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Throughout the year, we’ve seen some bits of information about yet another device vying to put the smartphone out of business; AR glasses being the other. Called the AI Pin, this is Humane’s first device, and it’s quite an interesting device. The company is set to do an official announcement today; however, The Verge obtained a ton of details about the AI Pin. Good news, it’s not going to cost you a grand.
Details on the Humane AI Pin
We’re used to seeing devices like these, only, the people wearing them were usually fighting giant robots, speeding across space at light speed, or deflecting laser beams with their laser swords. Devices like the AI Pin have long been science fiction. However, Humane has been working on bringing this device into the real world for some time.
Earlier this year, Humane co-founder Imran Chaudhri showed off the device at a Ted Talk, and we got a glimpse of what this device could do. Since then, we’ve gotten reports stating that this device is going to cost $1,000. Well, thanks to the information obtained by the Verge, that’s not the case.
Price
The document states that the Humane AI Pin will cost a much more palatable $699. This makes the device just a bit more accessible to the common user. However, that’s not the only time you’ll have to take out your wallet for this device.
Reports about a subscription service were true, as you’ll be paying a $24/month fee to use the AI tools. Shockingly, this small device can’t contain an entire AI model, so it will need to connect to the chatbot through the internet. You’ll receive your internet service through T-Mobile, and it also grants you a phone number.
This subscription will also get you a certain amount of cloud storage and the ability to make unlimited queries.
Usage
So, how will you use this device? Well, the AI Pin has a camera, microphone, speaker, and tiny projector. It will use the camera to scan its environment, a functionality it showed off during the Ted Talk. You’ll use it to scan objects and ask it questions about what it scanned. You could probably scan a sea shell and ask it what type of shell it is.
Since it doesn’t have a screen, it will use an AI-generated voice to tell you through the speaker. That could be rather inconvenient in situations when you need to be quiet or when your environment is too loud. However, the company has two solutions for this. Firstly, there’s a little projector on the device that will show you information on a nearby surface (most likely, your hand). Secondly, the AI Pin can connect to Bluetooth headphones.
In order to use the device, you’ll need to activate it, but we don’t know how that works yet. This is good as many people would be concerned about the fact that it comes with several sensors onboard. People worried about their privacy would be happy to know that the device is not always listening. In fact, the device has a trust light that shines when the sensors are in use.
Interacting with the AI Pin
The Pin has a little projector, and we saw that it projected some buttons onto Imran Chaudhri’s hand. The incoming call screen and the active call screen all had buttons on them that make it look like you’re able to tap on the area on your hand with those buttons to interact with the device. That’s a neat functionality, but we don’t know if that’s how it will work.
However, we know that the pin will have a capacitive touch screen that you can interact with. We’re not sure if the device will employ one or both.
Charging
The Pin will attach to your clothes through a magnetic clip. The clip will also act as a battery backup (called a “Battery Booster”) to keep the device charged. So, if need be, you could swap out batteries on the fly.
The document makes it seem like you’re getting two batteries in the box with your purchase. Hopefully, the company will allow users to purchase battery packs in case people want more.
AI
Rumors pointed to the AI Pin using OpenAI’s GPT-4 language model, however, we’re not 100% sure about that. The Pin uses humane’s proprietary operating system called Cosmos, and it seems like it will be able to summon different AIs for different purposes. According to the report, this is reminiscent of GPT-4’s functionality. That’s something we’ll need to wait for the official announcement to know.
The AI Pin is something that might change the way we view AI. We’ll have to wait to see if it is truly the next stage in mobile technology.