Humane Unveils the Revolutionary AI Pin
Humane, a startup founded by ex-Apple design and engineering duo Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, has unveiled its first product: The Humane Ai Pin, introducing a new era of wearable devices.
Having been under wraps since its foundation in 2018, Humane’s unveiling of the AI Pin has been a long-awaited event. The company, built on an ensemble of ex-Apple employees, had been quietly expanding its workforce to over 200, raising $230 million from prominent investors such as Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Kindred Ventures, SK Networks, LG Technology Ventures, Microsoft, Volvo Cars Tech Fund, Tiger Global, Qualcomm Ventures, and OpenAI CEO and co-founder Sam Altman.
The AI Pin is a standalone wearable device that uses a range of sensors to enable what Humane describes as “contextual and ambient compute interactions.” The wearable is designed to clip to a breast pocket and is activated with a simple tap. Once activated, it can perform tasks similar to those of a smartphone, offering an overview of emails and calendar invites, translating between languages, and answering and placing phone calls. With a built-in camera and computer vision-powered software, the AI Pin can recognize objects around it, including food nutrition labels. More interestingly, using a built-in projector and depth sensor, it can project an interactive interface onto nearby surfaces, such as the palm of a hand or a tabletop.
Humane has partnered with Qualcomm, SK Networks, Microsoft, LG, and Volvo to bring the AI Pin and its services to market. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon series chip will power the wearable, while Microsoft will provide the cloud processing power, and SK Networks will handle distribution. As for LG, it’s collaborating with Humane on R&D projects for the next phase of its product life cycle and adapting Humane’s tech for smart home devices. Volvo is teaming up with Humane for potential automotive industry offerings.
Humane’s Ai Pin aims to deliver a superior AI experience. “Its revolutionary and sleek form factor is packed with powerful performance so that it can make sense of real-time contextual information and provide the wearer with a new and exciting experience,” says Dev Singh, VP of Business Development at Qualcomm Technologies.
Some skepticism surrounds the ambitious goal of reshaping the role of technology in our lives. Despite a successful demo at TED 2023, where the AI Pin showcased its assistant-like features such as projecting interactive user interfaces onto the palm of the presenter’s hand, the device’s real-world performance remains to be seen. How it behaves in different scenarios, like areas with little to no cellular service, is yet to be tested.
The AI Pin represents a pivotal moment for Humane, a company that has successfully kept its operations hidden until now. As the world waits for the launch of this revolutionary wearable, only time will tell if the AI Pin can live up to its promise of bringing about a new era of personal mobile computing.
