This is a mobile phone without a screen that doesn't make phone calls and won't fit in your pocket. It's nothing more than a desk toy.<p>"Hey Vector" is just "Hey Google" or "Hey Siri" or "Hey Alexa". For a lot less money you could just get a Google Home or Amazon Echo (Apple HomePod is a bit more) and they provide more functionality without the useless wheels.
Standupmaths, from recent front page fame got sponsored to do a video on Vector, and it appears to be mostly a cross between a virtual assistant, like Alexis and a robot pet, like sony Aibo, with a form factor inspired by wall-e.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ahdOqe5qBk" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ahdOqe5qBk</a>
"Smart enough to take over the world. Nice enough not to."<p><rolls eyes>... So how smart?<p>"Weather, timer, take a photo, blackjack."<p>Ha, must be $5. Or $10, it's kinda cute.<p>"$249.99"<p>Piss off.<p>"Super smart AI, safely programmed one notch below too smart."<p>Yeah, if it could keep a calendar, man that'd be dangerous.
“Needed at home - USB Power Adapter 5V, 1A or greater”<p>It’s a $250 device that doesn’t include a plug for the charger. I don’t know if that’s an effort to save money or reduce waste, but either way it strikes me as a way to guarantee a subset of customers are annoyed in their first 30 minutes of using the product.<p>What am I missing here?
Techmoan was not overly impressed: <a href="https://youtu.be/is-rSK5y6EQ" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/is-rSK5y6EQ</a>
Ok how's this for cute: <a href="https://www.nabaztag.com/#karotz" rel="nofollow">https://www.nabaztag.com/#karotz</a><p>These things really make me mad - the nabaztag I mean, because of the wasted potential. I bought one, my kid loved it, it's super cute wonderful. The api sucks, most of the things didn't work, it has a built in RSS reader (evidently, but the RSS reader supposedly works by compiling the feed down into an application and downloading that and executing it and none of the feeds I tried to get to work [that they recommended] ever worked). aaaarggghhh, really the design of the thing is wonderful. It should take over the world, by the design, but the functionality made it so it didn't do so.<p>I mean I hate it so much and I am still tempted to buy a new one despite the things that were messed up because 1. those things that were messed up might be fixed by now, they were not insurmountable. Some of them were really the easy bits.
2. the things that did work showed just really good design ideas.<p>I want one again, but I also want not to feel screwed over.
I don't understand. How does it respond to your queries? For weather it seems to animate little rain droplets on the screen, but in the example: "what's an epsilon?" they never show it actually answering.
I've been following this since it's been announced and it is a really cool idea. But I agree with most of the people here that there is a limited sense of practicality for this product. The only thing I can see this being useful for is for education purposes. This would be great for schools, especially middle and high school. I even used a mindstorm for one of my graduate classes/lab to write our own algorithms (in nxc).
I have now spent a few minutes on the website. I'm confused on to what robot it is offering? And what utility that robot then offers? In the video I see multiple robots. I don't see the robot actually offering any value.
I'd love to spend money on a robot, but I have no idea why I would spend money on this thing (things?)