Secret Hardware Boot Humane’s first product is the Ai Pin

Image credits: Human

Humane, the startup launched by former Apple design and engineering duo Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, today revealed details about its first product: The Humane Ai Pin.

Has been a long time. Humane has kept its work more or less hidden since 2018, its founding year, without revealing any products but involving dozens of former Apple employees responsible for the iPhone’s touchscreen keyboard, elements of Apple’s industrial design and infrastructure for Apple services such as iCloud, Apple Pay and Home.

The Humanes product, it turns out, is a wearable gadget with a projected display and AI-powered capabilities. Chaudhri demoed the device live on stage during a TED Talk in April, but a press release released today provides some additional details.

THE [AI Pin is a] The clothing-based intelligent connected wearable uses a range of sensors that enable contextual and environmental computing interactions, the release reads. Ai Pin is a type of autonomous device with a software platform that harnesses the power of Ai to enable innovative personal computing experiences.

By eliminating marketing jargon, the Ai Pin will be able to take on many of the tasks a smartphone can do, but with fewer gestures and voice commands required. Activated with a tap, the Ai Pin, designed to clip to a breast pocket, can offer a summary of emails and calendar invitations, translate from one language to another, and answer and make phone calls.

Thanks to a camera and computer vision-based software, the Ai Pin can also recognize objects around it, such as nutrition labels on foods. And 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 the surface of a table.

Image credits: Human

Our Ai Pin represents an opportunity for people to take AI with them everywhere and unlock a new era of personal mobile computing that is seamless, screenless and responsive, said Chaudhri and Bongiorno in a candid statement. .

Humane also revealed today that it is partnering with Qualcomm to develop the Ai Pins internal hardware. An unnamed chip from the Qualcomms Snapdragon series will power the wearable; Humans promise more information to come over the year before the devices launch.

Humanes Ai Pin will deliver superior AI experience, Ziad Asghar, senior vice president of product management at Qualcomm, said in the release: With the advent of generative AI, Humanes Ai Pin and user experience excellently leverage some of the AI device and uses real-time contextual information to provide you with exciting and personalized AI use cases.

Humane previously announced its partnerships with SK Networks and Microsoft to bring its platform and services to market, with Microsoft providing the cloud processing power and SK Networks handling the distribution. Meanwhile, Humanes is partnering with OpenAI to integrate its technology into the device of startups, whatever form it ends up taking, exactly. LG, for its part, is working with Humane on R&D projects for the next phase of its product lifecycle, as well as adapting Humanes technology for smart home devices. And Volvo is collaborating with Humane on a potential offer for the automotive industry.

To date, San Francisco-based Humane, which has a workforce of more than 200, has raised $230 million from investors including 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.