The premise of the talk and Chaudri’s compelling demonstrations sparked fervor around a new subset of consumer hardware dedicated to AI.
The smallish square gadget, which I like to describe as a smart brooch™, promised a variety of potentially useful capabilities.
More impressively, you could use the device’s onboard camera to scan objects in front of you to provide helpful information.
In his demo, Chaudhri asked the pin to scan a piece of food held in his hand to determine whether eating it might be unhealthy.
It just also happened to include a camera, a rechargeable battery, microphones, speakers and a cellular data plan and phone number for making calls.
Editor’s Note: This story has now been updated to address responses from Humane’s head of product engineer, Ken Kocienda, concerning the early reception of the AI Pin’s launch, which he recently posted on the social media platform X.
The first reviews are now out for the $699 Humane AI Pin, and the consensus isn’t great, at least if your company’s stated mission includes language like “we all deserve more from technology.”
In case you haven’t heard about the device, it initially made waves as a possible future replacement for smartphones thanks to a TED talk presentation from the company’s co-founder, Imran Chaudhri, delivered almost a year ago, dubbed The Disappearing Computer – and a World Where You Can Take AI Everywhere.
The premise of the talk and Chaudri’s compelling demonstrations sparked fervor around a new subset of consumer hardware dedicated to AI.
The smallish square gadget, which I like to describe as a smart brooch™, promised a variety of potentially useful capabilities. Like Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant, you could ask the pin for answers to general questions, get calendar updates, and receive and respond to text messages. More impressively, you could use the device’s onboard camera to scan objects in front of you to provide helpful information. In his demo, Chaudhri asked the pin to scan a piece of food held in his hand to determine whether eating it might be unhealthy.
It was discussed as a device finally capable of breaking our smartphone addiction. It just also happened to include a camera, a rechargeable battery, microphones, speakers and a cellular data plan and phone number for making calls.
