LINE's consolidated subsidiary Gatebox Inc. has begun to take orders for the latest model of Gatebox, the world's first "virtual home robot" that allows owners to live together and interact with a virtual character. The Gatebox uses the latest in projection and sensing technologies to create the interactive virtual character. A limited-run model (the GTBX-1) of only 300 units went on sale in 2016 and sold out in just one month, despite costing approximately JPY300,000 (about SGD3,650). When an addition run of 39 units went on sale in 2017, the company received some 1,000 orders. Since then, many people have asked for another run of the innovative device, so Gatebox Inc. has responded with this new, mass-production model, the GTBX-100.

Naver and LINE Corp. unveiled their artificial intelligence (AI)-based assistant platform Clova at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2017 in Barcelona, the companies reported Thursday. According to Naver and its mobile service subsidiary, Clova, which stands for "cloud virtual assistant," aims at an AI platform that works based on the five human senses. "Clova is a platform that incorporates various AI technologies including vocal, visual and conversational engines," LINE Corp. CEO Idezawa Takeshi said in his keynote at the MWC 2017, Wednesday. The two companies are jointly developing Clova by improving Naver Labs' voice-recognizing assistant service AMICA. They said it will expand the system to have more cognitive capabilities to make it more humanlike.