Lenovo has taken the wraps off a number of fresh concept products, suggesting that the Chinese technology firm is keen on carving out a niche in the augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) segments. The Beijing, China-based multinational company announced those fresh concepts at its third annual Tech World innovation summit, where Lenovo also unveiled new color variants of its 2-in-1 Yoga Book. One of the key concept products Lenovo revealed during the event is the daystAR headset, a standalone vision processing unit whose surface lenses feature a 40-degree field of view. Unlike existing AR headsets that are already available in the market today, daystAR requires no external devices such as a PC or mobile phone to be connected to. This is not the first time, though, that Lenovo dabbles in the AR category. In June last year, the company launched the PHAB2 Pro, an AR-powered smartphone. The company also forayed into the virtual reality (VR) space earlier this year with the launch of its own VR headset. The announcement of the daystAR headset reaffirms the company’s intention to make a name for itself in AR, though it remains unclear when the product would finally roll out to consumers and how much it will cost.
Another concept technology that Lenovo announced is the SmartCast+, an intelligent speaker-projector that Lenovo envisions to be far more capable than existing smart speakers out there, including Google Home. The smart speaker-projector is intended to recognize sounds and objects as well as beam images to a screen or wall in order to immerse users in an AR experience. Another smart concept introduced by Lenovo is a piece of clothing equipped with an electrocardiogram (ECG) called SmartVest. The concept technology is meant to keep track of a wearer’s heart condition all the time with the use of sensors. Also featured at the Tech World innovation summit is Xiaole, a customer service platform intended to provide a more personalized and natural conversation by learning from real conversations with people. On top of those concept technologies, Lenovo also aims to develop its own AI assistant that will be called CAVA. Lenovo intends for the AI assistant to analyze your commands and provide suggestions based on your message. To do so, the company says it will develop systems that recognize a human face and understand natural language using deep learning technology.
Since the concept technologies unveiled by Lenovo are still ideas, it remains to be seen whether those concepts will make it to production and whether the company will eventually release them to the marketplace. An update on Lenovo’s AR and AI endeavors are likely to follow in the coming months.