The Humane AI Pin attaches to the lapel and is designed to replace your smartphone, allowing the user to make calls, send texts and look up information
Notice that in the video in their webpage they clearly state that you can "engage" with it by voice, touch, or gesture. But somehow it doesn't have constantly on sensors? It's also a subscription service on top of the $700 or else it is just an ugly useless clothes pin. And it can't be tampered with or it disables itself and has to be reactivated by them. So, no right to repair. This is vaporware.
The projection stuff looks sooo gimicky and terrible to interact with. There’s also no way people will be talking out loud to interact with their messages and emails. This is essentially a bluetooth headset repackaged. This is not going to do well at all
Yes, I haaate voice activated stuff. Sometimes, dictating a text is nice. In the right surroundings where no one has to hear me over-pronouce every syllable. In a car is the best spot for this.
But the vast majority of the time, I'd rather wait until I can type or whatever.
So the thing laser-projects onto your hand as a screen. Does this mean we can now expect cellphone assholes to blind us with lasers by dropping their hands while it's still projecting?
And a bodycam that is on 24/7 that, unlike cops, you can't turn off at convenient times, and is constantly reporting to a centralized corporation. I'm sure it's not going to be another step on the privacy hellscape that is technology right now.
No way is something that size transmitting video all the time, or even processing it on board to upload summaries. The battery would last about an hour
It's a long shot, but there might be a niche for this thing among the people who are tired of being over connected. There's a mild resurgence of dumb phones for the same reason. They absolutely have to nail usability though. If the user has frustrating interactions with it and think to themselves "This would have been easier on my phone" then they've basically failed, especially with that hefty monthly fee.
You can't doomscroll and consume endless content. There are no apps. You can only communicate with known contacts. There is no screen to separate you from the real world. It's a dump phone plus a digital assistant in a novel form factor.
It’s not out of price for first adopters. What are you talking about? This is not replacing your phone.
I don’t know what people are smoking here but this is about the price that I was expecting for this device. I was actually expecting around the range of Google Glass, so this is actually cheaper. You guys think that leap forwards in tech should come at the price of a Big Mac and be accessible to everyone.
We should rather discuss the UX, usability and tech itself rather than focusing on an inconsequential price point. If it takes off and there is a mainstream version then we can talk market pricing.
I really don't know what to think of this thing. It's a bit like a combadge from Star Trek with a camera and small monochrome projector. I like the idea behind it, handling most of the utilitarian features smartphones bring without the games and social media distractions. The AI stuff is neat, but I don't know how well baked any of it is and that's really going to be what makes or breaks something like this.
Price is a bit high, and I don't know how I feel about the subscription--I guess it's not bad if you think of this as a full cellphone replacement, but that's a tall order with something this new and dorky. There's probably a 90%+ chance this becomes short-lived vaporware/abandonware, but who knows. I'd love to see something succeed that gets people's faces out of their cellphones and back to interacting in person more.
For all the reasons that this might not take off, what a thrill that people are trying something new--and it looks really nicely designed too.
I think this is easy to dismiss at first glance, but I genuinely believe they're trying to think about a new mode of interaction. The idea that "the computer will disappear" is probably accurate in the long term. Except for content delivery (reading, photos, movies), most tasks we achieve via computers and phones do not strictly require a screen. It's probably a good thing if computers did a better job of getting out of the way, and stop so loudly disrupting human interactions.
Whether this will be the solution is unclear; the privacy/creepiness angle is still real with an outwards-facing camera. Latency and battery life limitations might be too significant. The cost will be a non-starter for many (it is for me).
But I'm still impressed because there was a vision here. The conversational interface has never worked before for many reasons, but that does not mean it cannot work in principle, or that the ideal implementation would not be spellbinding. I'm glad they're trying. Also, the laser display is neat!
They really said, “let's build a product around the feature that everyone disables first as soon as they get a new phone”, and are trying to sell it with a straight face.