Voice-powered assistants like Amazon’s Alexa is great if you’re an adult and you can speak relatively clearly and succinctly, but when you’re a kid who might mumble and stumble through their words, sometimes the results from these voice assistant platforms might not be ideal, and this is something that the folks at Mattel want to solve.
In a report from Fast Company, it seems that Mattel has designed their own take on the Amazon Echo and the Alexa platform and are calling it “Aristotle”. Unlike Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, and so on, Aristotle was designed for kids in mind and will answer their questions. Also unlike the Echo or Google Home, Aristotle will not control your home, but rather it will act more as a tutor or a friend to your child.
According to Robb Fujioka, senior vice president, chief products officer at Mattel, “We tried to solve the other fundamental problem of most baby products, which is they don’t grow with you. So we spent a lot of time investing in how it would age.” It will play nicely with children of all ages, whether it be to soothe a baby when it cries by playing their favorite song or through a soothing nightlight glow, to answering all kinds of inane questions that a child might typically ask.
No word on how much Mattel plans on charging for the device, but they are expected to release it in June. As Fast Company notes, a lot of its features seem theoretical and good on paper at the moment, so whether or not it can deliver as promised remains to be seen.
Filed in . Read more about AI (Artificial Intelligence), Education, Mattel and Speakers.