The sweet, adorable titular robot from ‘Wall-E’ may not be real, but Samsung’s round robot ‘Ballie’ is. After being released in 2020, which resembled a small yellow bowling ball, Samsung unveiled the new version of Ballie, with the most striking feature to project things onto the floor and ceiling.
The Rolling Robot
The AI home robot, Ballie, comes with multiple features where the ball can project videos, calls and other media. Serving as a personal home assistant, Ballie can autonomously navigate through the home to accomplish various tasks. Through an integrated connection with other home appliances, Ballie can offer assistance in various situations. Unlike other home assistants from Google and Amazon, Ballie’s moving feature pushes it a notch apart.
Ballie continuously learns user patterns and habits, allowing for more intelligent and personalised services. A user can interact with the robot via their phone. The launch video shows a user exercising to a workout video that is projected on the ceiling. Featuring a 1080p projector with two lenses, the projection can be automatically adjusted based on wall distance and lighting conditions.
This is probably the first of the many announcements in the field of Robotics for the year. Considering the number of announcements and developments that have been happening in the last few months, including Google DeepMind’s new research models that was announced at the start of the year, it is only obvious that 2024 will be the year of Robotics.
Major tech players in the space of robotics, such as Tesla and Figure are also on path to unveil new features in the coming months.