Ex-Apple Veterans Preview Wearable, Screenless Projector Powered For Daily Life
Photo 110574525 © Roman Volskiy | Dreamstime.com
Over the years, handsets have been inching toward an ideal of being wireless, weightless, and non-disruptive. The new technology just unveiled by top-secret startup Humane seems to have it all.
During a TED Talk on Thursday, former longtime Apple designer Imran Chaudhri presented for the first time a screen-free, AI-powered wearable that his company has been working on. As it seems, the highly secretive venture founded by Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno—a former director of software engineering at Apple and his wife—has already had some solid backing by tech industry greats. The startup has raised US$230 million with the help of investors like LG Technology Ventures, Microsoft, Qualcomm Ventures, Kindred Ventures, Volvo Cars Tech Fund, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
As demonstrated at the keynote address, the interface is a tiny projector that sits in your shirt pocket. It doesn’t need a smartphone to work—it beams essential information, like call details, onto your palm or a wall.
Humane, as its name indicates, is all about utilizing artificial intelligence in the most empowering way for humans.
“What do we do with all these incredible [AI] developments? And how do we actually harness these to genuinely make our life better? If we get this right, AI will unlock a world of possibility,” Chaudhri announced at his presentation.
“Today, I want to share with you what we think is a solution to that end. And it’s the first time we're doing so openly. It’s a new kind of wearable device, that and platform that’s built entirely from the ground-up for artificial intelligence. And it’s completely standalone.”
In one example, Chaudhri answered a phone call from his wife, Humane’s CEO, by lifting his hand, which displayed crucial call information without the clutter of a menu, reports designer Michael Mofina, who saw a prematurely uploaded video of the TED Talk before it was taken down.
This is @Humane's demo at @TEDTalks 🤯 pic.twitter.com/22wFSYE9JA
— Zarif (@ZarifAli9) April 21, 2023
Chaudhri also revealed how the wearable could translate his voice into French.
The @Humane wearable doing English->French AI translation in your own voice... wow. (SOUND ON)
— Ray Wong (@raywongy) April 21, 2023
Video credit @ZarifAli9
Read the exclusive on the Humane wearable's features: https://t.co/TYRmtYPSYI pic.twitter.com/cmAWEU8DFS
In another instance, he held a candy bar in front of the gadget and asked the device, “Can I eat this?” To which, the Humane product responded that the bar contained cocoa butter, and “given your intolerance, you may want to avoid it.”
@humane's device helping you decide what you can and cannot eat based on knowing your preferences and dietary restrictions. pic.twitter.com/PFwEAsNxDI
— Michael Mofina (@MichaelMofina) April 21, 2023
Chaudhri used this opportunity to prove that the future was human-first by defying the AI’s device and declaring that he was going to eat the candy bar anyway. “Enjoy it,” the wearable voiced out.
“It interacts with the world the way you interact with the world, hearing what you hear, seeing what you see, while being privacy-first, and safe, and completely fading into the background of your life,” he explained.
In lieu of notifications, which users have found to be more and more anxiety-inducing in recent years, the wearable seems to also have a ‘catch me up’ feature that culls daily happenings, like meeting notes, and summarizes them into a recap of things you may have missed, such as: “You got an email, and Bethany sent you some photos.”
Chaudhri shared that more details about this mysterious device will be disclosed in the coming months.
It’s hard to watch the presentation without comparing it with the life-changing moment when Steve Jobs first introduced the iPhone. Could this innovation be the one to finally replace the smartphone?
