Line's cute AI speakers are unimpressed by your mindless requests

We knew Japanese messaging giant Line was working on an AI assistant called Clova, and that it would first inhabit a clever-looking smart speaker called the Wave. What we only just discovered, however, is that Clova's next physical avatars would include an unamused duck and a bear that always looks just a little disappointed. In case you mostly chat on other platforms, these characters are based on a slew of stickers Line users can hurl at each other inside the app. Line hasn't confirmed whether these Clova-powered speakers -- collectively known as the Champ series -- would embody their characters in different ways. Still, the laundry list of features Clova brings to the table is considerable, especially since Amazon's Alexa doesn't work in Japan yet.