[HN Gopher] The Humane AI Pin Launches Its Campaign to Replace P...
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The Humane AI Pin Launches Its Campaign to Replace Phones
Author : aryanvdesh
Score : 44 points
Date : 2023-11-09 17:06 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| world2vec wrote:
| So the AI Pin comes with its own phone number? Couldn't it be
| paired to my current eSIM? I don't need a second phone number...
| In any case, 700USD plus 24USD monthly subscription is a bit too
| much IMO.
| peanuty1 wrote:
| I could stomach $700 but not a $24/mo subscription.
| xaellison wrote:
| For those who don't want to climb the expensive paywall:
| https://hu.ma.ne/
| outside1234 wrote:
| This. This is the best explanation.
| ZeroSync wrote:
| Launch Video:
|
| https://vimeo.com/882968794
|
| A lot of the interactions seem to take longer vs me just taking
| my phone out and quickly doing what I need to do. Its compelling
| given this is a v1 of the product so it will only get better from
| here but not completely sold on it just yet.
| drcongo wrote:
| I can't tell whether the abysmal video is what's making me hate
| it or the device itself.
| zwieback wrote:
| Kind of cool, maybe, but oh my god - the awkward video is such
| a turn off. Hire some actors!
| civilitty wrote:
| But then the cofounders wouldn't get the full ego-stroking
| Silicon Valley Enterpreneur Experience(tm) they crave!
| outside1234 wrote:
| The whole goal of doing a startup like this as ex-Apple
| people is the narcissistic "next Steve Jobs" audition they
| are implicitly doing.
|
| I'm sure Steve Jobs rolled over in his grave when they lead
| with product specs over "why buy this."
| exitb wrote:
| Not that it matters either way, but I hate the recent Apple
| style of presentation with everyone being overly happy, hand-
| wavy and eerily excited about mundane features. This at least
| felt different and somewhat more honest.
| msftie wrote:
| They ask it where the next eclipse is, and where best to watch
| it. They got the date right, but the suggested locations of
| Timor and Australia are not in the eclipse path.
| https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2024-april-8
| nmd wrote:
| That also doesn't look like enough almonds for 15 grams worth
| of protein. 10 almonds have approx 3g of protein, requiring
| 50 almonds for 15 grams of protein, I don't think there's
| that many in the video.
|
| Makes you wonder about the veracity of the AI (or the
| accuracy of the demo). Looks like a cool product either way.
| notatoad wrote:
| so it's like a phone, but there's no apps or functionality
| other than what's built into the base OS, and there's no screen
| or input controls other than voice and gesture, it only plays
| music from Tidal, and only connects to t-mobile, and looks to
| everybody around me like i'm always wearing a camera pointed at
| them?
|
| pass
| basisword wrote:
| Very Star Trek-esque. It seems a bit clunky but a good first
| version. I could imagine this being pretty powerful in 5-10 years
| when everything is integrated and the AI can do almost anything
| you ask it. Until it can 100% replace the phone (which seems to
| be their aim) it seems like an extra device that's a bit
| unnecessary.
| alex_young wrote:
| Can I read TFA on it or watch cat videos? Something tells me it's
| not replacing phones anytime soon.
| TechRemarker wrote:
| Says there is no wake word, so it's not always listening, but
| responds to your voice... aka it's always listening then no? And
| rather only processing info when it thinks it hears a wake word
| it would always be processing no? Having to hold up my hand to
| get a limited screen, all seems to be solving a problem that is
| already solved with a phone, and if one wants a smaller device
| use an Apple Watch with on device Siri and cellular. This seems
| far nitcher than even Google products that always appeared dead
| on arrival.
| basisword wrote:
| >> Says there is no wake word, so it's not always listening,
| but responds to your voice... aka it's always listening then
| no?
|
| You press it to activate it. That's when it starts listening.
| It's not always on.
| WithinReason wrote:
| If people hated the Google Glasses recording them, won't they
| hate this too with the camera always facing forward?
| gumballindie wrote:
| But it's got what people crave. It's got ai.
| peanuty1 wrote:
| It has a trust light that indicates when it's recording.
| jswny wrote:
| It's got a hardware light that tells you its active, what more
| do you want? You have your phone out all the time and it's got
| a camera facing people too
| jantissler wrote:
| That's a funny comment. I don't wear my phone on my chest all
| the time. If I'm outside it's in my pocket. If I have it in
| my hand, the camera is facing down. There's no comparison to
| this consumer grade bodycam.
| civilitty wrote:
| When I first heard about the company I knew immediately it would
| be a Star Trek badge type device.
|
| _> Google learned a similar lesson in 2018 after it launched
| Google Clips, a body-worn camera that used algorithms to
| automatically snap photos. Female users tended to end up with an
| abundance of cloud shots when they intended to record what was in
| front of them, because the device was not designed to account for
| bodies with breasts_
|
| This feels like it could have been a classic Silicon Valley scene
| but I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume
| that it was designed at Google's secret Castro office.
|
| _> Tapping the Pin and then moving a palm into its field of view
| activates its laser, which projects images and text onto a user's
| hand at a wavelength that produces a blueish-green tinge, a
| 720p-resolution system Humane calls a Laser Ink Display. Tilting
| the hand navigates between displayed options and a swatting
| gesture swipes to a different menu. Users "click" on an option by
| tapping their thumb and index finger together and close their
| hand briefly to return to a home screen._
|
| Okay, that's freaking cool. Anyone here willing to take the $700
| plunge to test this? I want to know if it's as ridiculous as it
| sounds.
| eklitzke wrote:
| They have a video demonstrating the laser display (laser part
| is about 3 minutes in): https://vimeo.com/882968794
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Oof, next level DRM/anti repair:
|
| 01:49 > The AI pin privacy chip also protects it from being
| exploited, which means if it's ever physically tampered with,
| it will require service from humane to restore operation.
| throwuxiytayq wrote:
| What an absolute feature.
| gus_massa wrote:
| Is that real or CGI? I looked at it for a long time and I
| didn't find any smoking gun (perhaps too much shacking, it
| looks like fake shacking). I've seen too many videos of
| Captain Disillusion, in particular
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbgvSi35n6o
| throwuxiytayq wrote:
| Looks badly enough for me to believe it
| outside1234 wrote:
| Am I the only one that hates interacting with things by voice?
| And also when other people do it?
| etchalon wrote:
| This is a product for CEOs. Not people.
| nickrubin wrote:
| Their demo of AI Q&A in the announcement video (@3:36) is totally
| wrong. The Pin says the April 2024 total eclipse will be best
| viewed from Australia and East-Timor... Except the eclipse passes
| over the US and will be nowhere near Australia. The answer seems
| to be about a partial eclipse in April 2023. How was that not
| fact checked???
| paxys wrote:
| That's what you get when your futuristic "AI pin" works by
| making an API request to an off-the-shelf LLM (ChatGPT I
| assume) that was last trained a year ago.
| SahAssar wrote:
| Eclipses are extremely predictable, right? I don't think the
| problem is that the LLM has old data, the problem is that is
| wrong.
| nickrubin wrote:
| This is especially embarrassing because their logo is literally
| an eclipse and it's the name of one of their color options...
| Seriously??
| jeffbee wrote:
| They're not "color options" they are "colorways", you rube.
| And it doesn't come in three shades of grey, it comes in
| "Lunar", "Equinox", and "Eclipse". Those colors are worth
| easily $100 of the MSRP right there.
| mkumar10 wrote:
| | How was that not fact checked???
|
| Cause they aren't Apple, just the cheap knock-offs
| jswny wrote:
| Apple doesn't make anything close to this hardware?
| madeofpalk wrote:
| eh, this is essentially a phone or a watch without a
| screen, and a bunch of "inventions" to accomodate the fact
| that it doesn't have a screen.
| ilaksh wrote:
| They did an excellent job. The small delays are close to
| impossible to avoid at this point. Although I may have seen one
| or two demos that managed to avoid them for conversation only.
| But those systems could not take any actions.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| It would be difficult for them to be more poorly positioned in
| the market. They don't own their network, are leaning on powerful
| incumbent players for the base of their tech stack, and are
| entering a market where any one of a number of existing global
| brands are poised to crush them the second the concept shows the
| first sign of gaining traction in the market. Not sure if this is
| a naked attempt to grift early adopters, dumb money, or an
| acquisition play. Hamhanded in any case.
| xnx wrote:
| Good exploration of the clip/pin/brooch form-factor that was
| previously explored by the Narrative Clip
| (http://getnarrative.com/). Can it be worn on a necklace? That
| seems more convenient than attaching it to different pieces of
| clothes and having it tear/wrench at the fabric.
| cepp wrote:
| I'm a Humane employee who has worked on nearly all the Ai
| features in the product. We're very happy to get this out into
| the world and start getting feedback!
| tsunamifury wrote:
| The Comm Badge was never meant to be a full interaction device,
| just a point to point communicator. Since it has limited UX
| capability, a single use case made sense.
|
| Why are you trying to do something totally different with what
| appears to be an obviously constrained interaction paradigm?
| smoldesu wrote:
| Two questions, with no obligation to answer them:
|
| - What's the argument for using this instead of a full-fat
| computer with ambient capabilities? (think iPhone/Siri or
| Android/Assistant)
|
| - How does Humane expect the $699 price point to develop in the
| future? Is the intention to bring prices down, or capabilities
| up?
| peanuty1 wrote:
| The price point is $700 plus a $24 monthly subscription.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| I get that this has and needs a constant cellular
| connection, which ain't free, but $700 + $300~/year is
| going to make this niche.
|
| For comparison, my main smartphone is cheaper by both
| measures. You can go buy an iPhone 13 ($600) and hook it up
| to T-Mobile's Connect plans for $180/year ($15/month, 3.5
| GB/month unlimited talk/text).
|
| This frames itself as a smartphone replacement, but
| realistically it is a rich person's toy.
| uxhacker wrote:
| So when will it launch in Poland and or Europe?
|
| One question is does it work over Wifi when there is no
| wireless coverage?
|
| Also what would roaming costs do when you travel?
| swagempire wrote:
| This product screams for market validation. But I wish them great
| luck, because I love these kinds of product experiments.
| tomohelix wrote:
| From a consumer standpoint, I do not see the main advantages of
| this device over a better designed smartwatch or a smart
| wristband. The main interface, i.e. the projection onto the hand
| is a very novel and innovative concept but also blurry and
| cumbersome. A watch would also technically be able to perform all
| the function shown here. And personally, with how much we are all
| in need of a smartphone, might as well make something like a
| smart bracer. That would give all the space needed for the
| battery and screen and computation and roll everything into one,
| phone, watch, AI, etc.
|
| Do we have holograms tech yet?
| sawert wrote:
| They likely went with this form factor because it allows for
| the camera to look forward and use that context in its
| responses. A watch wouldn't easily be able to do this.
| kevinsundar wrote:
| You could make a smartwatch with a camera facing up from the
| screen. The user could bring their palm to their chest (so
| watchface faces out) to activate it. Then the camera can see
| forward and the microphone is close to the user.
|
| And then you could do video calls on the same device too.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| That sounds awkward?
|
| Anyway, it's cold season now in Europe, and it's
| interesting how much less useful my Apple watch is when
| it's almost always covered with a sleeve.
|
| Something that goes on top of your clothes makes sense.
| jantissler wrote:
| But how practical is it really? Let's say it's winter,
| you have your AI Pin on your winter jacket. Then you get
| inside and take off your jacket naturally. Then you take
| off your AI Pin and somehow put both parts of it into and
| onto your sweater? This sounds very cumbersome. A
| smartwatch just stays on your wrist. You can even take a
| shower or go swimming with it if you want to. And a
| smartphone has a screen you can use in many situations -
| sitting, standing, lying, with the phone on your hand,
| lying on a table, attached to a stand. All of this is not
| possible with the AI Pin. It is meant to be attached to
| your clothing or you can't use its projector. How do you
| read your emails? How do you read a book? How do you
| frame a shot? How do you scroll through TikTok? These are
| all things people do with devices that cost way less than
| $700 today. And many, many people love to do these
| things.
| abeyer wrote:
| This has the added benefit of having some recognizable sign
| that someone is using the camera... which despite
| proclamations that "the public" is ready to accept being on
| camera all the time, I'm not convinced is true when it's
| someone wearing an overt device pointed at you and possibly
| recording, but you're not quite sure, all the time.
|
| I for one have no particular desire to be part of your
| "context" (nor the company's training data set) without
| knowing it.
| tomohelix wrote:
| If so, they made a big bet. Vision LLMs were literally made
| this year. Before that, parsing images to get a coherent
| response is pretty resource intensive and not really reliable
| at all. Designing the entire device around image capturing
| for context seems like a very risky approach so I doubt that
| was their main reason.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I think this product is DOA.
|
| But, like the Apple Vision Pro (which I don't think is _as_ DOA
| as this), I 'm most curious to know where this goes in 5-10
| years.
| singularity2001 wrote:
| I wish them good luck and I wish good luck to the guy who
| develops the tap which is a similar concept without camera laser
| just microphone and GPT connection
| simbolit wrote:
| They say they don't listen for watchwords and only record video
| on demand. Good.
|
| But that means their hypothetical calorie-count example only
| works if you actively remember "I am eating, I should tell the
| pin to record my eating". Same with many other things; the wrist-
| worn smart devices are useful exactly because they are always
| recording, they are somewhat ambient.
|
| I understand why they do it, I even applaud them for thinking
| about privacy, it might even be necessary (cough..Google
| glass...cough), but I feel they have to walk a tightrope between
| a rock and a hard place to bring privacy-consciousness and useful
| features together.
| reliablereason wrote:
| Yeah I was thinking on similar lines when it comes to food
| tracking. I did a study last year on how food consumption
| correlates with certain psychological features, but the lack of
| good data made the study very hard to do.
|
| Self reported data is always annoyingly unreliable.
|
| This product would probably be better than self reporting, but
| not good enough.
|
| The privacy issue is annoying thing. If it was a on-device ai
| model things might be easier to accept. But I such a device is
| further in to the future.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| a smart watch with cellular and bluetooth earbuds aren't cool
| enough for the tech bros in sf
| solarpunk wrote:
| so, you think they'd get acquired by axon?
| paxys wrote:
| It's funny that the company was founded 6+ years ago and this
| product has been in development at least since that time, but all
| of a sudden it's all about AI? We really going to pretend all
| these features weren't shoveled in in the last 3 months by buying
| a ChatGPT API token?
|
| Recognizing the food you are holding and coming up with a calorie
| count was the only part of the demo I found genuinely cool, but I
| also know that AI tech isn't far enough along to get anywhere
| close to accurate results right now in the real world.
|
| Something like AI Pin might be ubiquitous like the smartphone at
| some point in the future, but right now isn't the time for it,
| and Humane may or may not be the company to eventually crack the
| code.
| lachyg wrote:
| (i'm an investor in the company, and invested over 3 years
| ago.)
|
| this product has always been about AI--what they launched is
| almost exactly what they pitched me. their expectation of where
| the world going ended up being prescient.
| progne wrote:
| Why this was done as a separate piece of hardware rather than
| a phone app? Was it the projector that attracted you to the
| project?
| notfed wrote:
| > Recognizing the food you are holding and coming up with a
| calorie count was the only part of the demo I found genuinely
| cool
|
| That's a software problem, though. A company who solves that
| and does it well will be a killer app and doesn't need gimmicky
| hardware.
| gs17 wrote:
| >Recognizing the food you are holding and coming up with a
| calorie count was the only part of the demo I found genuinely
| cool
|
| And that's also pretty much just OpenAI's API.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| Missed a huge opportunity to market:
|
| Wave over wake
|
| Then do some type of magic proximity sensor to begin capture,
| then detect if hand is facing in or out, to then wake. The tap
| and hold is too much, and the marketing interplay of magic wand
| wave as the open command could have made powerful ads.
|
| That said, this is still the best glimpse of the future.
| Incredible job by the team
| tomohelix wrote:
| Agree. If they want this to be practical, they have to make it
| instantly project the image when I raise my hand with palm open
| towards the device. A gadget that actively make the user feel
| inconvenient when they want to use it would not be used at all.
|
| I assume the problem is space. They are basically out of space
| for more features. I still pitch my idea for a smart bracer
| though. Like the thing in mass effect or the pipboy.
| jaChEWAg wrote:
| Having the word "Ai" in the name of a product makes it feel cheap
| and not premium. People don't care about Ai but more so what it
| can do for them.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| I agree. Customer experience is key, if you start with how a
| product should make you feel and work backwards into creating
| that feeling, I feel like the market strategy handles itself.
| This feels like a "we can do this, so let's do it, and figure
| out why later."
|
| This reminds me a lot of Google Glass. Cool technology, but
| they forgot the WHY.
| croes wrote:
| Signed up for their newsletter month ago, didn't receive any news
| about a beginning sale.
|
| What's the opposite of spam?
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Crickets?
| barbazoo wrote:
| > Signed up for their newsletter month ago
|
| Did it actually sign you up? The UX when I just tried didn't
| make it clear at all if it worked.
| busssard wrote:
| Yay privacy out of the window... AI wants to see and hear
| everything with access the Internet. Otherwise its hell of an
| interesting concept! Reminds me of the Robot Assistant in
| "flubber"
| lachyg wrote:
| (i'm an investor in the company.)
|
| this is probably the most privacy-forward hardware device on
| the market--you have to physically be making contact with the
| device for it to begin listening (at which point an LED is
| prominently visible) and it will stop listening as soon as you
| break contact.
| uxhacker wrote:
| Do you know when it will launch in Poland or Europe? I want
| one.
|
| I often have to deal with communicating with people in other
| languages this would save me so much time.
| ginko wrote:
| >it will stop listening as soon as you break contact
|
| ..or so they say
| geoffeg wrote:
| Honestly, I don't think the concern is this particular
| product or company, even if they can truly adhere to a
| privacy-first policy. For me the consideration is a slow
| erosion of privacy from any company or product. For instance:
| twenty years ago the idea that someone could quickly take a
| discreet high-quality video with something in their pocket
| wasn't possible. Smart phones made that possible, then we see
| things like Google Glass and now these accessory pendant
| devices will make it even easier. To be clear, I'm not
| against things like the Humane and Rewind pendants, I'm just
| curious about how they will impact society, especially
| considering how quickly we're moving without putting much
| thought into their impacts.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| Thanks for your reply.
|
| However,
|
| - he's not touching it during the phone call - it's not super
| clear in the demo when he's saying "your engagement comes
| through your voice, touch, gesture, or the lasering display"
|
| How do you engage through (a) voice or (b) gesture then?
| abeyer wrote:
| Even if that's true, if it sees any success it will both
| normalize that type of device in public, and very shortly see
| aliexpress flooded with a bunch of cheap clones from
| companies with no such beliefs.
| notahacker wrote:
| tbf, that precedent went a long time ago when most people
| got powerful computers with sophisticated voice recording
| capabilities in their pockets and even on their wrist...
| gizajob wrote:
| *everyone else's privacy
| verdverm wrote:
| Have you tried the device?
|
| Are you using it daily?
|
| Have you changed your habits?
| kkielhofner wrote:
| Is this done physically/electrically?
|
| Echo devices, for example, were sold as having a "hardware
| mute switch" from day one. Sure enough, teardown after
| teardown[0] has confirmed the hardware mute switch actually
| physically disables the mic (cuts power to the ADC, mic
| lines, etc).
|
| If this is implemented in software it's no different than a
| phone and worse than an Echo.
|
| [0] - https://electronupdate.blogspot.com/2021/01/amazon-
| echo-flex...
| daavid13 wrote:
| That might be nice, but this simply refers to the information
| capture window, how about the bigger problem being all your
| data being beamed to OAI servers ?
| friend_and_foe wrote:
| Physically make contact as in, tap it with your hand TNG
| style? Or worse, hold contact with your hand? How do you
| project the laser display and talk without using both hands?
| Is the hand criss crossing difficult I'm this situation?
|
| An LED comes on... Is it bright? Can you see it direct line
| of sight from your eye to your shirt without fussing with it?
| Is the LED just there for others to know the owner isn't
| recording the conversation?
|
| Can the camera passively watch in hardware with a firmware
| update? Is the physical contact for audio capture in hardware
| or software?
| kylebenzle wrote:
| Cell phones have microphones too.
| pech0rin wrote:
| weebo is about 100x more useful than this
| jaChEWAg wrote:
| I think the founders undermined this product with their launch
| strategy, first showcasing it on a TED talk briefly without fully
| exposing the hardware, then about a month later in a fashion
| show? Then now they make this half baked video that immediately
| goes into talking about the hardware yet the whole selling point
| of the device is the software Ai capabilities.
|
| People have been eagerly waiting to hear what this secretive
| startup company has been working all these years, especially
| after the recent funding rounds. All of this to be disappointed
| with a half baked v1 and launch video.
|
| All that aside, I think it's brave of them to enter a competitive
| market and introduce a unique product that could have potential
| but at this price point, I'll have to pass. Hope future
| iterations get better and continues to grow.
|
| Congratulations to all the team at Humane who's been working on
| this over the years, especially those who took the risk of
| leaving Apple to join a startup.
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| I couldn't agree with you more. The release strategy
| was...confusing? I guess is the best way to word it. But even
| this launch video which is supposed to introduce this
| groundbreaking new device to replace the smartphone feels
| homemade. The speaking is unnatural and too practiced, the
| awkward silences of waiting for a response feel uncomfortable.
| For a company named Humane, I'm getting uncanny valley vibes.
|
| But I also understand this is how many new technologies
| releases go (lots of WTFs and lots of oohs and aahs). I think
| it really has potential, but the team will have to be adaptive
| and quick to respond to make sure the Pin can really grab hold
| of what the consumer wants.
| mszcz wrote:
| Had the same feeling. This had all the hallmarks of vaporware
| for me - _something_ was introduced in a TED talk (that 's a
| personal turn off). No clear definition or description. Then
| the fashion show, and for what? Building "buzz"? About what?
| Then I started hearing some chatter about it but still no info
| on what it is. I felt like someone wanted me to get excited
| about it but provided no value whatsoever.
|
| Now, this thing's introduced and what? The laser interface
| seems clunky, no idea how it holds up on a bright day outside.
| Most of the interactions are done by voice which, at least for
| me, have never been satisfactory on way more powerful and
| polished devices. Then there's the privacy - I'm assuming that
| for this thing to work I need to give it access to everything.
| How long has this company been operating and battle testing its
| security? How good or bad its track record is with regard to
| selling my data? And yes, I know that my smartphone already
| knows everything about me. But those things are built by either
| Apple or Google which at least have some track record and I
| know what I can expect from them, more or less.
|
| I still don't understand what am I getting here? What's the
| revolutionary, exciting thing? The AI? The lasers? The voice
| interface? The always-on-your-person?
|
| If I remove the lasers, add a screen and a OpenAI/whateverLLM
| interface & integration I get what? An Apple Watch (or Google
| or whatever) that's 1-2 years out probably.
|
| What's nice however that they're trying things. The laser thing
| does _seem_ cool.
|
| edit: Commas, sentence structure.
| partiallypro wrote:
| I like the idea of technology fading to the background in a world
| where it's right in your face; but some of this does seem
| limited. For instance, how can you ask it to capture something,
| but you have no idea what it is capturing? Also I'm curious how
| fast the AI can translate, GPT, Google Translate, Bing Translate,
| etc are still pretty slow during live translations.
| d--b wrote:
| I've been wanting something like this for a long time (voice
| first with laser projecion). Somehow I'd envisioned it as a tiny
| pet monkey robot sitting on my shoulder.
| hbosch wrote:
| I just don't get this, or any other "VUI"/voice-centric platform
| for that matter. The killer feature of the smartphone or watch
| isn't that it's the most convenient (which it is), it's that
| whatever you want to do on it is at least somewhat private. I
| don't want the guy next to me on the train to know I'm messaging
| Andrew, and he doesn't want to hear me message Andrew either.
| Asking me to speak out loud these commands removes that privacy.
| I think this type of "out loud interface" is the wrong direction
| for personal devices... forcing us to expose our "private selves"
| or conflate that with our "public selves" is really an area where
| humans need to draw the line, IMO.
|
| This is why Alexa (and other voice assistants) are only really
| valuable in the home, and typically as communal devices... its
| mode is public by default. "What's the weather?", "Play The
| Beatles", "Add milk to my shopping list" are not expected to be
| private. How does a device like Humane offer us an "incognito
| mode", where everyone within earshot doesn't know exactly what
| I'm doing?
| newaccount74 wrote:
| I wonder where this dislike of talking to computers in public
| is coming from?
|
| People often discuss private topics on a train, and don't care
| that others might be listening.
|
| People talk loudly on the phone when in public. Some even talk
| on speaker phone.
|
| But noone ever talks to Siri or Google or Alexa in public.
|
| Why is that?
| abeyer wrote:
| Do some people do those things in public? Sure.
|
| Does everyone else look askance at them and think they're
| being rude by doing so? Also yes.
| mplewis wrote:
| Frankly, because it's embarrassing.
| donpark wrote:
| Think about aging population. As to privacy, same problem
| exists with taking phone calls in public yet we somehow manage
| just fine.
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| I'm not gonna lie, this type of technology is what I've been
| looking forward to ever since watching the movie Her. As a first
| generation of the technology, it definitely has some issues and
| oddities, but I think those could be easy enough to work out with
| future iterations and updates.
|
| A more natural speaking voice. Bluetooth earphones for a more
| personal interaction experience with the device (maybe even
| control with your hand in front of the camera and receive audio
| feedback through the earphones)? Color projector with more
| fidelity as a new form of interaction (can use it like a screen
| for short periods, but it's not the main interaction method).
|
| I'd also think some advancements for on-device processing of
| daily life/events could be really helpful. For example, being
| able to have it sync to a cloud drive as a repository of my docs
| (like Google NotebookLM), or holding up a piece of paper in front
| of it and having it record it and process that info. Just so it's
| able to better operate as an analogue of a real life PERSONAL
| assistant, rather than an assistant that just searches the
| internet for me and tells me what's on my phone.
|
| I don't want to get my hopes up, and it definitely has a tough
| road ahead of it to disrupt the industry, but I think it really
| could become an incredibly useful product.
| xnx wrote:
| I'm guessing the prominent mention of Qualcomm in the demo was a
| paid placement?
| paxys wrote:
| Communication seems to be a major selling point of the pin going
| by the demo, but I'm pretty certain it is impossible for it to
| work with iMessage, WhatsApp etc. in the way that is shown, so
| I'm wary about the actual advantages.
| asadm wrote:
| You can always reply to notifications. Just like non-apple
| smartwatches allow.
| paxys wrote:
| This is a standalone device with its own cellular connection.
| There is no smartphone involved and no notifications to reply
| to.
| figers wrote:
| Is an apple watch already solving this, already has my phone
| number on a cellular plan, can easily text and call, has Siri
| (not the best, but can be improved), could use a ChatGPT app, can
| leave my phone at home, etc?
| sebastiennight wrote:
| I think they're playing with the form factor. Your watch is, in
| a way, more obtrusive to use. Their gadget can record the
| conversation, take photos, take dictation hands-off and is also
| closer to your head.
| orbifold wrote:
| pocket watches existed at some point, glancing down on your
| wrist is way less annoying than having something attached to
| your shirt pocket all day.
| figers wrote:
| Is an apple watch already solving this, already has my phone
| number on a cellular plan, can easily text and call, has Siri
| (not the best, but can be improved), could use a ChatGPT app, can
| leave my phone at home, etc?
| poisonborz wrote:
| I can't see this being a hit in any significant way. You will NOT
| want to use this in public. Why would you want people listening
| to you dictate, which is the only input option? Why would anyone
| feel comfortable around you if you were wearing a camera badge?
| Pulcinella wrote:
| $700 + $24/month for an uglier plastic name badge + police body
| camera. No thanks
|
| Also:
|
| _To put on the Ai Pin involves placing a magnetic battery pack
| on the inside of a shirt or other piece of clothing, and letting
| a magnet on the Pin itself hold the system in place. It's
| altogether about 55 grams, or 2 ounces, nearly the weight of a
| tennis ball. People with pacemakers should consult their doctors
| about potential magnetic interference, Chaudhri says._
|
| It's pretty heavy and the backside of the clip is a magnetic
| battery pack.
| jklinger410 wrote:
| > $700 + $24/month for an uglier plastic name badge + police
| body camera
|
| Hah, yeah man, that's totally what it is!
| shmatt wrote:
| imagine someone bumping into you and the battery gets slightly
| dislodged, your $700 does-95%-less-than-an-iphone device has
| now shattered on the floor
| Someone wrote:
| If it's even halfway decently engineered, why would it
| shatter? The total package weighs 55 grams, the front part
| likely less than half of that, and it doesn't have large
| glass areas.
| postalrat wrote:
| Shattering on the floor shouldn't be normal for a device you
| carry around. Apple fooled you into thinking glass was a
| premium material.
| nashashmi wrote:
| I said this in a different news thread on this topic but that one
| didn't reach front page.
|
| They need to narrow down the scope of this product. It's a
| product with an unusual form factor. They should Make it perfect
| just for a few things. And don't try to kill the phone or any
| other device.
|
| There is a beautiful use case for this. It's like an apple watch
| with a sim. Out working in the field, with things in hand, ask
| for whatever you need to ask. It can even do FaceTime showing
| what's in the field. And enable police patrol to approach a
| target and use remote intervention to neutralize a situation.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I'm working on a tool that would build assessments for educators
| in real time as they teach. I could see a device like this being
| helpful for dictation and content collection (if it plays nicely
| with others). Transitional, non-glasses AR. Not sold on the
| potential, but cool tech nonetheless.
| rfwhyte wrote:
| I love the idea of some virtual daemon type AI assistant thingy
| that helps me with mundane day to day tasks via an intuitive
| natural language type interface. Sci-fi / cyberpunk authors have
| been writing about this stuff for decades and it's always seemed
| like super cool and useful tech to me.
|
| That being said I positively LOATHE the idea of it being some
| cloud based subscription service, as inevitably, no matter how
| much the founders of these companies talk about privacy or
| security, it will become yet another corporate data harvester
| that spies on you and sells your personal information to the
| highest bidder, or provides a backdoor for governments or other
| non-state entities to surveil you. Money talks, and morals walk.
| Let's not forget Ring gives LEA footage from peoples door cameras
| just for asking nicely with no way for users to opt-out.
|
| Personally, as much as I want something like this (Though the
| dorky badge format is a big miss for me) I will never, ever, EVER
| go for something like this unless I OWN the software and that
| software runs on hardware I OWN as well. I'm sure a lot of folks
| will get excited by this thing, but as it stands now it's just
| bog-standard run of the mill, every day dystopian nightmare fuel
| for me.
| jdmoreira wrote:
| Apple will simply own this market as well, if it even becomes a
| market at all. They are by far the best positioned company and
| everyone already is locked in to the hardware.
|
| As soon as Siri becomes good by leveraging llm, Apple is bound to
| dominate here. You don't even need another device to get half of
| what this does. Next gen airpods/ apple watches provide similar
| use cases.
| akokanka wrote:
| Apple lost a lot these days. Leadership is almost gone. Some
| companies are built by leaders and die with their leaders.
| gizajob wrote:
| Tim Cook has done his supply-chain job and needs to move
| along. Not sure why investors aren't pushing for this. I was
| listening to the recent earnings call and when he says things
| like "super excited" he couldn't sound more monotonously
| unexcited. Jony Ive would have made a great CEO and
| figurehead.
| crooked-v wrote:
| On the other hand, he's also strongly associated now with
| bad decisions like the Touch Bar and butterfly keys.
| gizajob wrote:
| Surely as much Cook's doing as Ive's though. Ive also
| associated with the entirety of the Apple design culture,
| perfecting the laptop, "inventing" the iPhone and iPad
| and iPod, which turned the company into the giant it is
| today. Easy sell for a mythology around a visionary CEO.
| Hard to know what the politics was behind the scenes, but
| the main (or only) strategy for the past decade since
| Jobs died seems to have been "make the iPhone more
| profitable".
| callalex wrote:
| And ruining modern interface design.
| zanderwohl wrote:
| This reminds me a lot of the Cicret bracelet. A device that small
| is not gonna give you a good projection image...
| justanotheratom wrote:
| I am just getting OCD watching the demo, worrying it will fall
| off any time.
| gizajob wrote:
| My gut tells me this is going to crash and burn in a hilarious
| way.
|
| Not only is it worse than holding a smartphone while being less
| useful, street kids are going to pull these off people at a
| phenomenal rate, leaving people with just unhappy memories
| alongside a battery pack swimming somewhere inside their jumper.
| kkielhofner wrote:
| > street kids are going to pull these off people at a
| phenomenal rate, leaving people with just unhappy memories
| alongside a battery pack swimming somewhere inside their
| jumper.
|
| I can't believe I didn't think of this.
|
| Imagine a dev conference for these things... The first headline
| would be "Humane AI Pin Developers Cleaned Out". A group of bad
| actors could (would) just run down a line/through a room and
| snatch these one after the other with nothing more than a weak
| magnet slowing them down.
|
| Yes they can be locked down but even with Apple and Google-
| level measures implemented over the years phones still get
| stolen to be sent to China (or wherever) and parted out for
| pennies on the dollar for the thief. There's also the usual
| problem of a lot of this being opportunity/impulse crime and a
| lot of criminals are just going to think "I don't know what
| that is, looks expensive", grab it, and see what they can get
| for it later.
|
| This is probably the best example of the "Silicon Valley elites
| in their bubble disconnected from the real world" tropes that
| are always floating around.
| living_room_pc wrote:
| The laser projector thingy sounds cool. I want to try it.
|
| But beyond that, aren't voice assistants kind of dead? Sure it is
| probably much better powered by today's LLMs. I think it was the
| function and not the form that killed that market. (Alexa, Google
| Home, Siri and so on...)
|
| For $700 and a $24/mo sub subscription... Lets see if it sticks.
| cft wrote:
| The new SV bubble is inflating! Say hi to real estate price
| increases.
| cmdrk wrote:
| the camera always being out makes me as deeply uncomfortable with
| this as i was with Glass.
| zentr1c wrote:
| Let's make orwell fiction again.
| Dig1t wrote:
| Mostly this is silly, props for making it just like the
| communicator from Star Trek TNG.
|
| I can only think of one use case that would be awesome that I
| couldn't get with an iPhone: automatic food tracking.
|
| Having a camera mounted near your neck you could use computer
| vision/AI to track everything you eat and automatically tell you
| how many calories you've consumed for the day. This would be way
| better than manually logging food intake like we have to do now,
| and could be very helpful for losing weight or just staying
| healthy.
| friend_and_foe wrote:
| I like the _idea_ or such a thing, but the actual form factor
| just has Google Glass vibes. I doubt anyone wants to wear a HAL
| on their shirt.
|
| It would be cool to have a personal assistant on your body
| capable of setting appointments, answering questions, contacting
| people and what not _without having to look at and tap a screen_.
| Audio interface is a fantastic use case of LLMs. But I wouldn 't
| do it unless the device was fully hackable. FOSS software,
| available hardware schematics, these should be bare minimum
| requirements today, alas they're not. At least with Android the
| software is available for hacking.
|
| I like the idea of the laser projector, there are times you need
| to display something visual but interfacing with a phone for that
| requires a phone, which negates most of the hardware requirements
| for the device, and interfacing with existing wireless protocols
| and phone UX is infeasible. It's a good stopgap while we wait for
| real holographic techtechnology, but only works if it is not a
| primary interface. The primary interface _has to be_ voice or
| there 's no benefit to it at all.
|
| The form factor is unattractive. First, there's the issue that
| voice interaction provides no secrecy in public, just as a
| holographic visual interface would not, then it clips to a shirt
| and looks like a shoplifting prevention clothing tag with a
| camera. If it cannot adapt to loose clothing and moving around
| unpredictably it doesn't make sense to attach it to clothing and
| needs to be attached to the body in some way.
|
| _Socially acceptable_ accessories are a problem. To be candid,
| people want to get laid, and walking around with a helmet on your
| head or a small computer where your pocket protector should be
| get in the way of this. A watch or glasses are fine, so long as
| they 're not overly obvious in signaling that they're a nerd toy.
| The problem with a watch is that you can't do the laser display
| thing without using up two hands. The problem with glasses is
| that the technology to display high resolution overlays in your
| field of view doesn't exist yet. _The problem with the laser
| display concept itself_ is that you need a hand to use it, the
| same hand you could use to hold a phone with a much better
| display. So it doesn 't really offer an advantage. This form
| factor is basically a phone in your shirt pocket, camera facing
| out, with a worse display.
|
| I like the idea, but all in all this does less than a phone
| running an LLM with a Bluetooth earpiece and mic. I don't think
| this kind of wearable technology is going to take off until you
| can get a full computer into glasses that don't look silly with a
| good resolution display in them that can overlay on your normal
| field of view. That is a long way off. Even just a personal area
| network that puts the processing power in a bracelet or candy bar
| in your pocket, that is, earpiece and display glasses as
| accessories to existing personal computing, are not coming very
| soon. It's going to be a while before such wearables are viable.
| jiriro wrote:
| I bet there is a mobile/desktop app in the pipeline.
|
| This pin is a great input/sensing device feeding an AI which gets
| an incredible amount of information about the owner's context.
|
| Combined with an old good computer (desktop/smartphone/tablet..)
| this could be scary revolutionary:-)
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/U8rn9
| dang wrote:
| Related ongoing thread:
|
| _Humane AI Pin_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38208016
| - Nov 2023 (206 comments)
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