Feng Xin: Exit the long video battlefield and only focus on Baofeng TV in the next three years

On March 29, 2018, the video website iQiyi went public on the Nasdaq in the United States; on April 11, 2018, Feng Xin, CEO of Baofeng Group, said at the first press conference after the beginning of spring that Baofeng would stay away from the long video battlefield in the future. In the next three years, he would only talk about one thing - Baofeng TV.

On April 11, Baofeng TV launched its artificial intelligence TV - Baofeng AI TV 7 in Beijing, and positioned the theme as "Goodbye Remote Control".

Feng Xin said that on the night of iQiyi's listing, founder Gong Yu sent out red envelopes in the WeChat group. At that time, Feng Xin thought to himself - this idea has been around for more than three years, and it's time to make it public.

From the end of 2013 to the beginning of 2014, Feng Xin went through the stages of "not wanting to admit - unwilling to admit - afraid to admit", but he knew that Baofeng might have to stay away from the long video battlefield. This determination lasted for more than three years, but the team never expressed it in public.

The story of Baofeng Video is a bit long.

In 2003, Zhou Shengjun and his students co-founded Baofeng Video; in 2005, Feng Xin, who resigned from Yahoo, founded Kure Video; in 2007, Leifeng.com Zuolinyouli reported that, entrusted by Feng Xin, Cai Wensheng went directly to Northeast China to find Zhou Xuejun with a snakeskin bag of cash, and got it done on the spot. He bought Baofeng in full and transferred it to Feng Xin. The two parties merged and absorbed the intellectual property and technical personnel of the old player Super Decoder, released Baofeng Video 2.0, and gradually became the first-tier brand of domestic local video playback software.

During the mid-game battle, Baofeng Video witnessed the listing and delisting of Youku Tudou and its acquisition, and the madness and collapse of LeTV. To this day, Feng Xin says that he felt very sorry when Youku was acquired, and he also wished iQiyi the best when it went public at $11 billion. But for Baofeng, the video business, a threshold field that costs tens of billions of dollars every year, is something it can only stay away from.

Baofeng, which has gradually faded out of the long video industry, has targeted VR and living rooms. Now, Feng Xin has once again chosen AI TV.

Feng Xin made several predictions on the development trend of home Internet in the next three to five years:

• First, by 2020, at least 100 million households in China will have access to home Internet;

• Second, by 2020, 100 million households will have access to the home Internet of Things, not just televisions, but an average of three to five home appliances will be connected to the Internet;

• Third, related hardware will enter a trillion-dollar market, which is already several hundred billion. Internet value-added services are a hundred billion-dollar market;

• Finally, what seems to be the least valuable but I think is the most valuable is that 100 million households will become new data assets. Targeted at households, they will become new Internet data assets.

"At the last TV product launch, we were just trying to fight back against Xiaomi. At this launch, we have no competitors and we are unique."

Just a few days ago, Baofeng released a new product at the "Rose Storm 2: The Return of the King" press conference - the 40-inch Baofeng AI TV 4 priced at 999 yuan. As to why two press conferences were held in such a short interval, Baofeng TV CEO Liu Yaoping responded to Leifeng.com as described above.

In Liu Yaoping's opinion, at this press conference, Baofeng 7 is unique and has opened up a new field on its own. Why?

Facing everyone's questions, Liu Yaoping sighed and said, "Look! Even if this press conference failed, the core point was not spread. External brain! Our Baofeng's first external brain!"

Liu Yaoping said that the term "external brain" was first coined by Baofeng TV, and it is the first basic ability to replace the remote control - an artificial intelligence external brain that can understand and see user needs, realize intelligent thinking, and recognize sound and image in 1 second.

According to Leiphone.com, Baofeng TV's new generation of AI external brain is equipped with a 4-way array microphone, a high-definition camera, 6 artificial intelligence chips, and NLP natural speech technology. The speech recognition rate is increased to 98.5%, and 5-meter long-distance recognition is achieved, making the TV a home artificial intelligence assistant that can hear, see, and think.

Simply put, it is a smart speaker that has image recognition function in addition to the current voice recognition function. In addition to being able to understand what is heard, it can also understand what is seen.

Lu Shengbo, vice president of Baofeng TV's marketing center, further explained to Leifeng.com that if artificial intelligence is a robot, the external brain is the ears and remote speaking voice, which can hear and understand; at the same time, the cameras it is equipped with give it eyes + machine vision capabilities, so it can see and think.

Secondly, the second unique capability of Baofeng AI TV is AIOS 3.0. The traditional UI is a combination of pictures and text + physical buttons, while AIOS is a combination of pictures and speech. Through voice recognition and semantic search, passive search becomes active, and personalized recommendations are achieved for thousands of people through the AI ​​recommendation engine (information flow).

The third is Baofeng TV’s self-developed mobile AI assistant, Baofeng Big Ear, which helps families achieve multi-scenario interaction and realize the collaboration between large and small screens.

In fact, in addition to the "external brain" configuration, Baofeng AI TV has upgraded its functions in seven aspects:

Upgrade 1: Three-word awakening

Compared with the four-word wake-up function on the market, Liu Yaoping said that the wake-up response time of Baofeng AI Assistant "Big Ears" is 200 milliseconds, the automatic voice recognition time is less than 0.5 seconds, the Chinese voice accuracy rate is 98%, and the boot speed is 200 times that of the remote control.

Upgrade 2: One shot

Baofeng AI TV 7 can be controlled in one sentence. In addition, "Big Ears + Tasks" can be spoken in one sentence without waiting for wake-up before talking.

Upgrade 3: What appears on the screen can be said

All the text and numbers displayed on the screen can be spoken to improve operating efficiency.

Upgrade 4: Conversation Assistant

When using voice control, the TV's built-in "conversation assistant" will prompt you how to say it and how to use it.

Upgrade 5: Continuous Dialogue

Wake up Big Ears once, and you don’t need to wake them up again. The conversation continues until the result is obtained and the task is completed. Wake up multiple rounds of conversations at one time, eliminating the trouble of multiple wake-ups.

Upgrade 6: Directly speaking of commonly used functions

For high-frequency functions used by users, users can directly say them without waking up. For the five high-frequency words "previous page", "next page", "turn page", "confirm" and "return", users can directly say the corresponding functions.

Upgrade 7: AI information flow (recommendation) for different people

By identifying users of different genders and ages, Baofeng AI TV 7 can provide personalized recommendations for each person, saying goodbye to the same old homepage recommendations, and it knows you better than you know yourself.

In fact, as early as last year's CCF-GAIR conference of Leiphone.com (public account: Leiphone.com), Liu Yaoping said in an exclusive interview with Leiphone.com that the era of devices will soon end and the era of assistants is coming.

In the era of traditional TV, TV, as a user terminal, is only a device that provides display technology and content presentation. In the ensuing era of Internet TV, TV, as a terminal for Internet content aggregation and distribution, still remains a device that simply provides information and entertainment services. This not only makes the service scenarios of TV deliberate and passive, but also creates relatively shallow value for users, making TV in a wild period under the mobile Internet boom.

After more than half a year, Baofeng TV has gradually matured in the implementation of AI voice assistants. What are the main areas of focus during this period?

Liu Yaoping said that there are three main aspects: being able to hear, understanding, and distributing content. "Being able to hear" has long been capable of this through the joint laboratory of Baofeng and iFLYTEK, but the other two parts are much more difficult.

Baofeng TV CTO Pei Lailong added to Leifeng.com that natural language processing is a very difficult thing, that is, the algorithms and data in AI. Baofeng TV is currently collecting data continuously. The current strategy is to launch the product first, and then make the engine smarter through user use; through optimization, the recognition accuracy rate will continue to improve.

Last year, Liu Yaoping also distinguished traditional home appliance manufacturers and Internet TV into two camps. This year, as traditional TVs gradually join the voice interaction platform, the competition boundary between the two has gradually blurred. In this regard, Liu Yaoping told Leifeng.com that the two sides are like Apple and Android phones, each making different business models and scenarios. Traditional companies have not been able to make up their minds to do AI and the Internet. When they have no other choice, they can only choose cooperation.

Liu Yaoping, who came from the traditional home appliance company Skyworth, expressed regret when talking about this. In his opinion, traditional home appliances are connected to other people's voice interaction technology and platforms, which means they are handing over the core control. Baofeng TV, on the other hand, has chosen to do all the AI ​​technology, services, and marketing itself.

"If you don't have the technology, user platform, or data, then the competition between the two parties is not on the same dimension. For example, if Baidu and Skyworth cooperate, the success belongs to Baidu, not Skyworth."

As for the competition with Xiaomi, Liu Yaoping said: "Xiaomi relies on speakers and sound, while we rely on external brains."

- END -

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