SINGAPORE, Aug. 16, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Did you ever imagine yourself living in the world of "Toy Story" when you were a child? Surrounded by loyal and brave characters like Woody and Buzz Lightyear, enthusiastic and cheerful characters like Jessie, and lovable characters like Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head... As your closest playmates during your childhood, they witnessed many important moments and were loyal listeners. The only regret was that they couldn't speak to you.
Now, this one-way interaction will change with "Haivivi" releasing its AI hardware product, BubblePal, which is based on AI tech, bringing plush toys the ability to provide interactive dialogues.
What is it？
Haivivi BubblePal has a half-round bubble-shaped appearance and is made of edible silicone material. By simply pressing it, the device will light up and receive user input for conversation, generating relevant answers based on the conversation. Users can tie it to any plush toy with an adjustable lanyard attached to the device.
The product is coupled with an app called HaiviviPal. Children have different favorite toy characters, so in the app users can set or create different characters, such as Elsa and Olaf from "Frozen," Woody and Buzz Lightyear from "Toy Story," and so on. Based on the differences in the characters created by users, BubblePal generates answers that also have the attributes of different characters. Parents can add personal preferences, such as wanting to guide children in their studies, ask more questions, or practice English, and BubblePal will consciously output related content during the subsequent conversation.
What's Different？
In the past, children's companion products had a common feature in terms of product design - the role behind the product was either a parent or a teacher.
For example, the educational lamp that reads books with the child, the stylus that monitors learning, acts more like a post-class teacher for the children; the various story machines, children's watches, and monitors are more like parents' eyes used to monitor their children.
But another important role in children's growth was missing: the friend.
According to Haivivi product team, BubblePal does not want to be the high-and-mighty companion products, but truly AI Friends that provide emotional value.
If efficiency tools do addition, emotional products do subtraction. In terms of product design, "Haivivi" has boldly cut off many functions, such as IoT control modules, which means that you cannot ask your plush toy to turn off the lights or the curtains, etc.
"We want it to be a child's AI Friend. You don't often tell your friends to do this or do that. Just have a normal conversation with them like a friend." said Li Yong, the CEO of Haivivi.
Although BubblePal can help with parenting, these AI Friends are not intended to replace parents' roles. Parents can also choose the way each AI Friend accompanies their child based on their child's unique traits, such as "encourage the child to be more brave", "talk more about music", or "talk about literary knowledge". Moreover, parents might be able to check progress and mood reports in the future version of the app.
How to Make Toy Talk？
BubblePal is based on an open-source model, which has been fed with a large amount of children's dialogue data and cartoon material, making it more suitable for children's companion scenarios. The model will also adjust a more suitable answer tone based on the child's emotions during interaction.
At the same time, Haivivi also integrates with several mainstream large models. According to the product team, they have a distribution strategy that can distribute some flexible interactions to different upper-level large models. But for users, the switching and selection of such models are almost imperceptible.
To increase the fun and interactive feedback in different scenarios, Haivivi conducted extensive market research in advance. The team sorted out over 30 scenarios of children's "pretend play," such as restaurant chefs and customers, doctors and patients, forest exploration, space travel, and ocean treasure hunting, and optimized the training models for children's interaction logic specifically for these scenarios.
With the dual-layer large model, BubblePal gives the plush toys a "soul." From now on, children can fluidly converse with their AI Friends - "Does mom love my little brother more?" or "What is a black hole?". Children can also play various role-playing stories with their AI Friends, allowing children to change the plot development at any time.
The product is priced at $89 now and could be bought through Haivivi official website. Amazon and TikTok Shop are said to be coming soon in the next few months.
CONTACT: Ruolin Yang, wubai@haivivi.com
