[HN Gopher] Jony Ive's OpenAI Device Barred From Using 'io' Name
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Jony Ive's OpenAI Device Barred From Using 'io' Name
Author : thm
Score : 76 points
Date : 2025-12-05 16:48 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.macrumors.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.macrumors.com)
| snafeau wrote:
| I wonder why they're trying to establish separate branding for
| hardware. Considering that OpenAI's strongest advantage right now
| is the ChatGPT brand and they're anyway cutting efforts on other
| products, wouldn't it make more sense to use the ChatGPT brand?
|
| They certainly don't seem to have a problem with using the same
| name repeatedly given the 300-or-so products called Codex at
| OpenAI.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| It's such an uncreative name, anyway. It's like something you'd
| read from a hardware engineering GitHub repository where the
| author was oblivious to how searchable the intellectual property
| would be.
| rvz wrote:
| Revenge is a dish best served icy cold.
| johnwheeler wrote:
| What is this OpenAI company I keep hearing about?
| lawlessone wrote:
| predictive text, real big again.
| inopinatus wrote:
| It's not too late to reverse direction and call it "Oi". Could
| there be a more perfect verbal activation? They could get Jason
| Statham or Vinnie Jones to do promotion.
| yellow_lead wrote:
| The device would be popular in England
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Also with 1990's American skinheads.
| hendiatris wrote:
| And Brasil, Portugal and other portuguese-speaking places
| wmf wrote:
| Oi mate, you got a loicense for that trademark?
| hodgesrm wrote:
| Not just trademarks! I can also picture Jason Statham getting
| pretty bent out of shape about GPL violations.
| platevoltage wrote:
| I'm sure they could license some Cock Sparrer songs as well.
| ricardonunez wrote:
| Oi, tudo bem?
| BigTTYGothGF wrote:
| For further distinction you can put the guy's first initial in
| there and call it a JOI.
| dmix wrote:
| I hadn't heard of iyO, their products look interesting. Seems to
| be an Alexa type product via airpod style headphones?
| https://www.iyo.ai/iyo-one
|
| and some sort of 'wand' that can "see your surrounding area",
| maybe radar or imaging? https://www.iyo.ai/iyo-wand
| hundchenkatze wrote:
| They don't mention a camera specifically, but it looks like the
| Wand has a camera in the end of it.
|
| And they mention "Holding and pressing the action button turns
| the Privacy Light red and allows the agents to see anything you
| point Wand at."
| ruralfam wrote:
| "Hey iyO, can you help me load your page faster?" Incredible
| (on an older MBP).
| arach wrote:
| is yo taken?
| morkalork wrote:
| About a decade ago
| striking wrote:
| Yo definitely occupies an existing part of my mindspace.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo_(app)
| wlesieutre wrote:
| But imagine a modernized version of this where you can
| leverage AI to say "yo" to people?
| recursive wrote:
| Yo MTV Raps beat them to trademark office.
| zackmorris wrote:
| Boyhood did it the same year:
|
| https://x.com/hitRECordJoe/status/1378933672687067140
| TZubiri wrote:
| Ridiculous, of course io is standard for input output, or even
| for on/off or even 1 and 0.
|
| Hopefully this gets appealed, but it might be too late for this
| product launch
| livelaughlove69 wrote:
| But openai presumably wants to trademark it too?
| TZubiri wrote:
| Oh, I assumed it was part of the product name rather than a
| whole. Like Chat IO, or just the wake up call and vocative
| name.
| ameliaquining wrote:
| From the article: "However, the ruling does not bar all uses of
| the io name, only marketing and selling hardware similar to
| iyO's."
| grim_io wrote:
| What even is this mysterious device?
|
| A device trying to duplicate a part of smartphone/smartwatch
| functionality is doomed to fail, as those can easily just be an
| app on said devices.
|
| So the computation part is likely out of the question.
| Input/output remains, and there is really not much you can
| innovate here.
|
| Smartglasses? EarPod clones?
| awestroke wrote:
| It's just Ive being out of touch
| ncr100 wrote:
| Oi!
| spicybbq wrote:
| Reading about it, I see some characteristics: no screen,
| possibly something you can carry in your pocket, possibly has
| ai-driven awareness of its environment.
|
| OpenAI wants to get into the hardware business, so they came up
| with something. Is it going to be something people actually
| want? I am skeptical, but as a consumer it's cool that so
| companies are trying out various new devices even if most of
| them are no good.
| paxys wrote:
| It's going to be the Humane v2, just with a reality distortion
| field around it this time.
| notatoad wrote:
| given the vagueness of the available information, i'm guessing
| they haven't actually defined its capabilities yet.
|
| They can accept that building a smartphone is doomed to fail,
| and they want to build some hardware, so they're experimenting
| with all the "not a smartphone" form factors they can think of
| to see what sticks.
| outside1234 wrote:
| It is a device that justifies a $40T market cap. /s
|
| (Please don't look at our $60B a year burn rate financials.)
| outside1234 wrote:
| I'm beginning to believe that the picture of Sam and Jony is
| the product
| foobarian wrote:
| So... Alexa but hooked up to ChatGPT?
| sampton wrote:
| Startrek chest pin.
| riffic wrote:
| _combadge_
| retube wrote:
| I am absolutely AGOG to know why this has to be a separate
| device. It must involve hardware and/or instrumentation not built
| into smartphones. Microwave scanner? mini x-ray machine? neutrino
| detector??? what could it be
| sethops1 wrote:
| Leaks were saying it's a Friend competitor https://friend.com
|
| Just a chatbot in a box.
| c1sc0 wrote:
| Because Apple won't give you access to what you need as a dev
| for this kind of thing on iPhone: always-on audio listening to
| multiple streams : ambient sound, my voice, whatever is playing
| in my headphones ... think an AI assistant listens to
| audiobooks together with you and allows you to ask questions /
| lookup things etc ...
| hadlock wrote:
| The market is ripe for ChatGPT in a box, replacing google home
| or Alexa desktop pucks. God knows the google home assistant has
| been detuned and detuned to the point it barely works for
| turning the lights on and off at this point. There's a handful
| of golf-ball shaped objects on AliExpress for $25 that provide
| this functionality, powered by an ESP32 IoT chip, but doesn't
| have wakeword capability (yet). I picked up two for a Home
| Assistant voice assistant project but haven't had time to dive
| into it yet.
| barfoure wrote:
| I don't know if that picture is so fake as to be incredibly dumb
| but holy shit, burn it with fire.
| saaaaaam wrote:
| That photo of Ive and Altman is weird as hell. It looks like a
| promo shot for a bad early 90s made for TV movie.
| outside1234 wrote:
| "narcissistic dance off"
| nicbou wrote:
| Anything I've seen about Ive hints at him being a kind,
| passionate man. I don't agree with his design choices but
| that's no excuse to hate him as a person.
| recursivecaveat wrote:
| The associated announcement is good for a strange-vibes chuckle
| as well: https://openai.com/sam-and-jony/
| ntoskrnl_exe wrote:
| It's so strangely creepy, it always feels like a it's cropped
| from a Giorgio Armani perfume ad or something.
| jujube3 wrote:
| Now the makers of the Yo app should sue iyo.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo_(app)
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(page generated 2025-12-05 23:01 UTC)