Russian IT giant launches smart speaker with integrated virtual assistant - CEO

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"I am thrilled to present the first gadget made by Yandex. It is the first multimedia platform with an incorporated assistant Alice. We call it the 'Yandex.Station'," Volozh said at an event called Yet another Conference 2018.

The new gadget looks like a speaker. According to Konstantin Kruglov, the experimental products director at Yandex, the station incorporates access to music services, television and alarm clocks, and can also provide users with the weather forecast.

​The technology and the device itself are fully designed and developed by the Yandex team, while the design was created in California, and the gadget is assembled in China.

According to the company, the device is equipped with content filtering technology to protect children from unwanted information.

Also, the gadget supports technologies of protection against unauthorized access and data encryption. However, the company's policy prohibits the transfer of user data by third parties.