Technologies

Nintendo Wants To Plant a Talking Flower in Your Home in March

The latest weird Nintendo toy is part companion, part alarm clock, part thermometer.

Nintendo’s music-infused Alarmo clock came out more than a year ago and there’s a new home companion from the always-unpredictable Nintendo this spring. This time it’s a chatty home flower buddy, arriving March 12.

Talking Flower was teased last year and full details have cropped up today on Nintendo Talking Flower, a talking re-creation of the helpful/annoying/charming flowers that popped up all over the place in the Super Mario Wonder game. It’s a little trumpet-headed potted flower that talks at you, not with you.

The flower doesn’t have a screen or a microphone. It just talks. Sometimes it just says things twice an hour, but it can also be sort of helpful: It can remind you of bedtimes, tell the time, indicate room temperature, or act like an alarm clock.

There’s only one button on Talking Flower, which either triggers more random comments or can silence the thing for a while by pressing and holding for two seconds. (Good news, parents.) But there’s also a «music mode» that summons the Mario Wonder music track from the game, and then pressing the button makes the flower say more things to the music.

It’s weird that the flower has a thermometer inside, but hey, that’s Nintendo — it doesn’t look like specific temperatures are noted, but it might say «it’s colder today!» Also weird is trying to understand how this flower relates to Alarmo, a purely bed-focused Nintendo home product. You could put the flower anywhere, for any purpose. It’s a collectible. And, most likely, get freaked out by it randomly talking out of nowhere.

And again, now that Nintendo’s an entertainment company as focused on theme parks and films as game consoles and games, something like a talking flower makes sense. Seasonal souvenirs are Nintendo’s bread and butter, but we don’t know the price for this one yet. It’ll be available to order on Nintendo’s site today, arriving March 12.

Technologies

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Technologies

Apple’s New Smart Home Display Delayed Until Fall Over Siri Issues

It has been nearly a year and a half since the company announced the AI-powered product.

Your home could get smarter with Apple’s Siri, but it will have to wait a few more months. Bloomberg reported the iPad-shaped AI home hub won’t be ready until September, several months after the company was hoping to launch it this spring. Apple engineers first need to complete work on a new and improved Siri assistant for the home device, code-named J490, according to Bloomberg.

Apple was hoping to release J490 this month, along with a slew of other new devices, including the iPhone 17e, MacBook Neo, MacBook Air M5, new Pro models, and iPad Air M4. Apple first teased the smart home display in November 2024.

A representative for Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Siri is Apple’s virtual assistant that uses voice recognition and AI to fulfill a variety of tasks and commands, along with intriguing uses. You might use Siri to find your iPhone — «Hey Siri, where are you?» — or to hear the weather forecast — «Siri, what will the weather be today?» Siri is available on iPhones, MacBooks and iPads. It was launched in 2011 as a feature of the iPhone 4S.

As CNET reported last month, Apple engineers have struggled to push the upgraded Siri assistant out the door. It isn’t fast enough, gets confused by complex commands and doesn’t interact well with other Apple AI models. The company is also wrestling with how much personal data to access to inform the AI, and the new Siri is not yet able to complete in-app tasks, such as finding a photo and posting it to socials, all with one command.

It has been nearly two years since Apple announced that it would give Siri a major upgrade. In the meantime, competitors like Alexa Plus and Gemini for Home have entered the marketplace.

Tech tester Jon Rettinger, whose YouTube channel has 1.66 million subscribers, says the repeated delays in upgrading Siri can «erode» confidence in Apple’s ability to keep up in the AI race.

«Apple as a whole is still one of the strongest companies on the planet. But their AI play is clearly the weakest link in an otherwise very strong chain,» Rettinger told CNET.

Rettinger said he has had issues getting Siri to complete basic commands, such as setting two alarms at the same time, and that it’s a bit of «a mess» right now.

«Having said that, the iPhone has such massive market penetration that I’m not sure it will actually matter in the end. Which is kind of wild when you think about it,» Rettinger said.

Facial recognition for residents

The hardware for the forthcoming smart home display has already been finished. It resembles an iPad and can be either attached to a wall or rest on a half-domed-shaped base, the Bloomberg report said.

The device will be equipped with facial recognition, so when residents walk up to it, they will be shown personalized data such as music preferences, news headlines, appointments, reminders, tasks and so on.

The screen interface will include a bunch of circular app icons, similar to the display on an Apple Watch. The Bloomberg report said the smart home display will be the first of several home devices by Apple. Future products include a tabletop robotic limb with a 9-inch screen, a smart security camera and a Face ID-enabled smart doorbell.