Did you know ? In Japan you can buy a holographic girlfriend

 

The Eastern world never tires of surprising us with situations that seem strange to us who live in the West. One of the most recent is the possibility of acquiring a kind of holographic girlfriend in Japan.

The curious creation is from a company called Gatebox. In practice, the device has the same functions as a virtual assistant, such as Google Assistant .

However, the device comes in the form of a dome and inside it a hologram takes care of giving life to “Boku no Yome”, a term that in direct translation would be something like “my girl”.

A holographic girlfriend to call your own

The “virtual girlfriend”, of course, has a name. Her name is Hikari Azuma. Her duties go far beyond simply keeping company for the most lonely. Integrated with your smartphone and other electronics in the house, it can control the lights in the home, activate and deactivate alarms or even items such as refrigerators, ovens and vacuum cleaners.

The device is shaped like a Bluetooh speaker, but with the difference that in the central part there is a glass box that serves as a “stage” for your holographic girlfriend to interact with you.

The interesting detail, however, is due to the personality implanted in the assistant, so that she can behave as if she were her partner.

For example, Hikari Azuma does not forget birthday dates, including the full months that you are "together". So, don't be surprised if you get home a happy message of “congratulations on our day”.

Another way for her to interact is by sending messages to her cell phone asking what time you get home.

Curious service is not cheap

Curiosities aside, at the end of the day it is as if you bought a set-top box like Google Home for your home, but with the charm of having a holography to personify the virtual assistant.

However, this type of company has a price, which can be considered salty for many people.

The model is currently on sale only in Japan and has a suggested price of 150,000 yen - the equivalent of almost  $ 5,500, excluding taxes. In addition, the service is used for the payment of a monthly subscription, the value of which is around  $ 60 per month.

Even now available for sale, for now Hikari Azuma works with a demo version of software, which may cause some of its functions to not be performed perfectly. The company has already promised that the final version of the software should be ready in December, before the Christmas period.

The company stressed that at the moment it focuses its efforts on new features and on improving the holographic girlfriend's artificial intelligence. This product is not expected to be sold outside Japan at any time.