Sharp Unveils Self Speaking Smartphone

Japan’s Sharp Corporation has developed a smartphone that speaks spontaneously to its owner as the smartphone talks and offers information without being asked.

Normally, taking a picture or surfing the Internet requires an action by the user, whether by touch or voice.

But with its Emopa function, the Osaka-based firm believes this passive-user style offers an entirely new relationship between human and handset. Emopa comes installed on Sharp’s latest smartphone models using the Android operating system.

Emopa lets a smartphone talk spontaneously to the user when its convenient for the user. The Emopa smartphone thinks for itself and provides information that the user might want.

It has three personas, Sakuo, a male human, Emoko, a female human, and Tsubuta, a pig character. While Sakuo and Emoko speak as if they were the user’s assistant, Tsubata is comical and basically says whatever it wants.

The user is free to pick which character they like and can change it anytime. According to Sharp, Emopa “learns” how and when to talk and what to say. It determines the user’s home and workplace based on GPS and information obtained through built-in sensors, such as an accelerometer. It can even learn user habits like when they sleep and wake up.

Emopa is available only in Japanese for now and there are no current plans to add other languages. Smartphones already offer voice assistant services, such as Apple’s Siri and NTT Docomo’s voice concierge, but they speak only when they are asked to.