Google’s new AIY Projects is for Makers to create with A.I., giving plenty of creative individuals a chance to incorporate artificial intelligence into their creations with a do-it-yourself A.I. setup. To kick the new project off Google is beginning with a voice recognition kit that can be built and worked into other projects that Makers are creating, though the voice recognition kit is just the first of its kind as Google will also be releasing other reference kits for Makers to work with down the line that use A.I. in other ways.
As one would expect the voice kit and other reference kits won’t come fully assembled so they will have to be put together, but that likely isn’t going to be a problem for those who are getting their hands on these. While Makers will certainly be able to come up with their own intuitive ways to integrate the voice kit with their projects, Google does give a few examples of how the kit can be used, including a way for Makers to replace physical buttons, as well as using it to control devices by replacing smartphone applications that do the same function, and even giving assistive robotics a voice recognition capability.
In regards to the voice kit specifically users will be able to incorporate in one of a few different ways, using either the recently released Google Assistant SDK or Android Things if they want their creation to access things via cloud services, or they can incorporate it to work from on the device directly. For those that want to get their hands on the first AIY Projects reference kit Google is selling them at Barnes & Noble retail stores in the US, as well as at WH Smith, Tesco, Sainsburys, and Asda in the UL. Additionally Google has also starting mailing out reference kits to all MagPi Magazine users as of today. While Google is planning on putting out more reference kits for Makers in the future, they’re also encouraging Makers to go to the Hackster.io website and engage in discussions over the use of AI and how Makers want to integrate into things they build.
