China's LingLong launches DingDong smart home speaker

A Chinese firm has unveiled the country's first voice-activated smart home speaker - its answer to Amazon's Echo and Google's Home.



The DingDong, by technology company Beijing LingLong, uses voice interaction to do tasks such as playing music and switching on home appliances.

The device is said to understand Mandarin, Cantonese and basic English.

A study by Juniper Research suggests China's smart home market could be worth $22.8bn (£18.3bn) by 2018.

Beijing LingLong is owned by Chinese online retailer JD.com - which is selling the DingDong for 698 yuan ($100, £81).

The device can communicate with 95% of the China's population, Beijing Linglong told Wired.

Like Echo and Home, it can be used to control light switches, thermostats and home appliances.

And, similar to its rivals, there is internet search, traffic and weather information, directions, online shopping, and music streaming.

The makers of DingDong have also been promoting its educational tools, including being programmed with simple English lessons for children developed by a private education company.

Facebook Is Working on a Video Chat Device

Aug 1, 2017

Facebook Inc. is working on a video chat device for the home -- the first major hardware product from its experimental Building 8 lab.

Featuring a laptop-sized touchscreen, the device represents a new product category and could be announced as soon as next spring’s F8 developer conference, according to people familiar with the matter. They say the large screen and smart camera technology could help farflung people feel like they’re in the same room, which aligns with Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg’s mission of bringing Facebook users closer together. The device is in the prototype phase but is already being tested in people’s homes.

The social media giant is working on at least one other product -- a standalone smart speaker that would compete with the Amazon Echo and Google Home, said the people, who asked not be named discussing unannounced products. Facebook is hiring Apple Inc. veterans to help it create a Siri-style voice assistant that would run on both devices, they said.

The new devices represent a new phase in Facebook’s hardware ambitions. Though the company sells the Oculus virtual reality headset, it acquired its maker and didn’t create the original product (although a new $200 model will debut next year). Last year, the Building 8 lab was set up to help Facebook develop its own hardware and keep consumers locked into its ecosystem -- the news feed, Facebook live, video calling and more.

Building 8 is staffed with hardware veterans and led by former Google executive Regina Dugan. Speaking at the most recent F8 conference in April, Dugan said the goal was to “create and ship new, category-defining consumer products that are social first.” She spoke about how technology has made it easier to connect, but also has confined people to their phones so that they don’t interact with the physical world as much.

Geared to the living room, the video chat device will feature a wide-angle camera lens, microphones and speakers that are all powered by artificial intelligence to boost performance, the people said. A version of the device in testing includes a thin, vertical stand that holds a large touchscreen measuring between 13 and 15 inches diagonally, the people said. Facebook has considered running a version of the Android operating system on its device instead of building its own core operating system, according to the people.

Facebook is testing a feature that would allow the camera to automatically scan for people in its range and lock onto them, one of the people said. For example, the camera could zoom onto a painting that a child brought home from school to show to a parent away on a business trip. Facebook has also been developing a 360 degree camera for the device, but people familiar with the matter say it’s unlikely to be ready in time for the initial launch.

Early plans call for the standalone speaker to sell in the low $100 range, undercutting the competition, while the technologically more complex video chat device would cost a few hundred dollars, one of the people said. Because the speaker concept has already been popularized, two of the people said, Facebook could abandon it and prioritize the video chat device instead.

The online survey, conducted by Accenture and Harris Interactive, included 21,000 people from 19 countries and was conducted in October and November 2017.

Within the survey, nearly 2,300 people responded to a question asking whether they agreed with the following statement: "Since I got my digital voice assistant device, I use my smartphone for fewer activities."

66 percent of the respondents said they agreed or strongly agreed.

Within the sub-group who said they use their smartphones less, 64 percent said they use phones less frequently for entertainment services, while 58 percent said they do less online purchasing with their phones; and 56 percent do fewer searches from their phones.

Japanese automaker Toyota will integrate Amazon's Alexa voice assistant into some of its cars as the auto industry increasingly adopts the tech world's hottest offerings to improve the vehicle experience.

The deal reflects a partnership between two of the world's largest companies, each of which can stake a claim to having revolutionized their industries.

Toyota, whose efficient manufacturing techniques transformed the auto industry, is turning to Alexa to bolster its voice-recognition capability.

Amazon reportedly offered to 'de-provision' the family's Alexa communications to keep using the device suite's smart home functionality

"Echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like 'Alexa.' Then, the subsequent conversation was heard as a 'send message' request," Amazon said in a statement. "At which point, Alexa said out loud 'To whom?' At which point, the background conversation was interpreted as a name in the customers contact list. Alexa then asked out loud, '[contact name], right?' Alexa then interpreted background conversation as 'right'. As unlikely as this string of events is, we are evaluating options to make this case even lesslikely."

The Echo only confirms a contact name if there are multiple people in an address book with the same or similar sounding names.

Amazon’s Fire TV Cube is an Echo, streaming box, and universal remote in one

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Preorders start today, and it ships June 21st

By Chris Welch
@chriswelch Jun 7, 2018, 9:01am EDT
SHARE Combining an Echo speaker and the Fire TV into a single gadget seems like a very obvious, inevitable move for Amazon to make. Today, that unification is happening, and the end result is the $120 Fire TV Cube. Preorders begin now, and Prime members can buy it for $89.99 if they order on either June 7th or 8th. For now, the Cube is only available to US customers.

It pairs Alexa’s assistant smarts and hands-free voice commands with Amazon’s popular 4K streaming device. But the Fire TV Cube is designed to be much more than a set-top box that can also tell you the weather or control your smart home accessories. The third key aspect of this product — and the most surprising one — is that it’s also a universal remote. From the top, it looks more like an Echo than a Fire TV. All four sides of the “cube” house IR blasters that allow the device to communicate with and control everything in the average person’s TV setup, from cable boxes to soundbars to A/V receivers. The Fire TV Cube also controls the television itself over HDMI-CEC, so it can automatically power on the screen whenever one of your Alexa voice requests warrants it. If you ask for the weather, the Cube will answer using its own built-in speaker. But if you say “Alexa, play Wild Wild Country,” the TV will turn on, and Netflix will pull up the show.Image: AmazonA few companies like Dish and Tivo already support Alexa to some extent, but integrating IR and making it such a central piece of the Fire TV Cube is an admission that adoption isn’t happening fast enough for this device to meet its potential for convenience and wide home theater compatibility. Alexa alone isn’t enough. So, IR blasters it is. In the box, you even get a separate IR extender, which you can run down into a cabinet if there are components that the Cube’s own multidirectional signal can’t quite reach. The Fire TV Cube ships with an IR extender that allows it to control devices in a cabinet. But don’t expect home theater bliss on day one. Amazon is starting out with what I’d consider a realistic level of ambition, and the Cube isn’t ready to replace a Logitech Harmony remote yet, nor is it as sophisticated and forward-looking as something like the Caavo. IR blasters have limitations and can sometimes get tripped up, but they allow the Cube to do some genuinely useful things already. Alexa can control the volume for your TV or soundbar even when you’re viewing content on a completely different HDMI input. It can also change between those inputs on command.IT ALL COMES BACK TO IR BLASTERSAnd it seems to work surprisingly well with (some) cable boxes. Amazon showed me the Cube changing to a particular channel on a Spectrum box with a simple, natural “Alexa, tune to ESPN” command. It can similarly control set-top boxes for Comcast, DirecTV, and Dish. Saying “Alexa, go home” will always switch you back to the Fire TV Cube’s own HDMI input and home screen. Amazon isn’t letting the Cube control things like game consoles or Blu-ray players yet, but it says that it will get more powerful with time and software updates. There’s a quick setup process for components you’ll be controlling over IR, which is how the Fire TV Cube learns which cable channels are which, etc. Amazon has more details on what’s compatible and what’s not on this site.

Unfortunately, you have to use voice for things like volume control since the bundled Fire TV remote remains unchanged and doesn’t have volume buttons. (They really would’ve come in handy this time.) There’s still a voice button and integrated mic for situations where you need to speak to Alexa quietly. There’s no ethernet jack, but Amazon includes an Ethernet adapter in the box if your Wi-Fi isn’t the best. Aside from its IR tricks, the Fire TV Cube is basically a hybrid Echo Dot and Fire TV. It has the easy-to-use interface shared by Amazon’s other streaming devices, but it’s refined in certain places for voice control. The far-field mic array is also different than on a regular Echo. Instead of being oriented in a 360-degree pattern, all eight of the Cube’s mics are linear and meant to pick up people in front of the device. Sandeep Gupta, Amazon’s VP of smart TV and home products, told me that the mic array was designed to recognize the “Alexa” hot word even over audio coming from a TV or soundbar beside it.

The Fire TV Cube supports HDR10 and Dolby Atmos sound, but it lacks Dolby Vision playback. The Apple TV 4K is the only set-top box that will do all of the above once the next version of tvOS ships. And, unfortunately, Amazon and Google still haven’t worked out their issues, so a native YouTube app remains MIA. However, you can still load it in a browser like Firefox, and that workaround does the job. I’m not a fan of the glossy exterior, but Amazon says it helps with IR performance. On the Echo side, you can run through the usual gamut of Alexa commands, and it works just as you’d expect. You can also integrate the Cube into routines, so something like “Alexa, goodnight” can power off your entire TV rig along with your lights and other Alexa-compatible devices. Gupta explained to me that the Fire TV Cube has a “TV bias,” so it won’t hesitate to turn on your display whenever it thinks you’ll get the best answer from Alexa there. If you ask for music, the Cube will know enough to play it out of your soundbar instead of its own dinky speaker. Just know this can’t do everything an Echo can: calls and messages through Alexa aren’t supported, and you can’t sync the Fire TV Cube with a Bluetooth speaker or add it to your Echo multiroom music setup.

The Fire TV Cube sounds very promising, but everything hinges on how it performs outside the Amazon demos I saw — and those weren’t without hiccups. I think it’ll do fine at controlling your TV and streaming content or answering Alexa queries. And the $120 price is rather aggressive. But it’s got the right hardware inside to do and become much more.

Photography by Chris Welch / The Verge