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Operator launches smart home speaker equipped with its new NUGU digital assistant.
SK Telecom this week entered the artificial intelligence market, launching the world’s first Korean-language digital assistant.
Called NUGU – a Korean word for ‘who’ – it squares up to Amazon’s Echo and Google’s recently-unveiled Google Assistant, using voice recognition and natural language processing to enable a user to control smart home appliances, look up information on the Internet, and play back music.
Just like Google and Amazon, SK Telecom’s first NUGU-powered device comes in the form of a home speaker that connects to the Internet via WiFi.
Available from today, it costs 249,000 won (€199); however, an introductory price of KRW99,000 applies until 30 October. After that it will rise to a slightly higher promotional price of KRW149,000, which will apply until 31 December.
"In the past, the evolution of [the] input device – from a conventional keyboard to mouse, and then to touchpad – has brought great changes to people’s daily lives. Now we are once again standing at a turning point that leads to a dramatically different world created by voice recognition and artificial intelligence technologies," said Park Il-hwan, EVP and head of SK Telecom’s device supporting division, in a statement on Wednesday.
Going forward, SK Telecom plans to embed NUGU into connected cars and wearables, and even a humanoid robot.
Over the air (OTA) updates will also add more functionality to NUGU devices, such as voice-enabled shopping and real-time travel information, SK Telecom said.
In addition, in the first half of 2017, SK Telecom plans to open NUGU’s APIs to third-party developers in a bid to foster an ecosystem of NUGU-powered devices and services.
"With the launch of NUGU, the first ever virtual assistant service that supports the Korean language, we will promote the popularisation of artificial intelligence technologies and services to realise enhanced value for our customers," Park said.
