The Rabbit r1 is now an Android agent
From rabbit orange to Android green: The Rabbit r1 has become an agent that can control Android devices.
Two Rabbit employees introduce the agent in the video.
(Image: Rabbit)
A (perhaps last) rebellion: the Rabbit r1 has had its day as an orange device. Instead, there is now Rabbit's Android agent. This corresponds to virtually the entire range of functions of the standalone device, but can be integrated on another device. The presenters enter the instructions into a classic prompt bar in a video. Initially, this is only possible for Android, so the green The Bot, as the Android character is simply called, has now been given long ears by Rabbit.
The Android agent has access to a device's apps and settings. It can control these – both a single task and a sequence of tasks. According to the blog post, this includes changing the settings for app notifications, searching YouTube for a video, “adding drink ingredients from a cocktail app to a shopping list in Google Keep” or “sending an AI-generated poem on WhatsApp”. The agent can also download and play games. Of course, all instructions work in natural language thanks to AI. But why should you let an agent play a game? And why do you need an agent to send an AI-generated poem and add drink ingredients from a cocktail app to the shopping list?
Not good and not fast enough yet
The creators say that everything is still running a little too slowly and that further improvements need to be made – in terms of “speed, accuracy, and intelligence”. Just imagine the poem doesn't rhyme or the cocktail cherry for the glass decoration is missing from the shopping list.
Videos by heise
The Android agent is just one part of a “multi-device, multi-agent system”. There will be news on this in the coming weeks. Rabbit already presented the LAM Playground last October – and the agent appears to be based on this. In a video demonstration at the time, the founders show how it is used to control a browser and solve the current New York Times Wordle. Meanwhile, the person who gave the instruction reads a book and waits for the Wordle result. Great fun if you don't play the game yourself.
After all, when it comes to style, the Rabbit employees are absolutely up-to-date: the grippy orange meets fluffy moustaches, which are said to have been en vogue since Timothée Chalamet, and a Sony Trinitron from the 90s, on which you can follow the progress of the r1. Retro.
Rabbit is thus at least more durable than Humane and the AI Pin – both were introduced around the same time and were intended to be useful as additional devices, AI agents in plastic housings. Even back then, many people wondered why a device was needed for this. Humane is now being taken over by HP, although no further work is being done on the device. The employees are to bring AI into the printer and laptop manufacturer's existing device portfolio. AI pins that have already been purchased will only work until the end of February 2025, after which access to the servers will be cut off.
(emw)
