US start-up Rabbit and tech company Teenage Engineering have designed the R1, a "pocket companion" that aims to upturn the dominance of smartphones in our lives by using artificial intelligence to complete tasks.
Revealed at last week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the Rabbit R1 is a palm-sized, bright orange AI assistant that is designed to take actions on behalf of its user, even where those actions involve multiple or complex steps.
The device, which the company described as a "pocket companion", could be used to book flights, stream music or edit Photoshop images, among other uses.
Users push and hold a button on the right-hand side of the device to talk to their R1 as they would a walkie-talkie, issuing commands in natural language and viewing a simplified visual interface that represents their assistant as a pixel art-styled bunny. The Rabbit R1 is an AI-powered personal assistant
Rabbit is asking consumers to rethink many of their digital habits with the pared-back invention, including how they interact with apps, what security norms they accept, and how their devices can look.
At a CES keynote address, Rabbit founder and CEO Jesse Lyu said that the company had aimed to create "the simplest computer" and a "delightful" user experience ? "something so intuitive that you don't need to learn how to use it".
"The best way to achieve this is to break away from the app-based operating system currently ...