Japan's biggest messenger is taking on Amazon's Alexa

Amazon's Alexa may be up against big competition. 

South Korean internet giant Naver, which runs Line, Japan's biggest messaging app, unveiled on Wednesday its own AI virtual assistant. 

The new assistant is called Clova, and will be entirely voice-based. It'll be available as a smartphone app as well as a hardware speaker called Wave, similar to Amazon Echo and Google Home.

Clova is scheduled to be available in Japan and South Korea between April and June this year.

Naver is also tying up with huge conglomerates Sony in Japan and LG Electronics in South Korea, to get the Clova into toys and home appliances down the road. Read more...