Lenovo is probably best known for its laptops, and maybe to a lesser degree for its smartphones (because folks probably forget that Lenovo owns Motorola). But the company is looking ahead to the future with a series of new concept products, all based around artificial intelligence.
At the company’s Lenovo Tech World event, Lenovo is showing off a smart speaker, an agumented reality headset, a virtual assistant, and a smart vest for fitness tracking, among other things.
First up is CAVA, a new virtual assistant that cold go up against Siri, Google Assistant, and Cortana… although a better comparison is probably Samsung’s Bixby, since Lenovo already ships devices with Google and Microsoft’s virtual assistant software. That means CAVA needs to do something different in order to stand out.
According to Lenovo, its distinguishing features are “deep-learning based face recognition systems and natural language understanding” to recommend adding appointments to your calendar, remind you of events, or suggest when to leave for an appointment. CAVA does that by learning about your habits and comparing them against data including traffic and weather conditions.
While CAVA would be at home on a smartphone, Lenovo also unveiled a smart speaker called the SmartCast+. Imagine an Amazon Echo or Google Home device… and then add a projector that can beam graphics while you’re listening to a story.
Lenovo’s daystAR concept is a standalone augmented reality headset. It doesn’t need to be plugged into a computer and it doesn’t rely on a phone. Just place it on your head and you can view 3D content superimposed on the real world thanks to a transparent display with a 40-degree field of view.
The company’s SmartVest concept is a piece of smart clothing with built-in sensors to monitor your vital stats through ECG signals all day, giving you a better sense of your heart health than you’d get from a simple optical heart rate sensor on a smartwatch.
While Lenovo hasn’t committed to bringing any of these new gadgets to market yet, Engadget and Mobile Geeks both got to spend some time with prototypes at Lenovo Tech World. You can check out both sites for some real-world picturs and impressions.