Xiaodu’s new products continue, and a variety of products rank first in the industry

  On August 22, Beijing time, Baidu released its unaudited financial report for the second quarter ended June 30, 2023. In the second quarter of 2023, Baidu achieved revenue of 34.10 billion yuan, an increase of 15% year-on-year; net profit attributable to Baidu (Non-GAAP) reached 8 billion yuan, a significant increase of 44% year-on-year, exceeding market expectations.

  Among them, the smart technology brand Xiaodu, as an important business segment of Baidu’s "AI Life", continues to maintain a strong growth trend. According to data released by IDC and Canalys, Xiaodu ranked first in China’s smart screen and smart speaker shipments in Quarter 1 of 2023. In the second quarter, Xiaodu’s smart screen/smart speaker sales and sales also achieved double growth, up 31.58% and 10.19% year-on-year respectively.

  In addition, Xiaodu launched a number of new products in the first half of the year, continuously strengthening the brand’s innovation DNA.

  New species Plant grass on the whole network, and add girlfriend machines to develop "new categories"

  In March this year, Xiaodu dug deep into the pain points of users’ home scenes and launched a "walking" 27-inch all-round oversized tablet aimed at people who pursue quality life. The product integrates flat-screen, TV, fitness mirror, learning machine, and oversized speakers, which can move freely. It also has multiple functions such as Xiaodu AI voice interaction, watching movies and chasing dramas, AI fitness, Karaoke, and office online classes. Once released, it quickly "came out of the circle", triggering a large number of grass planting. On Douyin and Xiaohongshu, the content about adding a girlfriend machine once formed a trend of screen swiping, and the topic of Douyin alone was played more than 700 million times. It is understood that the Tiantian girlfriend machine has been on sale for only two months, and sales have exceeded 100 million.

  New products face "most volume" 618, Xiaodu smart screen X9 topsHot SaleGolden List

  This year’s 618 was recognized as the "most volume in history" 618. Major e-commerce platforms and brands invested the most and strived to hand over high scores. Xiaodu smart screen X9 was officially launched on June 1. It participated in the battle on the eve of the battle. Just three weeks after its listing, it topped the gold list of TikTok portable speakers as a dark horse.

  In addition to fully inheriting the core functions of Xiaodu smart screen, Xiaodu smart screen X9 adopts a horizontal rotating camera gimbal in the hardware configuration, which can realize 360 ° panoramic horizontal field of view and 120 ° ultra-wide-angle field of view, and supports infrared night vision function. In terms of software, Xiaodu smart screen X9 fully upgrades the core functions of "go home and see", "care assistant", "video call" and other core functions that users value most. The software and hardware integrate to achieve 24-hour all-round and convenient home care.

  United Gaosi Intensive Farming FamilyStudy CounselingXiaodu continues to promote educational inclusion

  In July this year, Xiaodu officially announced a deep cooperation with Gaosi Education, a well-known educational institution, and jointly launched a new educational hardware product, the Z20 Plus Gaosi Deluxe Edition of Xiaodu Optical Eye Protection Learning. The product integrates Gaosi’s strong teaching staff, refined layered teaching system, and high-quality courses covering all aspects from preschool enlightenment to senior high school entrance examination sprints. It complements Xiaodu’s innovative AI teaching methods, eye protection, habit formation, and parental control based on the Baidu ERNIE Bot model. It can provide children with more comprehensive learning coaching solutions, so that primary school students across the country can learn Gaosi lessons. According to official data, the product has been online for only one month, and the sales of the Douyin platform have exceeded 100 million.

  In addition, Xiaodu also invited Gao Siai Learning Vice President, Peking University Psychology Professor, and experts in early childhood education to jointly develop the "1234 Effective Counseling Method" for parents. By "identifying the first responsible person", "determining 2 learning directions", "cultivating 3 major abilities", and "adopting a 4-step plan", combined with Xiaodu Learning’s tablet Gaosi version of teaching content and functions, it provides practical help for family learning counseling, and at the same time cooperates with parents to cultivate children’s good learning habits.

  Whether it is in the field of home infotainment or youth education, Xiaodu always insists on providing consumers with more convenient and warmer services through its own AI technology capabilities and innovative product concepts. With the arrival of the big model era, Xiaodu will continue to accelerate the brand vision of "creating a ubiquitous artificial intelligence assistant", using technology to make life more convenient and better.

The full name of the "Xihe" solar satellite is revealed: What does Hα and "Double Super" mean?

Last night, our country successfully launched the first solar exploration science and technology test satellite "Xihe" at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, marking our country’s entry into the era of "sun exploration". The full name of "Xihe" is the solar H α spectral detection and double super platform science and technology test satellite. What is H α? What does "double super" mean? What mysteries can this satellite detect about the sun? Jiefang Daily Shangguan News reporter interviewed Shi Wei, director of the Shanghai Planetarium Network Science Department.

The radiation that jumps from the third floor to the second floor is Hα

Hα, pronounced the "hydrogen alpha coefficient," refers to a spectral line of a hydrogen atom with a wavelength of 656.281 nanometers, which lies in the red range of visible light. What is a hydrogen atomic spectral line? According to the Bohr model of the atom, electrons do not move around the nucleus in a specific orbit within the atom, Shi Wei explained, but in an "orbit" with a quantized distribution of energy.

The so-called quantum is the inseparable smallest unit of a physical quantity. A physical quantity is quantized if it cannot be changed continuously and can only take some discrete values. It is like taking a staircase, we can only climb one step, not half. Scientists have found that many physical quantities in the microscopic world are quantized. For example, the energy of electrons in hydrogen atoms can only take one basic value – 13.6 electron volts or its 1/4, 1/9, 1/16, 1/25, etc., but not 2 times or 1/2, 1/3.

There are countless energy levels outside the nucleus of a hydrogen atom, and each energy level can be regarded as an orbital, and the energy levels are discontinuous and uneven. Although a hydrogen atom has only one electron, it can appear at any energy level and can transition between energy levels. Electrons jump from energy level "n = 3" to "n = 2", releasing light of a specific energy, which is the Hα emission line.

Electrons jump from energy level n = 3 to n = 2, releasing light of a specific energy, which is the H alpha emission line. (Source: Wikipedia)

"You can think of the orbit of an electron outside the nucleus of a hydrogen atom as the various floors of a building. The ground is the nucleus, and each floor is an energy level. From the bottom to the top, it is marked with n = 1, n = 2, n = 3, and so on." Physicists refer to the spectral lines emitted by electrons that jump from the third floor and above to the second floor as the "Balmer system" (named after the physicist John Balmer), Shi Wei said. The radiation that jumps from the third floor to the second floor is called Hα, from the fourth floor to the second floor is called Hβ, from the fifth floor to the second floor is called Hγ, and so on.

Red light H α is the brightest hydrogen spectral line in the visible spectrum. By observing this band of light, astronomers can understand the atmospheric characteristics of the solar spherical and chromospheric layers, as well as atmospheric activities such as solar prominences, and analyze the changes in atmospheric temperature, speed and other physical quantities during solar outbursts, so as to deeply study the dynamic process and physical mechanism of solar outbursts.

Full-time faces in the Hα band (Photo by Alan Friedman)

Double super platform technology has broad application prospects

The "Xihe" satellite adopts a "dual super" satellite platform design with ultra-high pointing accuracy and ultra-high stability, which greatly improves the pointing accuracy and attitude stability of the load.

In this regard, Shi Wei explained that a satellite generally consists of a platform and a load. The satellite platform is responsible for the system service and guarantee of the entire satellite, including control, propulsion, thermal control and other systems. The load is the detector that performs scientific tasks, such as CCD cameras, particle detectors, magnetometers, etc. Traditional satellite designs directly connect the load to the platform, and the directivity and stability of the load are completely realized by the platform. However, the platform is "dynamic" and the load is "static" – when the satellite is in orbit, the micro-vibration of the platform cannot be avoided, and the load needs to be accurately pointed at the target at all times, so the pointing accuracy and stability of the load are always restricted by the vibration of the platform.

In order to solve this contradiction, the satellite development team made an innovation in design, dividing the satellite platform into two cabins – the platform cabin and the payload cabin. The platform cabin contains the structure subsystem, the integrated electronic subsystem, the measurement and control subsystem, the data transmission subsystem, the power subsystem, the attitude and orbit control subsystem, the electric flotation control subsystem and the cabin connection unlocking subsystem. The payload cabin contains the structure of the payload cabin, the integrated electronics of the payload cabin and the load. The effect of "dynamic and static isolation and leader/follower coordination" is achieved by using electric flotation control between the two cabins.

Dual Supersatellite Load Design (Source: School of Astronomy and Space Sciences, Nanjing University)

Using this "airframe anti-shake" technology, the directivity and stability of the payload are improved by 1-2 orders of magnitude compared with traditional satellites, which will make the "Xihe" more accurate and stable when "taking pictures" in space, and obtain higher-quality images.

In the future, the dual super platform technology will be widely used in space missions such as high-resolution ground detailed investigation, large-scale three-dimensional mapping, and exoplanet discovery, which is expected to promote the leap-forward development of space science and technology implementation in our country.