Kuri is a self-driving robot responds to voice commands. It is cute and fun.
Kuri Vision, by turning the robot into a family videographer, and enabling it to record eight videos every day, while each of them five seconds in length, compel someone to pay $799 for it. The service takes advantage of Kuri vision capabilities that the company has announced recently, with Kuri able to recognize not only the family members but pets too.
As CEO Mike Beebe explained that Kuri uses that knowledge to shoot its videos, based on factors like who is present, the time of day and even the location. One can access the videos in the Kuri mobile app and indicate which ones he/she like and which ones don’t, having given Kuri a better sense of what to record.
The goal is not to replace the photos and videos that you might be taking earlier. Nor is it meant to serve as its security camera, although it could help some users check on activity back at home.
Instead, robot Kuri should capture more of those lovely moments when you would not stop whipping out your smartphone camera — moments when your family members might be playing or cooking or doing anything else, and in words of Beebe, “To step outside to take the picture, it wrecks it.”
The robot doesn’t make a big deal about the fact that it’s making a video. That is one of the reasons it should be able to capture the kind of content you would not get on your own, but it might also make you a bit nervous about whether you’re being recorded, every time. To mitigate this nervousness user can designate certain rooms or times of day that are off limits for its recording.
Beebe emphasized that users should have control over their videos. Because the videos are uploaded automatically to the Kuri application after they’re recorded, but videos are only shared with you and you can download and share them elsewhere. There’s no social sharing within Kuri app.
Kuri, the funny robot is currently available for preorder. Mayfield plans to ship its first robots in the month of December — though that initial wave have been sold out. If you order it now, you should get your Kuri videographer in early 2018.
