{"id":163185,"date":"2019-09-19T20:19:52","date_gmt":"2019-09-19T12:19:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.geek.com\/featured\/-1804534\/"},"modified":"2019-09-19T20:19:52","modified_gmt":"2019-09-19T12:19:52","slug":"this-smart-speaker-is-cheeky-alternative-to-modern-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/test\/wordpress\/2019\/09\/19\/this-smart-speaker-is-cheeky-alternative-to-modern-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"This \u2018Smart\u2019 Speaker is Cheeky Alternative to Modern Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Meet Horatio (via Hendrick’s)<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Does your smart speaker hold a martini glass?<\/span><\/p>\n

Hendrick’s, purveyor of “unusual” gin, launched its first venture into modern technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

Horatio is a semi-smart, finger-activated (“freeing your voice for other things”) amplifier aimed at the rich and jaded.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Created as a delightful counterpoint to today’s banal and predictable voice-activated speakers (yawn),” the product page said<\/a>, Horatio promises a level of unpredictability “that mass-produced modern electronics fail to deliver.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Ask Alexa what the weather is, and she’ll give it to you straight. Demand Siri tell a joke, and she’ll try to make you laugh.<\/span><\/p>\n

Horatio, meanwhile, might comment on your outfit, inform you that “the fitness center opens at the ungodly hour of 5 a.m.,” or tell you “it is a good day to carry an umbrella in one hand and a cocktail in the other.” And he’ll do it with a swoon-worthy British accent<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The statement piece was released by Hendrick’s new Department of Not-So-Convenient Technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Rather than breaking new ground, we prefer to cavort imaginately on existing ground,” Mark Stoddard, the gin-maker’s ambassador to the Western United States, told journalist Tony Bowles<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Horatio perfectly demonstrates our entirely unnecessary response to what we see as a gaping hole in the modern technology market,” Stoddard continued. “The speaker even includes a built-in cocktail holder, an innovation that we expect to rock Silicon Valley back on its knees.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Only five exist in the world\u2014each made from “lovingly salvaged” antique copper, brass, leather, and wood “collected over many years.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Indeed, no two are exactly alike,” according to Hendrick’s.<\/span><\/p>\n

Snag one of these rare handmade “works of art” for $1,113. Or wait for its inevitable arrival to eBay.<\/span><\/p>\n

This isn’t Hendrick’s first foray into the bizarre: As Bowles pointed out, the company has previously introduced dirigible airships, hot air balloons, pedal-powered cocktail apparatus, and “vast amounts of other fascinating and utterly inefficient machines.”<\/span><\/p>\n

More on Geek.com:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n