Published on November 11, 2023, 10:38 am
Image source: Fox News
A wearable device called the AI Pin has been developed by tech startup Humane to address smartphone addiction. Controlled by voice commands, touch gestures, or a laser interface, the AI Pin uses natural language AI for conversations and allows message editing. It can send texts, play music, take photos, make calls, and translate conversations. Privacy concerns are addressed with a "trust light" that blinks when recording. The device will cost $699 plus a monthly fee of $24, with the company aiming to sell 100,000 units in the first year. Despite some limitations, investors value Humane at $850 million.
A new wearable device called the AI Pin has been developed by tech startup Humane to tackle smartphone addiction using artificial intelligence. This lapel-sized gadget, which has been in development for five years and received $240 million in funding, can be controlled through voice commands, touch gestures, or by projecting a laser interface onto the user’s hand.
The AI Pin utilizes natural language AI to enable free-flowing conversations without requiring users to provide explicit context between questions. Unlike other voice assistants, it can edit single words in dictated messages rather than forcing users to dictate entire texts for correction purposes. Additionally, this pin is capable of sending texts, playing music, taking wide-angle photos, making calls, and translating conversations in real-time.
Addressing privacy concerns surrounding always-listening devices, the AI Pin includes a “trust light” that blinks when recording. Humane emphasizes that it does not sell or use customer data for training its AI models.
Humane was founded by former Apple executives Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno with the goal of recreating the usefulness of smartphones while avoiding addictive elements such as constant social media scrolling and distracting notifications.
When it becomes available next year, the AI Pin will cost $699 plus a $24 monthly wireless plan fee. The company aims to sell 100,000 units within its first year. While this may seem like a niche market initially, it is worth noting that Apple sold only 381,000 iPods in the year following its launch in 2001 – a device that eventually sparked the smartphone revolution.
Investors have recognized the potential of AI wearables and have already valued Humane at $850 million before even launching their product. They argue that just as the first iPod had a singular use for music but paved the way for further innovation, so too will the AI Pin serve as a platform for developers to create an ecosystem of features for its operating system, similar to the App Store.
However, even the founders of Humane admit that they still heavily rely on their smartphones. The AI Pin currently lacks certain features like video recording, object recognition, and playing videos. Basic functions such as sending texts have also exhibited glitches in demos. Whether consumers will embrace controlling technology through voice commands and lasers instead of touchscreens remains to be seen.
Nevertheless, Humane believes that the AI Pin represents the next evolution in human-computer interaction, despite its initial learning curve. While it may not completely replace smartphones right away, this device has the potential to reduce reliance on distracting screens – but only if it can demonstrate standalone usefulness.
Image Credit: Photo by Nida Kurt from Pexels
Original article posted by Fox News
