#HTE

Cute Anime Holograph Digital Assistants are Mildly Terrifying

I get what they’re trying to do here–and I don’t like it one bit. Take a look at this “Gatebox Virtual Home Robot” out of Japan:

The character’s name is Azuma Hikari (her “personality profile” is here) and even after accounting for cultural differences, I find her downright disturbing. While the target market–young salarymen whose brutal hours provide little opportunity for dating–exists, it seems perverse to attempt to fill life voids with a doting digital doll.

What’s even crazier is that Gatebox already has a competitor: A company called Vivoka, which has created a similar holographic assistant, this one a talking raccoon “home butler”:

It is interesting that both companies are attempting to deepen users’ connections with digital assistants by providing them with visual forms, both taken from cartoon tropes relevant to each culture. If I had to pick one of the two I’d go with Zac, as he’s presented as an animal assistant absent any bizarre psychosexual connotations.

The differences in form factors between the two objects is interesting. Azuma appears to be trapped in a coffeemaker designed by Tron during his internship at Braun:

Meanwhile, Zac resides in a slanted rectangle with an awning.

Although as we saw in the video, Zac can make the jump into your phone or device, whereas it appears Azuma cannot, at least for now.

If these take off, it will be interesting–and a little creepy–to see the universe of characters that the two companies, or perhaps independent developers, will start cranking out. I think I’ll go for a Liger with a Scottish accent.