Interesting new Video from Microvision

Very interesting how they have improved projection by recognizing what not to project onto.

No reflections, and different surfaces... cool stuff.

The ability to not project on shiny things may have been a requirement for the market.

Three new Microvision Videos

Thanks Fru

Apple REALLY wants you to use Amazon Alexa

Not sure what to make of this yet, but it's not an expected development.

There's a lot more cooperation between these big companies than most people would expect. Foxconn, for example makes phones for a number of huge players in smartphones, including Apple and Samsung.


Motley Fool

Apple Insider

Few new product categories within consumer electronics show the type of insane growth and adoption as smart speakers. Pioneered by Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and its sleeper hit Echo, smart speaker sales are skyrocketing as consumers place devices in multiple rooms around their homes, accessing music-streaming services and controlling smart-home gadgets. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has mostly missed out on that boom though, as its HomePod didn't launch until earlier this year and is priced at a massive premium compared to the competition.

The tech titan rarely makes cross-platform plays, but Apple Music is one of those exceptions; the service has also been available on Android for years.

New Video from Microvision.

New Video....

Feedback from consumers about what's coming for smart speakers and IOT devices suggests there will be a lot of demand for this.

Amazon Alexa Programmers Twitch Channel

Twitch

Watch VOD: Deep Dive into Three Critical Aspects of Alexa's In-Skill Purchase API from amazonalexa on www.twitch.tv

They Will advertise like crazy the first projector enabled Smart Speaker

...especially on the NFL...

This is good news, it tells us these companies are all in on the space, will be competing for market share, and will shout about their new features.




BroadcastingCable


As the holiday shopping season closes in, we took a look at TV advertising trends surrounding a hotter-than-ever product category: smart speaker/displays for the home, and in particular the Amazon Echo, Google Home and the newest to market, Facebook Portal.

Data from iSpot.tv, the real-time TV ad measurement company with attention and conversion analytics from more than eight million smart TVs, reveals an interesting common strategy: these advertisers are more likely to spend big but air fewer ads than other top-spending brands — in other words, they’re making premium TV ad buys — and all three had the biggest budgets allocated to the NFL.

Does new tech catch on?

When something is new, it's often difficult to know if it will catch on and stay caught on. 

You could "facetime" in 1964, but it didn't catch on. (for you young people out there, you still had to sit by the phone, because it was attached to the wall either directly or by a cord.) Sometimes technology will wait a long time before the timing is right. (Picture phones had a problem, because there had to be at least two of them before they made any sense... like Fax machines.)

Eighteen years ago (that long?) The Segway Arrived to a lot of fanfare, with claims being made that it would completely change the way people travel. There was a lot of hype, and when it was introduced it got popular and then faded quickly. Not quite as good as people thought. It still gets some use, and can be really useful, but it's the huge solution to the transport problem people thought it would be.

Voice is one of those things that we'd be concerned about. It's an extremely recent addition technologically speaking, and if it were going to be fading it would be showing signs of fading by now.

But it's still increasing. That's good for us -- because screens are better for delivering information after using voice to ask for it. And people are talking to their phones, and asking them for information at an increasing rate.

As far as projection for screens? Anytime you can make something smaller and more portable and just as good with additional features... you have no worries, and that's what Laser projection is going to do.

When combined with a screen, the number of things that people will commonly ask for will increase, and it will be significant increase in the functionality of voice.

Thanks Ron

CMO.com

Fad or fab? When it comes to voice devices and services, survey says: Fab.

Indeed, consumers’ use of voice services is on the rise, according to new research by Adobe Analytics, which surveyed over 1,000 U.S. consumers. The study found the most common voice activities are asking for music (70%) and the weather forecast (64%) via smart speakers. Other popular activities include asking fun questions (53%), online search (47%), checking the news (46%), basic research/confirming info (35%), and asking directions (34%). 

The study also uncovered some newer voice-based tasks. Thirty-six percent of consumers surveyed said they use voice to make a call, 31% do so for smart-home commands, 30% for shopping/ordering items, 17% for food delivery/takeout, and 16% for flight/hotel research.

“Technology trends come and go, but we think voice is here to stay,” said Colin Morris, director of product management for Adobe Analytics. (Adobe is CMO.com’s parent company.) “Consumers continue to embrace voice as a means to engage their devices and the Internet. It’s a trend that has fundamentally changed the face of computing.”

Smartphone speaker ownership, the study found, is driving voice usage. Thirty-two percent of consumers reported owning a smart speaker in August 2018, compared with 28% in January 2018—a 14% increase in just a few months. The growth is considerable given that 79% of smart speaker sales occur in Q4, Morris pointed out.

Additionally, use of voice assistants is up, with 76% of smart speaker owners who cited an increase in the past year. Seventy-one percent of smart speaker owners reported using them at least daily—44% of which said “multiple times a day.” Only 8% of owners reported almost never using them.  

Voice User Interface

A week ago I attended a meetup that featured an Amazon engineer (echo show focus... yes it was fascinating... ) the presentation she gave was about how they program the device for speech recognition.

It's WAY more involved (tedious?) than programming for visuals. When you're programming a typical program you can easily lay out all of the options that you will allow for a user, and they must choose one of them. The ways all of us speak varies a lot, and that makes programming for voice recognition particularly challenging.

The programming example she used was a "skill" for choosing a dog, and Alexa asks the user "what size dog do you want?"

With a visual program, you could handle this in a variety of ways that make getting a usable answer easy: You show options: small, medium, large. You could even use a sliding scale from "tiny" to "huge."

The engineer described the difficulty of programming for voice... so they want a big dog... how do you process all the possible words for "big?" If they're doing a good job of "conversing" you're more likely to get something strange. 

{big, large, a hundred pounds, colossal, enormous, gigantic, huge, immense, massive, substantial, vast, a whale of a, ginormous, hulking, humongous, jumbo, mammoth, the size of a baby elephant, super colossal}

... and if the system is to respond, each option must be programmed into the skill...

Which makes me quite sure that visuals need to be integrated into even the best voice programmed devices -- trying to program for all of the nuances of voice communication would be extremely difficult. 

We make requests, build relationships, and get some information through speech.

We get most of our information visually. I don't ask a smart speaker for the weekly weather report, because receiving the speech necessarily requires more time -- I would use speech to request the weekly forecast if I could then SEE it -- because making the request by voice can save me time, and seeing it saves me time.

Voice plus display will save time, and be more efficient...

Medium.com

VUI allows for hands free, efficient interactions that are more ‘human’ in nature than any other form of user interface. “Speech is the fundamental means of human communication,” writes Clifford Nass, Stanford researcher and co-author of Wired for Speech, “…all cultures persuade, inform and build relationships primarily through speech.” In order to create VUI systems that work, developers need to fully understand the intricacies of human communication. Consumers expect a certain level of fluency in human idiosyncrasies, as well as a more conversational tone from the bots and virtual assistants they’re interacting with on a near-daily basis.

Natural Language Processing — we’re not currently capable of developing a VUI with an inbuilt, natural and complex understanding of human communication, not yet. Regional accents, slang, conversational nuance, sarcasm… some humans struggle with these aspects of communication, so at this point can we really expect much more from a machine?

Visual feedback — including an element of visual feedback helps to reduce the level of frustration and confusion in users who aren’t sure whether or not the device is listening to or understanding what they’re saying. Alexa’s blue light ring, for example, visually communicates the device’s current status e.g. when the device is connecting to the WIFI network, whether or not ‘do not disturb mode’ has been activated, and when Alexa is getting ready to respond to a question…etc.

Thanks Carmen O!

Samsung Smart Speaker Patent

I don't know if this was posted last year as well, but I suspect so.

So, also of note is that there have been some issues with Bixby, but recent news is that it may collaborate with Google on Bixby. 

It's also a reminder of how many moving parts there are for systems like this, and how important timing is -- the timing is very good right now.


Thank you R!

Patently Apple
Patently Apple posted a report on Wednesday titled "Samsung's President of Mobile Communications has confirmed that a Smart Speaker is in fact coming to Market." We first reported on this possibility back in early July. Samsung had also been granted design patents for a possible future smart speaker that we covered in a previous report. Then yesterday a utility patent from Samsung came to light that revealed a new radical smart speaker system in detail. The system includes a master unit designed to communicate with a series of secondary units spread throughout the home. The interactive smart speaker includes a video projector that's in sync with its digital assistant called 'Bixby.' The system is designed in a certain way to resemble the head and face of a robot which enables the device to physically move when spoken to as well as redirect video responses or the playing of video content unto a nearby wall with its built-in projector.

***

Where there is an optimal distance range or distance limit between the projector and the projection surface, the device may be able to move itself (e.g., using wheels or rollers attached to the base) to the optimal position to display the image.

Furthermore, by using the sensor, the device can find a flat, blank surface for the large-screen display mode. This will avoid visual content from being displayed on an artwork or any other surface that would not be suitable.

Microvision Interactive Smart Speaker Demo

I'm thinking we'll hear more in October.

I recognize that speaker's voice....

And.... don't forget... at the distributor.... WPG Holdings


Microvision

Today’s global smart speaker market is rapidly expanding, up 187% year over year in Q2 20182. Many companies are seeking ways to differentiate their offerings to gain market share and increase monetization of their platforms since most users use only a few simple skills that are not tied to monetization.

Some companies are starting to add physical screens to their smart speakers to increase the consumer use of the VDA. These displays make it easier for the users to interact with VDAs, especially when there are multiple choices or lists. However, the industrial design and form factor suffer as these devices start to look and act just like large tablets. In many cases, the addition of a physical screen is not an option due to space, size and cost limitations.

MicroVision’s advanced interactive display technology can produce a large, on-demand, cost-effective interactive display without growing the form factor of a typical smart speaker. Very importantly, MicroVision’s technology provides the user with a natural way to interact with the VDA and is designed to increase the monetization opportunities for platform providers. The video below highlights an example use-case with a touch interface enabled by MicroVision’s Prototype Interactive Display Engine.

Google Home overtakes Amazon Echo

Of interest here is that we can do some math.

Looks like sales of just under 9 million units/quarter of smart speakers.



Geek Wire

According to the report, Google shipped 3.2 million Google Home devices, while Amazon sold 2.5 million Echo devices in the quarter. Google captured 36 percent of market share in the first quarter, versus 28 percent for Amazon.

***

“Google has several advantages over Amazon that have helped it move ahead,” said Canalys Analyst Ben Stanton. “But its biggest advantage is in the channel. Operators and retailers tend to prioritize Google’s speakers over those from Amazon, as Amazon is in the tricky position of being a direct competitor. But Amazon is fighting back hard, and the sheer quantity of Alexa Skills and smart home integrations will be tough for any competitor to match.”

Alexa, Apple, Google.... Black box?

Have stuff to say, but the kid needs a ride.

CC Impressions

CNBC

Amazon wants to show you how much you can rely on its Alexa voice assistant to control everything in your home, from thermostats to TVs.

The company announced Wednesday it's partnering with homebuilder Lennar to create "Amazon Experience Centers" — model homes containing built-in Alexa-controlled appliances — in hopes of persuading homeowners and homebuyers to embed Amazon services into their houses.

Lennar is outfitting model homes with TVs connected to Amazon's Fire TV system, buttons that can reorder goods from Amazon, and Alexa-enabled products that allow customers to control the lights, TV, shades and other appliances with their voices. Customers can tour the homes in cities around the U.S. to get an idea of how they work.

Apple has taken a similar approach. It has already teamed with homebuilders to create model new homes with HomeKit-ready products that can be controlled from an iPhone or iPad with Apple's Siri assistant. Brookfield Residential is one such homebuilder.

For Amazon, it's another example of how badly it wants to be in your home. Doing so lets it collect valuable data on how you purchase goods.

Apple, Amazon and Google are all racing to get smart assistants into your homes. Most households probably only have room for one of those — so getting customers into the ecosystem when they're buying a home might keep them for the long haul.

( I have scraped this to not lose it.)

Projection Smart Speaker Solution

Projection Smart Speaker Solution Based on Microvision Thunderbird PSE-0403st-101

See it at WPG Here (At distributor)

Then Check Recent Microvision Presentation 4/27/18 

Go to pages 6 & 18

UBI Interactive

Apple's Tim Cook "“HomePod is widely recognized for having the best sound quality for its size and class,” Cook says, skirting concerns over HomePod sales. “We’re looking forward to adding new features to HomePod.” (The Verge -- Thx R)

Most smart speakers use intelligent voice assistant as the main method of human-machine interaction. However, at present, the intelligent voice assistant is still in infancy. The voice recognition development direction of the voice assistant is basically based on instructions. Basically, the understanding of simple and clear instructions will not go wrong, but when it comes to daily chat, their weaknesses are fully exposed. For the complex human language and emotions, the understanding of the machine is still quite low. The matter of letting the machine understand humans is just beginning to take off.

Therefore, in order to improve the user experience, smart speakers need to add other interactive methods. Microvision and UBI launched the laser projection touch solution to solve this problem. Microvision's Thunderbird laser projection module features small size, low power consumption, and no focusing, which fully meets the needs of smart speaker products. UBI's Camera and infrared laser modules can solve the user's need for interaction.

MicroVision , the founder of PicoP® laser scanning technology, developed a series of ultra-micro laser scanning projection solutions using laser beam scanning methods. MicroVision's advanced display solutions can adapt to a wide range of applications and unique styling designs. The solution has the characteristics of small size, low power consumption, no focusing, large viewing angle, high contrast, and high chroma, which can bring new experiences and applications to the field of mobile devices.

DragonBoard 410C (Qualcom)

System functions

1, support WiFi connection router 
2, support laser projection and multi-touch 
3, support for voice recognition 
4, support for online music, video, interactive games

Project features

1, built-in Android OS 
2, the projection size can be adjusted with the height 
3, the output image resolution 1080 * 720 
4, free focus, you can in various shapes of the background surface imaging 
5, HDMI and MIPI interface, supports a variety of smart speaker program .

New MVIS Presentation.

I've sought permission to cut and past from it (new sheriff in town.) They would prefer that I not select items out of context.

Link to new Presentation. (4/27/18) It will download a .pdf file.

Page 5-9: As I have asserted: Targeting LARGE EMERGING Technologies. (Notice Google HOME on p6)

P7 -- Consumer LiDAR -- specifically mentioning HOME SECURITY.
P8 -- Automotive LiDAR -- 
P9 -- AR, MR, VR (Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, Virtual Reality) -- all of them. The amount of work going into building an ecosystem for this from FB, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Samsung, Meta, Magic Leap, SNAP, Sony, HTC & Others (Motley Fool)

P10 -- illustrates how small and useful the technology can be. (Interactive displays literally ANYWHERE. -- remember that focus and heat aren't really a problem. (and if you go to page 17, you will see that the touch interactive portion (the IR laser) will be integrated with the projector. Alignment of touch-sensitivity and the image will NOT be a problem.)

(A couple pages of how it works. I saw once a high-speed video of PicoP in action, showing a single laser dot zinging back and forth to make a picture. I wish I had that still.)

P18: By Name Mentions: Mentions personal assistants, their functions, their voice accuracy (not as accurate as users reading and touching) Highlighting service delivery improvements with visual and touch and mentioning four companies and their personal assistants by name. 

• Google
• Cortana (Microsoft)
• Siri (Apple)
• Amazon Alexa

P21 -- this is awesome. Last week they announced a new mems, with much higher resolution.

Here they're showing a LiDAR that's the volume of three bucks worth of quarters. (Home Security, Self Driving Cars & other applications look like they'll be fairly easy.)

P22-23 Benefits, including speed, improved recognition, small size & Low cost.

P25 The AR, VR, MR optical engine. (I've personally tried everything else I could lay my hands on out there, (missing Magic Leap) and find them all lacking next to MVIS's "NOMAD."

Amazon Bezos' Letter

And we know they're going to be WAY more useful with BIG & interactive screens.

They are inviting anyone to create devices with "Alexa" inside. (I had a very nice chat at CES with an Amazon representative who is part of that program.)

Things are going to get interesting.

Full Letter Text


CNBC

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has released his latest annual shareholder letter.

In the letter, Bezos stressed the importance of having high standards in running a business. By setting high standards, companies are able to live up to "ever-rising customer expectations," he said.

"How do you stay ahead of ever-rising customer expectations? There's no single way to do it – it's a combination of many things. But high standards (widely deployed and at all levels of detail) are certainly a big part of it," Bezos wrote in the letter.

Bezos also disclosed for the first time that Prime now exceeds 100 million members worldwide. In 2017 alone, Amazon added more Prime members than any prior year, and shipped over five billion items through the paid membership service worldwide, he said.

Amazon also sold the most number of devices last year, with customers buying "tens of millions" of Echo devices, Bezos wrote in the letter.

With regards to Whole Foods, Bezos said the "technical work" is currently under way to bring Prime member benefits to the grocery chain.

Alexa – Customer embrace of Alexa continues, with Alexa-enabled devices among the best-selling items across all of Amazon. We’re seeing extremely strong adoption by other companies and developers that want to create their own experiences with Alexa. There are now more than 30,000 skills for Alexa from outside developers, and customers can control more than 4,000 smart home devices from 1,200 unique brands with Alexa. The foundations of Alexa continue to get smarter every day too. We’ve developed and implemented an on-device fingerprinting technique, which keeps your device from waking up when it hears an Alexa commercial on TV. (This technology ensured that our Alexa Super Bowl commercial didn’t wake up millions of devices.) Far-field speech recognition (already very good) has improved by 15% over the last year; and in the U.S., U.K., and Germany, we’ve improved Alexa’s spoken language understanding by more than 25% over the last 12 months through enhancements in Alexa’s machine learning components and the use of semi-supervised learning techniques. (These semi-supervised learning techniques reduced the amount of labeled data needed to achieve the same accuracy improvement by 40 times!) Finally, we’ve dramatically reduced the amount of time required to teach Alexa new languages by using machine translation and transfer learning techniques, which allows us to serve customers in more countries (like India and Japan).

•

Amazon devices – 2017 was our best year yet for hardware sales. Customers bought tens of millions of Echo devices, and Echo Dot and Fire TV Stick with Alexa were the best-selling products across all of Amazon – across all categories and all manufacturers. Customers bought twice as many Fire TV Sticks and Kids Edition Fire Tablets this holiday season versus last year. 2017 marked the release of our all-new Echo with an improved design, better sound, and a lower price; Echo Plus with a built-in smart home hub; and Echo Spot, which is compact and beautiful with a circular screen. We released our next generation Fire TV, featuring 4K Ultra HD and HDR; and the Fire HD 10 Tablet, with 1080p Full HD display. And we celebrated the 10th anniversary of Kindle by releasing the all-new Kindle Oasis, our most advanced reader ever. It’s waterproof – take it in the bathtub – with a bigger 7” high-resolution 300 ppi display and has built-in audio so you can also listen to your books with Audible.

Smart Displays. Voice Recognition. Google.

There has to be a pony in here somewhere.

"Android Things" Android Developers

"Starting tomorrow, you can visit the Google Assistant Playground (booth CP-21) at CES to view new products, chipsets, and reference designs by our partners. In addition, these devices are also available for display in other company spaces throughout the conference, including Lenovo, LG, JBL, Qualcomm, MediaTek, NXP, Rockchip, iHome, Goertek, and Tymphany."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Rockchip "Hey Google"

CES2018 Rockchip announces Android Things™ Turnkey SOM

2018-01-09

Rockchip announced its new Android Things™ Turnkey Solution - RK3229 System-On-Module (SOM). It will help developers build multiple categories of IoT products and bring them to market more quickly.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

From Here: WPG

RockChip TV Boxes

Vuzix Alexa powered AR Glasses

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Jan. 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Vuzix® Corporation -- Vuzix® Corporation (VUZI), ("Vuzix" or, the "Company"), a leading supplier of Smart Glasses and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies for the consumer and enterprise markets, is pleased to announce that the Company will showcase its next-generation wearable technology smart glasses and augmented reality products at CES 2018, including the Vuzix Blade™, which was awarded four International CES Innovation 2018 awards. 


Vuzix to unveil first Alexa-enabled smart glasses next week — and the company's stock is popping

• The $1,000 glasses are aimed at a "prosumer" market, such as golfers or business customers, the company said, but will eventually come down in price and incorporate new features.
• Vuzix has a long-standing presence as a wearables maker in the enterprise technology market but is now looking toward consumers.
• Vuzix's is one of many augmented-reality products expected out of CES, a consumer electronics trade show taking place in Las Vegas next week.

From Vuzix 10K

We currently purchase almost all of the microdisplays used in our products from Kopin and Microvision. Our relationship with these microdisplay suppliers is generally on a purchase order basis and neither firm has a contractual obligation to provide adequate supply or acceptable pricing to us on a long-term basis. We procure a small percentage of our microdisplays from other sources such as Syndiant and Texas Instruments. While we do not manufacture our components, we own the tooling that is used to make our custom components with the exception of certain authentication chips and connectors that may be required to support industry standard device connectivity. We believe that we are not dependent on our relationships with any supplier other than Kopin or Microvision. Kopin before we sold the defense divisions had also been a significant customer of our night vision display electronics modules and owns just under 3% of our common stock. Some of our accessory products are sourced from third parties as finished goods. We typically have them print our Vuzix brand name on these products of they are co-branded. Such third party products represented less than 5% of our sales in 2015.

Google taking over CES?

Hey Google

Engadget

Google doesn't usually have a big presence at CES, but that's changed in a big way this year. You can't help but notice that the monorail circling the Las Vegas Convention Center bears huge letters saying "Hey Google!" Just below, Google has set up a huge, multistory monument to the Google Assistant booth in the convention-center parking lot. It's still under construction so it's hard to say exactly what's going on in there. (Also, there's a superfluous spiraling slide on the side of the booth and a weird Google Assistant ball-pit game near the convention center's main entrance.)

Garmin Alexa Speak

If there were ever anything screaming for a little laser projector.

Kindle Fire Reminder...

Qihan Robot -- Likely to feature Sony Module (1920*720)

1920*720 Resolution is the Sony Lezab laser projector module signature, and this cites that. Call this a Microvision installation. 

The more of these prototype installations the better. These won't be installations of ten million units in a popular portable consumer electronics product. But we will get there.


QIHAN

About 3:20 for projecton

Sanbot is stocked with sensors, and is big enough to accommodate any new ones Qihan might want to add down the road. That could include sensors to pick up temperature, altitude, or air pressure. It’ll definitely include cameras and sonar, which will be used for object recognition — mainly so Sanbot doesn’t crash into those objects (it’d work similar to how a Roomba or Neato Botvac works). But, Qihan says that with the help of machine learning and microphones, Sanbot will also be able to interact intelligently with people. That would involve listening to and responding to natural language, but Qihan says they’re also working on getting Sanbot to recognize and adapt to human facial expressions and the emotions they convey. Sanbot will also have Wi-Fi and ZigBee connectivity, so it could be an Alexa-like smart home hub, too — a must for any potential robot butler.

Sanbot’s face shows up on a 10.1″ 1080p touch display, which can become a regular, tablet-like interface when needed. Qihan also went full R2-D2 and added a 1920 x 720 projector, too. Meanwhile, a massive 20 Ah battery would allow Sanbot to go for four hours before needing to head back for a recharge.

Read more at http://www.chipchick.com/2016/09/qihan-sanbot-become-robot-butler.html#tDYpy0gHZYkO0qS0.99