Russia’s answer to Google & Amazon, search engine Yandex has announced a host of services & products.
The company today took the wraps off Yandex.Plus, a service modelled on Amazon Prime that gives users a number of perks for a monthly fee — 169 roubles/month, or about $2.75. The company is also making its first foray into hardware with a new, $160 smart speaker, Yandex.Station, & a new skills platform, called Yandex.Dialogues, for the Russian-speaking intelligent assistant it unveiled last year, called Alice.
The Station speaker & Plus will be available only in Russia. All of this was unveiled in Moscow at the company’s annual what’s-new event, which it calls Yet Another Conference.
Here’s what Yandex had to say:
Last fall we enhanced that experience by introducing our Russian-speaking intelligent assistant Alice – first to mobile through our Search and Browser apps, then to desktops through Yandex Browser, and then to cars through our navigation app, Yandex.Navigator and the forthcoming integration in our Yandex.Auto connected car platform.
Building on our success helping users with tens of millions of daily interactions on Alice on multiple platforms, we are excited to welcome Alice to Russian homes in addition to building out more capabilities and benefits for users of our smart speaker and services.
A new platform & our first hardware launch
Our new smart speaker, Yandex.Station, is not only our first hardware product but it is the first smart speaker for the Russian market. With the introduction of Yandex.Station, Russian users now have the ability to rely on Alice and voice commands to manage a number of routine tasks in their homes.
Yandex.Station is the first smart speaker to incorporate a full video streaming experience. A HDMI output allows Yandex.Station users to ask Alice to search for and playback videos, movies and television shows from a wide variety of sources. Currently, Yandex.Station has access to Yandex’s video streaming service KinoPoisk, as well as a wide range of other content including premium local video service providers ivi and Amediateka.
Image Credit: Yandex blog
