The future is here as a Japanese company launches a new breed of virtual assistants targeting single young men. These female holographic characters make Amazon's Alexa and Google Home a last-year model.
Vinclu, a Japanese company specializing in "crazy things for crazy people," is currently taking pre-orders from both Japan and the United States for its latest Virtual Assistant. The new interactive and artificial intelligence-driver home automation system is called Gatebox. It seems like one of Japan's famous Vocaloid characters.
Gatebox is advertised as a virtual wife or servant for men who live alone. She costs just under $3K. https://t.co/IoknTdGVwJ
— Boing Boing (@BoingBoing) December 16, 2016
Users will get to interact with the Gatebox 3-D anime character names Azumi Hikari, voiced by Japanese actress Yuka Hiyamizu. She is able to perform basic household tasks. The plus side, she talks and texts. In fact, Azumi has her own website complete with a backstory manga explaining how she was invited to cross dimensions for a "homestay" with a master on Earth.
Gatebox promises the experience of "living with your favorite character," according to ArsTechnica. It is currently priced at around US$2,700 (¥321,840).
Gatebox is the size of a coffee-maker, with a footprint no larger than an A4 sheet of printer paper.
Per Telegraph UK, the only drawback of this virtual assistant is that because she is a hologram, she is only a few inches tall and is living inside the cylindrical projector. Further, the Japanese company, Vinclu Inc., has already 300 units available as they began taking orders for the Gatebox last Wednesday.
The company has released a number of trailers explaining what life would be with Azumi, the Gatebox holographic virtual assistant.
