AI Pin - The Next 'Must Have' or a Gimmick?
Discussion
Just watched the video on here:
https://uk.pcmag.com/wearables/149570/star-trek-li...
Obviously a sales demo and obviously everything worked perfectly, which may not be the case in real use (although it might), but the premise of this does appeal to my inner geek.
Is wearable, relatively intrusive tech like this the future or is this another novelty?
https://uk.pcmag.com/wearables/149570/star-trek-li...
Obviously a sales demo and obviously everything worked perfectly, which may not be the case in real use (although it might), but the premise of this does appeal to my inner geek.
Is wearable, relatively intrusive tech like this the future or is this another novelty?
It's an interesting concept, but rather than comparing it to a phone a better comparison would be a smart watch. All the things that look good about this, would fit better in a watch because a) people already wear them and b) they have a screen.
It's a lot of money when you consider that a smart watch is half the price and costs 20% of the monthly fee to work away form your phone and already has a solid app eco-system and Google's Assistant built in.
It's a lot of money when you consider that a smart watch is half the price and costs 20% of the monthly fee to work away form your phone and already has a solid app eco-system and Google's Assistant built in.
paulrockliffe said:
It's an interesting concept, but rather than comparing it to a phone a better comparison would be a smart watch. All the things that look good about this, would fit better in a watch because a) people already wear them and b) they have a screen.
It's a lot of money when you consider that a smart watch is half the price and costs 20% of the monthly fee to work away form your phone and already has a solid app eco-system and Google's Assistant built in.
A watch form factor would be sensible - But no need to have a particularly 'smart' OS on board like Android Wear or Apple Smartwatch with all the CPU and processing gubbins that entails - just a microphone, useable speaker and a display (and bluetooth to link through your phone to the 'cloud').It's a lot of money when you consider that a smart watch is half the price and costs 20% of the monthly fee to work away form your phone and already has a solid app eco-system and Google's Assistant built in.
I own a Fossil Android Wear watch and frankly, a much cheaper and dumber watch that did notifications and heart rate sensor would have been just as good. The actual range of useful apps that run on the watc is neglible.
That video is pretty underwhelming, terrible presenters. they look terrified and don't seem very enthusiastic about it.
I think the form factor is an issue, I think the talking to yourself thing is an issue. I can see it working building this tech into a watch but same issue with the talking/gesture control.
Pretty much everyone is going to be carrying a phone as well. Upgrade SIRI/ALEXA and you have essentially the same thing in a device you already own.
I think the form factor is an issue, I think the talking to yourself thing is an issue. I can see it working building this tech into a watch but same issue with the talking/gesture control.
Pretty much everyone is going to be carrying a phone as well. Upgrade SIRI/ALEXA and you have essentially the same thing in a device you already own.
Lucas Ayde said:
A watch form factor would be sensible - But no need to have a particularly 'smart' OS on board like Android Wear or Apple Smartwatch with all the CPU and processing gubbins that entails - just a microphone, useable speaker and a display (and bluetooth to link through your phone to the 'cloud').
I own a Fossil Android Wear watch and frankly, a much cheaper and dumber watch that did notifications and heart rate sensor would have been just as good. The actual range of useful apps that run on the watch is neglible.
I have the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro with its own SIM card and if I'm going out somewhere where I'm not going to be sat down, in my car or stood around waiting for something, or taking pictures then I just take my watch, it does everything else really well, the only thing that was stopping me was access to WhatsApp and that was released a couple of months ago. I use Google Assistant, which is as close to the AI thingy as there is at the moment, mostly on my watch as it does a really good job of distilling a Google Search into a tile for the screen. There's no app that'll tell you the Football scores, but Assistant will etc.I own a Fossil Android Wear watch and frankly, a much cheaper and dumber watch that did notifications and heart rate sensor would have been just as good. The actual range of useful apps that run on the watch is neglible.
I've had a few watches, there's a tipping point I think where you just won't leave your phone at home because there's still something missing, but once they got to the point where everything I need covered is, they suddenly made a lot of sense.
Are there 'dumb' watches that have Assistant too I feel like there might be? My Sony headphones have Google Assistant, hold down the button and ask it a question and it'll tell you the Football Scores. That's all linked to the phone, so the same as the watch just without the visual bit.
The point is really, there's already loads of options for better form factors already and they will inevitably roll AI services in when it makes sense. It's a long time since we started buying devices just to access particular software, we just wait for the phone app, or the watch app in this case. So although I like it, the device is definitely a gimmick.
Bullett said:
That video is pretty underwhelming, terrible presenters. they look terrified and don't seem very enthusiastic about it.
I think the form factor is an issue, I think the talking to yourself thing is an issue. I can see it working building this tech into a watch but same issue with the talking/gesture control.
Pretty much everyone is going to be carrying a phone as well. Upgrade SIRI/ALEXA and you have essentially the same thing in a device you already own.
Try this one then.....I think the form factor is an issue, I think the talking to yourself thing is an issue. I can see it working building this tech into a watch but same issue with the talking/gesture control.
Pretty much everyone is going to be carrying a phone as well. Upgrade SIRI/ALEXA and you have essentially the same thing in a device you already own.
https://youtu.be/gMsQO5u7-NQ
If they have a privacy policy as tight as a drum and no data gets stored, and obfuscate all traffic out to openAI etc, so essentially vanilla, maybe ok.
But it’s bad enough having a phone watching your interfacing with the digital world.
Having this watching you interface with the real world would be too much for me… and much like the Google glass, I’d be very weary of interacting with people wearing one and my biometrics and voice and all that jazz getting hoovered into the ‘internets’ to be sold/abused.
But it’s bad enough having a phone watching your interfacing with the digital world.
Having this watching you interface with the real world would be too much for me… and much like the Google glass, I’d be very weary of interacting with people wearing one and my biometrics and voice and all that jazz getting hoovered into the ‘internets’ to be sold/abused.
Gimmick. Why have one of these when your phone can do it all and a lot more.
But then again I was bloke offered a job developing mobile phones in 1986 and thought. "I will give it a go, but can't see any one wanting to carry a phone in their pocket, so its not going to be long term."
But then again I was bloke offered a job developing mobile phones in 1986 and thought. "I will give it a go, but can't see any one wanting to carry a phone in their pocket, so its not going to be long term."
dickymint said:
rustyuk said:
To be honest it's just a mobile phone without a screen stuck to his coat. However, the fatal flaw for me is that it offers no privacy and everyone can hear its response.
Headphones?Then you’re back to the apple VR thing.
Walking around in your little bubble with a VR/AR headset on.
WallE got this pretty close, they had a screen everywhere they went as part of their fat hover-chair, completely ignorant of the world around them.
I’m glad I live in the countryside and in communities where people say hello and talk to you, and don’t feel the need to all live in these technological bubbles.
dickymint said:
rustyuk said:
To be honest it's just a mobile phone without a screen stuck to his coat. However, the fatal flaw for me is that it offers no privacy and everyone can hear its response.
Headphones?I only managed 7 minutes of the video because it was so painfully dull.
I love technology - my house is full of it, but as far as I can tell this offers a tiny fraction of the features of a smartphone in a package that is totally impractical in real life.
You can't type on it which means you can't interact with it in public without announcing everything you're doing. You can take photos but you can't see what you've taken a photo of. Because nobody ever needs to look at the photo they've just taken do they.
This is controlled with voice - which nobody does - or a terrible interface that is unusable to anyone with any kind of physical or motor impairment, and seems like it won't work in anything other than a totally static environment. I can see it now, you're sitting on train trying to get it to connect to your Bluetooth headphones but because your hand is bouncing around you've inadvertently set it to full volume and it's broadcasting the private conversation you're having with the missus. And then it starts translating the conversations of the people in the seat behind you.
In conclusion, looks to me like people have now realised that using the phrase "AI" instead of "blockchain" is the new way to hoover up large amounts of Venture Capitalist money in Silicon Valley.
I love technology - my house is full of it, but as far as I can tell this offers a tiny fraction of the features of a smartphone in a package that is totally impractical in real life.
You can't type on it which means you can't interact with it in public without announcing everything you're doing. You can take photos but you can't see what you've taken a photo of. Because nobody ever needs to look at the photo they've just taken do they.
This is controlled with voice - which nobody does - or a terrible interface that is unusable to anyone with any kind of physical or motor impairment, and seems like it won't work in anything other than a totally static environment. I can see it now, you're sitting on train trying to get it to connect to your Bluetooth headphones but because your hand is bouncing around you've inadvertently set it to full volume and it's broadcasting the private conversation you're having with the missus. And then it starts translating the conversations of the people in the seat behind you.
In conclusion, looks to me like people have now realised that using the phrase "AI" instead of "blockchain" is the new way to hoover up large amounts of Venture Capitalist money in Silicon Valley.
Gimmick.
The VergeCast podcast is great on it this week. As they point out: a) it needs a permanent link to the cloud; b) it chews through batteries, coming with two packs to be swapped through the day; and, worst of all, c) LLMs can't actually do anything - they can only repackage and regurgitate knowledge - so some of the TED talk demos can't work quite the way shown.
They also make the point that Humane are working very hard to not let any technology journalists get up close and personal with the device because they know these flaws will be pointed out. For now, its mainstream media only.
The VergeCast podcast is great on it this week. As they point out: a) it needs a permanent link to the cloud; b) it chews through batteries, coming with two packs to be swapped through the day; and, worst of all, c) LLMs can't actually do anything - they can only repackage and regurgitate knowledge - so some of the TED talk demos can't work quite the way shown.
They also make the point that Humane are working very hard to not let any technology journalists get up close and personal with the device because they know these flaws will be pointed out. For now, its mainstream media only.
Reviews for this and the Rabbit R1, a similar thing with a screen and a scroll wheel for $200 but handheld and not wearable, are trashing them. I don't personally understand the need for these to exist when we already carry a phone and can ask Google/Siri a question on there etc. It might be the next big thing though, Apple and Google might be launching their versions this year. I can see the Apple version being a relaunch of the iPod, if they can do something around the size of a Nano with all day battery life and storage to be a decent media player, and basically the next gen Siri built in. Or launch the next gen Google/Siri on the phones and watches people already have.
YouTube searches for 'Humane AI review' and 'Rabbit R1 review'
$700 gamble, it's not good, scam?, it solves nothing, soo bad, somehow worse, barely reviewable...
YouTube searches for 'Humane AI review' and 'Rabbit R1 review'
$700 gamble, it's not good, scam?, it solves nothing, soo bad, somehow worse, barely reviewable...
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