While voice assistants such as Siri or Alexa have been around for years, the AI Pin seeks to build on advances in the technology to provide almost conversational interactions. Neat tricks will include features such as live translation for wearers. Humane also demonstrated more advanced functions – such as having the pin scan a handful of almonds, and returning an estimate of how much protein they contained.
Despite aping Apple’s minimalist design and slick marketing, not everything has gone smoothly with Humane’s launch. Its AI voice assistant sometimes gets things wrong, giving an incorrect answer in its launch video for the location of the next lunar eclipse.
Still, some in Silicon Valley have welcomed the arrival of Humane as a potential breakthrough that could herald an era beyond smartphones – offering a new kind of interface that relies on voice control and an advanced chatbot. Humane has raised £192m ($240m) for its idea, winning the backing of Sam Altman, the influential co-founder of OpenAI.
Others have already tried and failed to create an alternative to the iPhone – or at least something that can match its success. Google launched the Google Glass in 2013, smart glasses with a kind of heads-up display, all controlled via voice. They failed to catch on, however, and fans were crudely labelled “glassholes”.
And since 2020, Meta, the owner of Facebook, has been trying to get consumers to embrace the “metaverse”, a kind of 3D internet accessible via virtual or augmented reality headsets. It has plunged tens of billions of dollars into the effort but the technology is still not widely used.
Apple itself has spent years working on a set of virtual reality goggles – the Vision Pro – which will go on sale next year, but there is no guarantee it will be as popular as the iPhone, and it is certainly not meant to replace it outright.
The AI Pin is not the only gadget seeking to capitalise on the hype around AI. Another start-up is developing a wearable necklace, the Rewind Pendant, that records everything the wearer says or hears, transcribing it with AI so users can keep a log of their whole life.
Laura Adams is a tech enthusiast residing in the UK. Her articles cover the latest technological innovations, from AI to consumer gadgets, providing readers with a glimpse into the future of technology.
