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To fold, close, roll around the arm. Smartphones can now take on any shape, depending on the creativity of those behind their design. No longer just pocket objects but design frills, to show, wear, match with your outfit. All the result of the perennial, omnipresent digitalisation that pervades every corner of our lives. Can we therefore rethink these products, not only in design but conceptually, perhaps bringing them back to their essential nature but without depriving them of functionality? Two former Apple engineers, Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, already working on Apple’s historic pieces, from iPods to iPhones, are trying.
The idea is a mobile phone (even if it’s hard to define it that way) the size of which is slightly larger than an AirPods case. It already has everything inside: a Snapdragon processor, telephone antenna also for data connection, a camera with LED flash and, above all, ChatGpt. What is it for? Given the absence of a display, integration with what is called “Ai Pin” occurs mainly through voice. But not only that: near the photographic sensor, the startup that produces it, Humane, has integrated a small projector that can reproduce basic, monochromatic information on the palm of the hand or towards a surface in front, from the time to notifications and multimedia controller . The emails are read by AI while the photos and videos, once captured, end up in the cloud space “offered” to the customer for 24 dollars a month, which also includes a cellular and data plan, in addition to the cost of 699 dollars to travel to home the gadget.
Obviously the presence of ChatGpt opens up much broader usage scenarios than these. For example, Humane, in the little information released so far, has already anticipated that AI, via the camera, can scan foods and provide an estimate of the nutritional content. It’s a short step from the assistant who tells us what the weather is like to the one who scolds us for eating too many sweets. The accessory is available in three colors: Eclipse, Equinox and Lunar, weighs 34 grams and has a clip to be attached to clothes. The flaw seems to be the battery, which lasts very little, which is why there will also be an additional package on sale, which gives more charging by placing the extra battery on the back of Ai Pin, magnetically.
“Ai Pin is the embodiment of our vision to integrate artificial intelligence into the fabric of everyday life, enhancing people’s capabilities without obscuring our humanity,” Chaudhri said in a statement. Ai Pin will be available in the United States from November 16th also thanks to OpenAI, which contributed to the 241 million dollar round raised by the startup.
Smartphone as-a-service
Humane’s objective is clear: to offer a complete package, ranging from the supply of the mobile phone to that of services. It is no coincidence that with the 24 dollars required per month, the connection to the network takes place on the T-Mobile network but with the digital superstructure of the startup itself. Humane is both a hardware manufacturer and virtual operator and develops the operating system in-house. No Android or anything similar but Cosmos OS, which the guys define as “built internally on an artificial intelligence framework”. It is all very different from today’s concept of purchasing a smartphone with an operator, for one reason above all: 699 dollars is the price for which a person would purchase a mobile phone without any contractual constraints, which instead exist here. Furthermore, 24 dollars a month is not even insignificant to obtain what other providers allow you to have with a lower expense. In short, it is innovation at any cost that demands payment, beyond the value it promises to give to the consumer. Freeing yourself from the extremism of the touch screen is possible, and Humane has set the price.