Humane, a startup full of ex-iPhone talent, trying to make phones obsolete
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Sorry, I think that's too many buzz words for me to comprehend and I can't take it seriously. Phones provide us some utility. If you can make some other interface that helps me ask for GPS directions or check my emails, sure. But if you're lumping in all this other crap, I know you're just selling vaporware.
> Based on Chaudhri’s explanation, Humane’s chosen path lies in artificial intelligence. Building experiences around interactions with AI that fit around someone's normal life instead of forcing them to shape theirs around another screen. In Humane’s words, the company is helping to build the “Intelligence Age,” a new paradigm of computing based on journalist Walt Mossberg’s idea of the “disappearing computer.”
What does this mean? I'm bored for the 40 seconds it takes me to catch and take an elevator. So I look at social media. Or I'm riding a bus or train. Or I just want to take a break from work, or get GPS instructions. How does Humane solve my problem (is there a problem)? By showing me a social media feed on my wrist instead of a screen? Sounds like a privacy nightmare to try to use AI and constant feed to estimate my fiber intake and predict when I'm going to need to entertain myself for ten minutes for it to preload my social media feed.
I think there's potential in the technology they're developing as a different type of watch-like device. But all this other cult-like nonsense is way overkill and if I'd have to wager I'd probably pass.
This reads to me as along the lines of, "I speak aloud to an AI and it replies, rather than taking something out of my pocket", but 'ambient', 'artifical intelligence', and 'doesn't rely on screens' are carrying the weight there. The rest seem like features of such a system.
This seems pretty straightforward to me.
"Ambient computing" and "no screens" imply a voice interface (think: earbuds, watch, Trek-like communicator), potentially leveraging augmented reality (think: glasses, windshield) if/when available.
"Personal" and "contextual" suggest that interactions leverage all available signals instead of requiring that you explicitly share all necessary background info as a preamble, and also suggest a level of proactiveness (vs. today's mostly reactive user experiences).
Maybe in that 40 seconds the device could remind you that you wanted to get pasta and suggest the most convenient place to pick it up, update you on recent headlines, ask if it should book your flu shot, or whatever. These seem like nice alternatives to doomscrolling.
Could you please elaborate
Sure, here's an example for "contextual": If I'm in my office and say, "Alexa turn on the light", it has no idea what I'm talking about. A contextually-aware device would use some mix of signals — what Bluetooth devices are nearby, when my voice reached the mic compared to other devices within earshot, the sound of typing, etc. — to determine where I am and do the right thing.
Similarly, an example for "proactive": My family has used Alexa for years, and it hasn't noticed a single routine. I haven't bothered to manually program routines because I've decided I no longer want to invest time in anything that locks me into the platform. But a proactive device would eventually figure out that humans tend to need light in dark rooms.
I don't know. I see a prompt like "this website wants your location" as more of a feature than a bug. Explicit permissions are a good thing
"Press or say 2 if you want to make a phone call"
"Press 9 to repeat the menu"
Not that I want to defend this particular startup, but if I described the functions of a modern-day smartphone to you back in the 1980s, you'd probably have the same reaction, right? A lot of random, unrelated crap lumped together!
Most of the time, it goes nowhere. But just because somebody is trying to combine a bunch of hitherto-unrelated use cases doesn't mean that the idea is dumb.
And of course iPod was 1000 songs in your pocket.
This is what made it successful. Not bs. We think about jobs as very head in the clouds and saying things like computer is really like a bicycle, but he was very practical and clear
This startup doesn’t seem to be creating any new use for the technology in your phone, just changing the way you interact with it from a glass screen to a projected screen on your hand or countertop.
The diagrams suggest it's going to use projection mapping from some portable projector.
Nothing exists currently (as far as I'm aware) that can work bright enough in such a small package to do anything that doesn't work outside of a dark room.
These have come up before I think, and are soon exposed to be vaporware.
It was a watch that would project onto your arm.
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/4/27/17289572/l...
Edit: Huh, I think this is their product actually: https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/30/humanes-ai-pin-debuts-on-t...
So it's a pin on your chest that will project into your hand.
This sounds almost identical to what the watch tried to do... except exponentially more difficult.
1. It needs to be significantly lighter weight
2. It needs to project significantly further away.
3. It needs to identify the hand only when it is "ready" to be projected on, then aim at it.
This alone would present major issues I think.
Outside of a few marketing and hype terms, the website was so dry it was actually really hard to even get a simple idea of what the product was.
I remember when the first iPhone came out, people were like "a phone with one button? What the fuck am I gonna do with that?" And then we saw what can be done with that.
I think there are still novel approaches to using computers in your personal life, but they're not readily apparent; truly novel things are never readily apparent. But if the stagnation and devolution of UX as it exists today is any indicator, I highly doubt they can pull it off. They'll either give us overpriced glasses and fake holograms for the flash factor or they'll deliver something none of us can envision, it's probably going to be the former.
> Humane, founded by ex-Apple talent, might be working on a laser projection system to that replaces our phones and tablets
Laser projection system
So either a projection on a surface, or maybe directly into the eye
Either way, they probably end up displaying the same info as a screen
We still haven't solved the problem of screen burn-in, so the outcome of that is going to be hilarious.
My money's on cyberpunk-style HUD visors. Not Oculus, not Google Glass, a transparent, wraparound screen on your face.
Just a few: radio, radar, penicillin, automobiles, telephone, refrigeration (huge), air flight, train transport, x-rays, and much much more.
Rewrite the headline to "make phone calls obsolete" and it'll give you 1) an idea of how transformative voice transmissions were (and still are for families) and 2) an idea of how people forget what phones are actually good for.
If I had to give up everything on my smart phone except one function I would keep the ability to speak to my mother, children, and grandchildren.
Yes, I could use VoIP on my desktop if I wanted, but I don't want and I can't take my desktop with me. I can buy a GPS, radio/mp3 player, camera,e-book reader and more to replace those functions. I would retain voice calls and give up only what? Social media? I don't use any. Email when not at home (yawn)? Surfing the Web?
It's a travesty these things don't even have shutters. Taping over them works but is very inconvenient. They also tend to stick out of the chassis.
It's boggling my mind they keep adding more cameras. I really have lost almost all touch with the world.
Shutterless shooting has its faults that necessitate a physical shutter when shooting professionally on dedicated cameras. Outside of those circumstances shooting shutterless on modern mirrorless ‘pro’ cameras has few drawbacks.
I could see flickering with some light sources being annoying at times but if you’re running into it as annoyance often a dedicated camera is always an option. Even 10 year old digital cameras wipe the floor of any phone
Or, again, no camera at all.
Sorry for saying something irrelevant, but I wish Apple would put e-ink (or equivalent) displays on the back of iPhones and iPads.
- Video calling (they didn't get front facing camera for ages) - Video recording. Of any kind. - Picture messaging. I can't remember if they offered any kind of MMS support. - Voice commands (they didn't work terribly well but had been a feature of Nokia phones for ages) - Third party apps - Text copy/paste - About a week of battery charge, depending on use.
So I bought an N95 instead, and had that for 8 years until it basically fell apart. Its original battery was still getting more life from a charge at this sorry stage than a new iPhone/Android replacement.
The original iPhone was one of the first phones to have visual voicemail. That alone made it a revolution compared to the phone experience before it. Before iPhone you dialed some voicemail box and had to listen through 4 messages before you got to the one you cared about. Yeah if you weren't there it's hard to understand how bad of an experience it was.
In my opinion some sort of this technology would be very useful. If not this, then something else. Being able to see the map on the car window, or a map when you walk, or information about products (something similar to Google lens but no hands).
I can easily imagine warehouse workers using this to tell them which box of little chips to pick-up. Of course everyone talks about building completely automated warehouses, but still there are lots of non automatic ones.
Plus, I really hate how "we used to work at Apple" is their main marketing strategy. They wouldn't need to do that if the product was any good. Which it's not, because the concept is a gimmick. It's supposed to be "more humane" and blend into the background, yet palm projection and voice interaction are incredibly invasive and socially awkward. So is having a camera attached to your chest at all time.
So again, how do they recruit? It's like watching a slow-motion trainwreck.
It also seems like a mobile version of what Bret Victor is working on. Could use that to hype it up.
They claim to obsess over design with their overly designed website, but the presmise and vision of the product seem so out of touch with reality.
Also they've been around for a long while now and haven't shipped a thing except their laughable merch products with their obnoxious and trite slogans on them
> haven't shipped a thing except their laughable merch
Yeah that's a big tell
Explaining this work and use cases can sometimes be a bit of a struggle. Maybe if “ambient computing” is established as a widely known buzzword, imma have to steal it to make that part of the job a little easier. Until now I was mostly going with mixed reality.
Okay, so an outdated article that already shows the company is failing to keep its promises. These are a dime a dozen, I'm afraid.
Another was some kind of laser based thing that had the same issues.
Oh, and a very old one, probably 2009 from MIT or something. It's a projector you wore on a long necklace that would project stuff on your arms and hands. That one actually worked decently in tech demos they showed. It could track your hands and arms so you could gesture out stuff.
Still, I have very little hope this will pull through. Not sure how the iPhone devs can help much with the main hurtle being the hardware that doesn't exist or have a working proof of concept.
Edit: I'm going to put my foot in my mouth on this one, I just say the ted talk in the adjacent comment and it seems to actually work. Smart they went with chest mounted vs bulky wrist watch.
Then projection would be secondary.
Also It would be interesting for privacy if the Ai updates its weights from everything it sees and hears but there’s no way to get that data out of the device.
You could still ask it to specifically take photos and recordings but that would be no different than a smartphone today.
So vague, too much buzz for me to understand...
What was announced by Humane last week was what the wearable looks like https://hu.ma.ne/media/humanexcoperni
The information is vague and I'm made more dubious by it being shown as part of a fashion show, the epitome of hype fueled vaporware. It seems to have a camera and the patent hints at a projector, which on a wearable is problematic if you don't have a perfect solution for stabilising projection as the body and clothes move (and most people spend a lot of time interacting with devices whilst moving).
Many don't actually want a "world without displays", and goals like a better "human experience" look vastly different between different people. I'm guessing those startup founders like interacting with people and want tech to be in the background, meanwhile I'm the opposite. The smartphone in its current shape happens to be the compromise most users find good enough, and it doesn't involve a lot of voice-based commands even though they've been supported to some degree for years. Maybe this device is good, but it's not made for the mainstream user of 2023.
Rather than cloud my mind with negativity - and yes I have plenty of doubts - some of the hints here have some promise. They seem to have a lot more respect for personal data, and the tech scene desperately needs some less shady players to redeem it's image & help us compute & connect.
Their tech looking to use a laser projector for overlaying information seems like an interesting idea. VR and AR (XR) have been a major fixation for tech for a while, but wearing a display keeps having downsides, and the promise here of combining digital augmentations atop the real world, without so big a downside, seems promising to me. It would be cool to lookup weather or recipes or get other infographics quickly. I could totally see kit-ing out a room with a couple moderately priced projects for this purpose.
There's a long proud history of post-display ubicomp in general. The Nomad wearable comes to mind as a prominent early device.
There's some low-effort negative swipes sayiny 'if I can't teleconference on it it's no good to me' but we are surrounded by screens. Most of them aren't ours don't do our will, but part of the pervasive/ubicomp dream has always been to make these ambient peripherals more broadly available. Even if you do have such a hard fast need, I could imagine a world where it didn't necessarily have to be my own device that I carry that I needed to teleconference. I can imagine ubicomp winning, advancing enough, such that I would be well setup everywhere. Further, it's not hard for me to imagine a device which is mostly not screen oriented, which is mainly about other modalities, but which indeed does have a small screen to fallback on.
Projectors have a killer problem which is they aren't very bright, and those that are bright enough to be useful are dangerous to everyone nearby.