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Watch Samsung show off its robotic BB-8 lookalike Ballie, AR glasses, and exoskeleton demo

Watch Samsung show off its robotic BB-8 lookalike Ballie, AR glasses, and exoskeleton demo

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A meandering look at the future, as envisioned by Samsung

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Samsung’s CES 2020 press conference on Monday featured robots, exoskeletons, AI, augmented reality, smart cities, and basically every other technology category you could think of.

The star of the show was Ballie, a robotic sphere with a passing resemblance to a volleyball. It’s fused with Samsung’s artificial intelligence tech, meaning it can identify people, stream live video, and operate various smart home gadgets like lighting, smart TVs, and even a Roomba. It’s somewhere between a Star Wars droid or perhaps real-life company Sphero’s very own discontinued BB-8 toy and the ill-fated Cozmo robot from defunct startup Anki. Hopefully, Samsung’s Ballie fares better than those two droids.

From there, Samsung’s press conference veered off into a meandering series of tech demos and high-level concepts, including an augmented reality demo featuring its GEMS exoskeleton from last year’s CES and new AR glasses that combine with a virtual personal trainer for full-body fitness applications. There were also discussions on “smart kitchen” concepts, talk of smart cities, and new cutting-edge firefighter and health care tech. It’s a lot to take in, but thankfully, we’ve broken out the most interesting moments in the video above.

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