Samsung's cute Ballie robot arrives this summer with Google Gemini in tow
Engadget has been testing and reviewing consumer tech since 2004. Our stories may include affiliate links; if you buy something through a link, we may earn a commission. Read more about how we evaluate products.
Samsung's Ballie will go on sale in the US and South Korea this summer, the company announced today. What's more, through a partnership with Google Cloud, the diminutive robot will ship with a Gemini AI model.
Samsung didn't state the specific system that powers Ballie, but in combination with the company's own proprietary language models, it says the robot has multimodal capabilities, meaning Ballie can process voice, audio and visual data from its sensors. According to Samsung, Ballie can also manage your smart home devices and even offer health and styling recommendations, if you're inclined to seek that type of advice from a robot.
Samsung has yet to announce pricing for Ballie, though with the uncertainty around the Trump administration's recently announced tariffs, you can't blame Samsung, can you? The company first demoed Ballie in 2020. The robot has gone through a few iterations since the then, with the version you see above first demoed at CES 2024. Samsung said then Ballie would arrive sometime in 2024, but last year came and went without the robot hitting store shelves.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
22 minutes ago
- Fox News
Democrat-controlled budget office wrongly analyzed Trump's big bill, missed record savings, White House says
The White House is challenging the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office's assessment that President Donald Trump's sweeping tax and spending package will raise the federal deficit by trillions of dollars throughout the next decade. The national debt, currently $36.2 trillion, tracks what the U.S. owes its creditors, while the national deficit measures how much the federal government's spending exceeds its revenues. So far, the federal government has spent more than $1 trillion more than it has collected this fiscal year, according to the Department of the Treasury. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued an analysis Wednesday predicting that the so-called "big, beautiful, bill" the House passed in May would increase the federal deficit by $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years. But according to the White House, the CBO's analysis is based on a faulty premise because it assumes that Republicans in Congress will fail to extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts. Rather, the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) forecasts that the tax and spending measures would independently reduce deficits by $1.4 trillion. Additionally, the White House argues that the measure, coupled with other initiatives like tariffs and other spending cuts, will lead to reducing the deficit by at least $6.6 trillion over 10 years. The "big, beautiful, bill" has faced criticism from figures including SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who labeled the measure an "abomination" and argued that the bill would increase the federal deficit. The measure now heads to the Senate, where lawmakers, including Sen. Rand Paul, R-K.Y., have voiced opposition to the legislation. Meanwhile, OMB Director Russell Vought told lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee Wednesday that he believed the CBO's analysis was "fundamentally wrong." "It will lead to reduced deficits and debt of $1.4 trillion," Vought said. "It will reduce mandatory savings of $1.7 trillion. I don't think the way they construct their baseline, not only does it not give a fair shake to economic growth, but it fundamentally misreads the economic consequences of not extending the current tax relief." Failure to pass Trump's tax package would trigger a recession, according to Vought. "We'll have a recession," Vought told lawmakers. "The economic storm clouds will be very dark. I think we'll have a 60% tax increase on the American people." Meanwhile, the White House has accused the CBO of employing those who've contributed to Democratic campaigns, even though CBO Director Phillip Swagel served in former President George W. Bush's administration. "I don't think many people know this: There hasn't been a single staffer in the entire Congressional Budget Office that has contributed to a Republican since the year 2000," Leavitt told reporters Tuesday. "But guess what, there have been many staffers within the Congressional Budget Office who have contributed to Democratic candidates and politicians every single cycle since. So unfortunately, this is an institution in our country that has become partisan and political." The CBO director is appointed according to the recommendations of the House and Senate Budget Committees. Then-Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming, first recommended Swagel in 2019, and then Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, recommended Swagel again in 2023. The CBO did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital on OMB's analysis or claims from the White House about the office being full of staffers who've backed Democrats.
Politico
27 minutes ago
- Politico
The Ideological Schism Fueling the Trump-Musk Fight
Amid the fallout of the messy public feud between Doland Trump and Elon Musk, it is instructive to think back to Dec. 26, 2024. That day marked the start of another intra-GOP skirmish that nearly fractured the elite core of the MAGA coalition. The December brawl — which, like the latest one, unfolded primarily online — pitted two high-profile factions of the Trumpian right against one another over the issue of high-skilled immigration. The nationalist-populist right, led by MAGA strategist Steve Bannon, urged the incoming administration to end the H-1B visa program as part of a broader crackdown on immigration. The so-called tech right, led by Musk, wanted Trump to defend the program on the grounds that high-skilled immigration is integral to spurring economic growth and fueling 'American dynamism.' Ultimately, the tech right carried the day, with Trump intervening in the online spat to defend the H-1B program. After the feud, the two sides struck a tentative peace, and the contretemps quieted down as Trump reentered office. But the renewal of hostilities between Trump and Musk this week shows that the underlying ideological disagreement between the two factions was never really resolved. And despite all the current bluster about the 'big, beautiful' spending bill, the Epstein files, the ballooning national debt and Musk and Trump's overlarge egos, that divide still runs straight through the same issue that carved up the factions back in December: immigration. That may seem counterintuitive, given that the latest blow-up between Trump and Musk is ostensibly over the fiscal consequences of Trump's megabill — and specifically Musk's contention, supported by independent analyses but rejected by the Trump administration, that the bill would add significantly to the federal debt. But when you strip away all the salacious controversies swirling around the 'BBB,' the fight over the legislation ultimately boils down to the question of whether cracking down on immigration should stand alone as the Trump administration's guiding priority. In the eyes of the MAGA populists, the $155 billion that the BBB appropriates for immigration enforcement and Trump's mass deportation efforts more than justify its passage, whatever its fiscal shortcomings might be. As Stephen Miller, the populist right's go-to immigration hawk, recently put it, the bill includes 'the most significant border security and deportation effort in history' — a fact which 'alone makes this the most important legislation for the conservative project in the history of the nation.' That immigration is at the center of the administration's pitch for the bill should come as no surprise. Since 2016, the issue has been the ideological keystone around which Trump has built his protean and sometimes unwieldy coalition. During the 2024 campaign, Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, proposed solving practically every issue that was thrown their way — from the housing shortage to inflation to 'wokeness' — by tying it back to their promised immigration crackdown. Once in office, the president's first acts included claiming unprecedented emergency authority to carry out his plan for mass deportations. But the centrality of immigration created tension as Musk and his fellow travelers on the tech right began to enter MAGA fold in the leadup to the 2024 election. The tech right threw its weight behind Trump's proposed agenda on immigration, but it was never the group's top priority. Much more important for MAGA's tech faction was taming the federal deficit, which Musk and others moguls — notably Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel — continue to view as an existential threat to the country's future. Their anxiety about the federal debt is rooted as much in their libertarianism as it is in their self-interest: every dollar the federal government spends servicing the federal debt is a dollar that it does not invest in the supposedly revolutionary technologies — backed by their firms — that they believe will lead to true 'American dynamism.' The misalignment between the priorities of the populist right and the tech right was clear from the start. It was apparent to Miller, who just this week raged that 'you will never live a day in your life where a libertarian cares as much about immigration and sovereignty as they do about the Congressional Budget Office.' It was also apparent to Vance — a perceptive observer of the coalitional dynamics within the MAGA movement — who dedicated an entire speech earlier this spring to arguing that immigration restriction and technological innovation could be mutually-reinforcing goals. 'This idea that tech-forward people and the populists are somehow inevitably going to come to a loggerhead is wrong,' said Vance, identifying himself as 'a proud member of both tribes.' Vance, it turns out, was wrong. To the contrary, the Trump-Musk schism is proof that MAGA loyalists can't have their cake and eat it too. They must choose — a maximalist immigration crackdown, or something else. The vengeance with which the populist right has turned on Musk since his spat with Trump is proof of what happens when a Trump ally — even the richest man on Planet Earth — chooses something else. That the fight really hinged on immigration became clear from the commentary coming out of the populist right. 'Debt is BAD. The migrant crisis is orders of magnitude worse,' posted the activist Charlie Kirk in the midst of the blowup. 'I've never seen debt hold an apartment building hostage,' added another conservative commentator, referring to reports of gang-occupied apartment buildings in Colorado. Then there was Bannon himself, who responded to the feud by suggesting — what else? — that Trump should deport Musk. The near-term consequences of the Trump-Musk schism remain to be seen. Whispers of peace talks between Trump and Musk flitted around Washington on Friday, and Trump has publicly downplayed the significance of the skirmish. At this point, no other big names on the tech right have followed Musk in breaking from Trump. And even if Musk were to actively challenge Trump's GOP — by funding primary challenges to Republican incumbents or even trying to start his own party, as he hinted at on Thursday — the consequences would likely be less dire for the future of the MAGA movement than he might think. Vance, the presumptive heir to the MAGA throne, has been building his own independent fundraising network since 2022, which could insulate him from any Musk-related financial aftershocks. Vance 2028 would certainly like to have access to Musk's campaign dollars, but it's not reliant on them. In the long run, though, the Trump-Musk feud will cement immigration as the critical litmus test for membership in Trump's GOP. The critical ideological fault line within the MAGA movement runs between people who view immigration restriction as a means to an end and those who see it as an end in themselves. The thrashing of Elon Musk is a warning to anyone who finds themselves on the wrong side of that divide.
Yahoo
36 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The Millers: Washington power couple straddles Trump-Musk feud
They're the Washington couple at the center of power in the Trump administration. They're also straddling opposing sides of an explosive breakup between President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk. CNN reported last week that Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller, Trump's deputy chief of staff, would be departing her senior role at the White House as a top spokesperson and adviser for Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. She was on her way to work for Musk as he went back to running his companies, helping the tech titan manage and arrange interviews unrelated to his time in government. But days later, amid the smoldering ruin of Musk and Trump's epic meltdown on Thursday over social media, that job suddenly took on a whole new layer. Among the attacks both men lobbed at each other was Musk endorsing the possibility of impeaching Trump and installing Vice President JD Vance in his place. Trump, in turn, raised the possibility of terminating federal contracts for Musk's companies. The episode has left the Millers on conflicting sides of the biggest breakup of Trump's second term, spawning gossip among White House aides and rounds of speculation about how the fallout could impact the political fortunes of one of the most powerful couples in Trump's Washington, where loyalty reigns. 'Everyone is talking about it,' a former Trump staffer told CNN. Katie Miller was in Texas last week for the series of interviews Musk held with space and technology journalists as SpaceX's Starship had its ninth test flight. It was there that Musk first delicately expressed he was 'disappointed' in the Republican's domestic policy bill in an interview with CBS News. Her X account is now a steady stream of laudatory posts about Musk and his companies, with a banner photo of a SpaceX rocket launching into space and a biography that says, 'wife of @stephenm.' Her only social media post on Friday was a reply with laughing emojis to an altered photo of her husband as a Home Depot employee attached to a post about immigration raids on the chain's stores. One former colleague told CNN that she will ultimately need to make a choice. 'She has a choice between Elon and Trump, but it can't be both,' the administration official said. Musk unfollowed Stephen Miller on X on Thursday, although both Millers continued following Musk on the platform into Friday. There are divided views on how the situation will impact Stephen Miller's ascendance. Among Trump's closest advisers, many believe he is surpassed in power only by Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, fueling speculation among some over whether he could take over should Wiles decide to move on. 'This whole thing will definitely make that more complicated,' one senior White House official told CNN. 'Katie being paid by Elon is not good for Stephen.' Another senior White House official strongly pushed back on the idea that this episode with Musk would impact Miller in any way with the President. 'Next to Susie, Trump trusts and relies on Stephen the most,' the official said, adding that the President and top brass were understanding that his wife working for Musk had nothing to do with Stephen or the current state of events. Katie Miller declined to comment for this story. Deeply connected and influential in Republican circles and at the highest levels of government, Stephen Miller and Katie Miller (née Waldman) met during Trump's first term in 2018. He was a senior adviser and speechwriter at the White House; she was on the Department of Homeland Security's public affairs team and on her way to becoming then-Vice President Mike Pence's communications director. He developed a reputation as the architect of some of the administration's most hardline immigration policies, becoming an influential and trusted aide in the Trump orbit. She developed her own reputation as a staunch supporter of those policies, once reflecting on a trip to the US-Mexico border as the administration came under fire for its child separation policy. 'My family and colleagues told me that when I have kids I'll think about the separations differently. But I don't think so … DHS sent me to the border to see the separations for myself — to try to make me more compassionate — but it didn't work,' Miller told NBC News journalist Jacob Soboroff in an interview for his book, 'Separated.' The pair married at Trump's Washington, DC, hotel in February 2020. Trump attended the wedding. In the four years after Trump left office, both set their sights on a Trump return to the White House. Stephen Miller launched a conservative nonprofit group, America First Legal Foundation, that served in part as a prelude to the policy of Trump's second term. Katie Miller headed to the private sector, where she consulted a number of major companies, including Apple. They were also raising three young children. Stephen Miller returned to the White House in January with a vast mandate, deeply involved in many of the president's signature policy initiatives and further empowered from the first term. Katie Miller joined the administration as well, working on behalf of DOGE and Musk, who had become a new figure in the Trump orbit after being an active campaign surrogate and 2024 megadonor. Like Musk, Katie Miller was working at the White House as a 'Special Government Employee,' which limits the number of days one can work within the administration. As their professional lives intertwined, the couple also became personally close with Musk, socializing outside of work. In the heat of the Thursday afternoon social media showdown, Stephen Miller had been scheduled to appear on Larry Kudlow's show on Fox Business Network – an appearance that was canceled. 'We lost Mr. Miller to a meeting in the Oval Office. Perfectly understandable. When I was in government, it would happen all the time. We'd have to kill a TV show. You're at the president's beck and call,' Kudlow said during his eponymous broadcast. This is not the first time Trump has divided a marital relationship. During his first term, Trump lashed out at the husband of one of his top advisers, Kellyanne Conway. Her husband, George Conway, had been intensely critical of Trump on social media. 'He's a whack job. There's no question about it. But I really don't know him,' Trump said at the time of George Conway. 'I think he's doing a tremendous disservice to a wonderful wife.' In 2023, the couple announced they were filing for divorce. George Conway, a prolific user of Musk's X platform and ardent anti-Trump figure, posted dozens of times about the Trump-Musk spat. 'Does anyone have any updates on Katie Miller?' he asked Thursday evening.
