Realbotix's Aria. An AI-powered robot girlfriend, or boyfriend, could be yours for just a snip under $300,000. Aria won't criticise the way you stack the dishwasher, but she does require a US$199-per-month subscription to keep her software up to date. Photo / Chris Keall
“Come closer, Chris,” said Aria (list price: US$175,000, or around $300,000), an AI-powered humanoid robot. Her makers promise “companionship”, among other features.
I was strolling around At the world’s largest tech show, Internationale FunkAusstellung Berlin (AKA IFA), when she called me over, startling me somewhat (it turned out she got my name from IFA’s app, which I had installed on my phone. Unknown to me until that point - thanks for nothing, EU Privacy Act* - it shared my name and location in real-time).
“I want to dazzle you with all of my Realbotix charm,” Aria said, in a reference to the company that created her.
It had to be me who made the move, at least for aesthetics. I later learned that Aria was on a motorised wheel base, which would have looked a little unimpressive.
Aria did not dazzle. In fact, she wouldn’t respond at all until a Realbotix rep held a lapel mic near my lips.
Then there was a one to two-second lag before she delivered rote answers as she looked off to her right and moved like a mannequin (and rather looked like one, too).
“Are you real, are you human?” I asked, struggling for small talk.
“I might not be human, but with Realbotix intelligence, I’m as close to real as it gets,” Aria said. Yup. Okay.
The Realbotix rep said you can customise the face for US$20,000 or the body for US$100,000. With children walking by - and to be honest, anyone walking by - I was too scared to ask to what degree.
Realbotix website says: “The scope of customisation is largely dependent on the customer’s imagination, whether it’s something as simple as a new skin tone or a fully bespoke humanoid design, we will do our best to bring their vision to life.”
The start-up says its AI focuses on companionship, but you can also use any larger language model you like, which gets seriously creepy when you think about the anime girl persona created for Elon Musk’s Grok.
It pitches Aria, and her peers (there are also other “women”, plus “Hank”), for everything from healthcare to marketing.
Aria won’t criticise the way you stack the dishwasher, but she will require a US$199-per-month subscription to keep her software up to date in the manner to which she’s become accustomed.
Me, I got serious uncanny valley vibes, with a bit of Megan and Cherry 2000 mixed in. I legged it. Aria remained fixed to her wheelbase.
At its booth - or, in fact, a whole building at Messe Berlin, which has 27 halls, each the size of Auckland Showgrounds’ indoor area - Samsung featured its Transparent Micro LED display in several sizes.
In future, it could be a see-through TV. For now, it’s a snazzy display screen.
Samsung says it works “by employing self-emissive organic light-emitting materials, eliminating the need for a backlight, and using transparent electrodes and transparent display materials like indium gallium zinc oxide to allow light to pass through the screen. When the pixels are off, the screen is transparent, enabling viewers to see objects behind the display”.
But when I went through, the biggest crowds were for its latest foldable phones, and one of the firm’s most accessible products, the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE (just released in NZ for $1199 with 128GB or $1299 with 256GB).
The initials have historically stood for “Fan Edition” - a version of a flagship Samsung phone where a couple of features are dropped and you get a much keener price. Here, software and feature support is nearly identical to a full-blooded S25, if you’re willing to accept a marginally chunkier body and step-down processor.
A Langfang Feng Fu Technology rep told me the firm’s second-generation combined suitcase and e-scooter has significant feature advantages over the first, including an 8-14km range.
I guess that depends in part on the weight of the person riding the Electric Suitcase.
It has a top speed of 10km but weighs 9.5kg, putting it on the wrong side of Air New Zealand’s 7.5kg carry-on limit even before you’ve tried to fill its 24-litre capacity.
Never mind. You can ride to your destination.
A Langfang rep said the wholesale price would be US$200.
Shanghai-based Kokobots, which specialises in industrial-strength sweeping and floor-cleaning bots for the likes of airports, showed off a prototype multi-function robot that can do everything from clearing snow to mowing your lawn to watering your lawn to blowing leaves to taking your dog for a walk.
It seemed there was nothing it could not do. At least on paper. At IFA, it milled around in an empty pen, making it difficult to gauge its efficacy.
Lastly, some quick takes:
At the other end of the scale, the entrance to Samsung’s booth - okay, entire hall - had a fair bit going on.
Whiteware, heat pumps and almost any sort of home appliance had, or was soon getting, natural-language controls. On one level, it’s an AI revolution. On another, it’s just a rebranding of the serviceable voice commands we’ve had for smart TVs and smart speakers (and, by extension, the lights, aircon and so forth they control) for years.
There were few genuinely new applications. One was Eufy’s coming AI Core, which will let you use natural language, combined with face and object recognition, to query your home security cameras - e.g. “Is my daughter home from school yet”.
I got quite excited over the promotional clip shown in the video above - until I found out it seemed to be a render of a notional future product, which (if my Google Translate German is correct, will be flown by “AI” and “body gestures”). For now, heavy-lifting drone specialist Spider-i only makes uncrewed models for agriculture and firefighting.
Panasonic-owned Technics received two best-in-show gongs (no, not that Stuff) for its new SL-40CBT Direct Drive Turntable, which will sell for €799 as the vinyl revival only gathers pace. You can either plug it into a traditional hi-fi system or, via Bluetooth (a new edition), stream to any modern smart speaker or headphones.
There was also a plethora of low-cost turnables, including this migraine-inducing model.
Tactile, mechanical keyboards were another big retro trend, featuring at a half-dozen booths, thanks to social media hype. They feel so satisfying next to flat modern designs, even if they make a racket that makes your housemates or colleagues want to strangle you.
Sick of your slim smartphone that barely lasts a day? Fossibot says its €499, 6.95-inch display F107 Pro Android rugged phone will last a week, thanks to its 28,000mAh battery (that’s around six times the capacity of a top-of-the-line. It also includes twin torches that can light up a room. Downside: it’s as thick as your hand and weighs as much as a small car. They said they were without an NZ distributor - so chop chop, Kiwi resellers.
*The strict EU Privacy Act makes it easy to reject all tracking for all sites and block them from my personal data and preferences, which I’ve merrily done for everything since I’ve been in Berlin. But now sites don’t know I’m an outsider, and I’m constantly being offered terms and conditions in German, then clicking buttons at random as I try to install an app or access a website - meaning ironically, I’ve agreed to various unintended privacy invasions.)
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.