of course, this is out of the original positioning of the product. It requires great boldness to make the product form so simple and the function setting so restrained.

Artificial intelligence full of romantic feelings

AI has always been the core of the content of the Gold series products. On holoera, AI met "character cultivation" for the first time, and the charm and playability of virtual characters became the biggest bonus item of the product. "Amber · Fierce Face", a virtual character IP magic writer, is the heroine of "Amber from the Wage World". Her novel world has her own world view, personality characteristics and emotional attributes. The manufacturer official even hopes to extend the IP around "Amber" to the field of comics and games.

The official has made a lot of very detailed settings for her, such as the basic personality characteristic of soft and cute by default but occasionally bursting with queen spirit. She has been doing afternoon tea, learning, music, chess, calligraphy and painting activities 24 hours a day according to her own rhythm and user interaction. Just these personality settings like real people, she has been able to attract some users.

In terms of the underlying AI, compared with the previous generation of products, the biggest breakthrough of Holoera lies in the formal introduction of the concept of "emotion" in AI products. It is estimated that it is also the first AI product to join the emotion system.

In addition to understanding and understanding the user's words, "Amber" also has its own emotions. When she is in a good mood, she can communicate more closely with you and obey your requirements; If you are in a bad mood, you will reject you to a certain extent. You need to coax her and praise her. She even has mood fluctuations according to the weather. She may also actively communicate with you. For example, when you stare at her, she will say what you are looking at me for and sometimes ask you how you are.

In addition, the skills she can learn even extend to golf, flower arrangement, and tea art, with a total number of more than 2000. Even senior otaku men are hard to duplicate for several years. In the rich collocation skills and task system, the user and the virtual character go through the process together, just like being her agent or even girlfriend. It is the AI emotion system and task setting that make Amber a "virtual life" rather than a cold robot.

summary

Both holoera and the Gatebox launched by Japanese vinclu are intelligent robot products designed to cultivate virtual characters, but holoera has already been mass produced and sold on domestic online platforms.

From physical intelligent robots to VR/AR and even holographic virtual characters, Goldold has always had a romantic feeling in the field of artificial intelligence. From this perspective, the mirage like display effect provided by Holoera's holographic 3D display technology and the innovative setting of "virtual life cultivation" are more like the inevitable result of romantic exploration.

In this era of entertainment to death, everything is reduced to entertainment and consumption objects, even intelligent robots are no exception. However, human's view and impression of things will be limited by the influence of acquiring tools and processes of things. From the former entity to the present virtual holographic image interaction, what behind holoera is emotional understanding and virtual life cultivation. What it does is to connect virtual and reality with emotion, even to blur the boundaries between them.