TOKYO -- SoftBank is teaming up with an Osaka-based robotics startup to offer a portable smart speaker within the year.
The SoftBank Group unit will provide natural language processing and voice synthesis technologies for Plen Cube, a compact personal assistant device developed by Plengoer Robotics. The Wi-Fi-enabled Plen Cube, which runs on an internal battery, includes a facial recognition feature and responds to voice commands from the user. It can be instructed to show a smartphone video on a compatible TV, for example.
