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Sony, Daiwa Turn Home Electronics Into Moe Characters

Sony Computer Science Laboratory (Sony CSL) and Daiwa House Industry are developing a Kadecot system to control home electronics and appliances through a smartphone app, and they have anthropomorphized the project as moe characters under the name Moekaden.

With this system and an Android smartphone app, users can control audiovisual equipment, air conditioners, and other devices as if they were parts of a videogame. Moekaden represents various devices such as television, recorders, air conditioner, fans, batteries, and clocks as anime-inspired moe characters, complete with voice actors and actresses from the Production baobab agency.

Developers can even create games with the system; the two companies demonstrated the "Senpūki Gal-Ga Remo-Con" (Electric Fan Dating Game Remote Control) app in which the user goes on a "date" in an amusement park with the fan character. Riding different attractions will change the fan speed (jet coaster for high, merry-go-round for low). Another demo represented misbehaving devices as "sick" units that can go to a "hospital" to receive software updates.

The two companies hired Inori Minase, a high school freshman who is also a novice voice actress, to represent "Blu-ray" the "Moekaden Angel" (pictured right) at the Kadecot press conference on Thursday.

Sony CSL is developing the smartphone app, the Kadecot development tool, and the games, while Daiwa House is developing the application programming interface (API) and home server that interact with the home electronics. Sony CSL and Daiwa will offer public demonstrations of the Kadecot system on July 8 and July 9 at Daiwa's D-Tec Plaza in Tokyo's Suidōbashi area.

The Moekaden smartphone app will be released this fall with the ability to control Bravia televisions and Blu-ray Disc recorders. There are no plans yet to make an iPhone version of the app.

Another Japanese consumer electronics company, Toshiba, offers an Android smartphone app that controls its LCD televisions and Blu-ray Disc recorders with the voices of six voice actresses.

Source: AV Watch