Rokid announces three new products at its first major press conference in four years

A portable smart speaker, an AI chip, and a pair of AR glasses.

HANGZHOU, China, June 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On June 26, domestically-renowned Chinese artificial intelligence company Rokid held its 2018 Rokid Jungle conference in Hangzhou. It was the first large-scale public event the company has held since its founding four years ago. At the conference, Rokid founder and CEO Zhu Ming Ming (Misa) announced three major new products: the Rokid Me Portable Smart Speaker, the Kamino18 AI Voice Dedicated Chip, and the new Rokid AR Glass.

Rokid Me: the first portable smart speaker for the young at heart

The new Rokid Me is encased in an aerospace aluminum body with a unique double-sided disc shape, and comes in four colors: silver, pink, blue, and purple. Inside is the Rokid's voice assistant and a 360-degree, far-field voice recognition 6-microphone array capable of picking up voice commands from up to 10 meters away.

Rokid Me's sizeable 4000mAh battery guarantees more than 8 hours of continuous use. Among Rokid Me's impressive features is its ability to be manually rocked and flipped as a novel way for users to interact with their music. With its stylish appearance and excellent sound quality, Rokid Me is set to become a must-have portable music device.

Rokid Me is priced at RMB 799 and will be available for pre-order as of 16:00 on June 26th via both Rokid's official website and the official Wechat mall. It will be released on July 26th across many channels including both Tmall and Jingdong's online stores, the official WeChat store, offline stores, and Rokid's official webite. All Rokid Me users receive 2 years of QQ music service for free, and users who pre-order will also enjoy an additional year of access to exclusive Ximalaya content as a Premium Member.

Kamino18: the all-purpose AI voice chip

The Kamino18 is an AI-specific SOC chip and is distinct from existing general-purpose chips. No larger than a one-dollar coin, it integrates multiple core components such as ARM, NPU, DSP, DDR, and DAC, greatly improving the chip's overall structure.

Smart speakers and children's storytelling devices are two major product areas that are fully supported by Kamino18. Thanks to Rokid's latest algorithms (phased array technology, CTC model, custom wake-up words, off-line voice recognition, and low-power wake-up, among others), power consumption among Kamino18-equipped products is reduced by 30% - 50%. Performance in complex scenarios has also been greatly improved and the Kamino18 is capable of supporting additional offline features.

Most importantly, the overall cost of the Kamino18 AI chip is 30% less than mainstream universal chip solutions, enabling companies to produce more affordable voice-based smart products. According to Dr. Gao Peng, head of Rokid's Beijing-based A-Lab, the true measure of a chip's success is whether it can be applied to products on a large scale. He states that, despite not yet being commercially available, Kamino18 has already generated intense industry interests and requests for commercial cooperation. Li Haibo, Vice President of Ximalaya and General Manager of its hardware division, also formally announced a strategic partnership with Rokid on June 26th. Ximalaya's children's smart speaker, Xiaoya Mini, will be the first external product to incorporate Rokid's Kamino18 chip.

Rokid Glass: 120 grams of pure power and performance, to go into mass-production by the end of 2018

Since its public debut at CES 2018 in January, the Rokid Glass prototype underwent over five months of subsequent research and development. The result, also unveiled at the Rokid Jungle conference, is a newly-designed, lighter, sleeker, and more powerful Rokid Glass.

Misa stated that Rokid Glass is the world's most wearable pair of standalone AR glasses, and embodies the perfect synthesis of Rokid's accumulated expertise in hardware design, optics, and artificial intelligence. It is also a major step forward for Rokid in its ongoing focus on human-computer interaction technology. The newly-released Rokid Glass is set to go into mass production by the end of 2018.

The new and upgraded version of Rokid Glass greatly improves upon the slim design of its early prototype, with an alloy frame replacing the plastic frame and a 40% reduced size. As a result, Rokid Glass is not only beautiful, but also highly efficient at dissipating heat. Ergonomically, Rokid Glass can comfortably accommodate over 90% of head shapes and pupil distances. Near-sighted users can also use the device using easily installed corrective lenses. At only 120 grams, the entire device is extremely lightweight and is a mere 1/4 of the weight of Microsoft's HoloLens.

In addition, Rokid Glass's face recognition capability is truly world-class. With an accuracy rate of up to 99.8%, it is readily applicable in areas such as social media, security, and medicine. At Rokid Jungle, Misa demonstrated Rokid Glass's flawless face recognition capabilities.

Rokid Glass incorporates not only face recognition, but also object recognition. After uploading a series of product images taken from various angles, retailers then have the ability to incorporate multimedia elements such as videos and reviews. Using Rokid Glass, shoppers can easily review and peruse information relevant to items of interest, for a more compelling and immersive shopping experience. Rokid Glass also leverages WiFi positioning technology, to achieve precise positioning within one-meter to resolve indoor navigation issues.

To facilitate developers in developing applications in vertical industries, Rokid Glass will ship with Android 7.0, 4GB memory, 64GB storage, and can be customized with a variety of development kits, making it possible to create applications related to indoor/outdoor navigation, offline shopping, social networking, remote assistance, tourism, exhibitions, education, industry 4.0, and other industrial- and occasion-related scenarios.

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