gedaliyahHumane AI Pin is a disaster: Founders already want to sell the company
Gradually_AdjustingRemember when nerds used to be smarter than us? That was awesome.
kat_angstromNerds still are smarter than us.
Unfortunately a cult of managers has arisen to rule over the nerds and they hype with an iron fist.
Semi-Hemi-DemigodManagers realized that the nerds' autism could be exploited for profit
It’s important to realize that the nerd you saw on the news has always been someone wearing nerd as a costume and the entire history of technology is loaded with examples of the real nerd being marginalized. It’s just that in ages past the VC’s would give a smaller amount of money and require the startup to go through concrete milestones to unlock all of it so there was more of a chance for the founder’s dreams to smack up against reality before they were $230m in the hole with no product worth selling.
Sundray20 years ago, the big question VCs were asking their startups was, “How do we convince Microsoft to buy this company?” Simpler times, back then.
10 years ago it was “how do we convince Google to buy this company?”
So this is scam right? Overpromise on a product that doesn’t work then sell the company for some huge price because it’s cutting edge technology? Because it feels like a scam.
Yeah, the product was a boondoggle. Trying to sell the company after that launch, with nothing else in the pipeline, is a scam.
They’re all scams. This one’s just more obvious.
Anything with “AI” in the title is a cash grab with very little actual technical worth except the models and training data.
Pretty much anything with AI on the tin is a scam. Because when an AI product gets a useful valuable application, it immediately changes name to something else.
remember how over the past few years almost everything brand new had the word “blockchain” shoehorned into it for no good reason?
This is the same kind of thing. It’s an atrocious boondoggle. There must still be a serious amount of cocaine floating around Venture Capitalist parties, because one of those boys is gonna drop 500M on this company and think they bought the dip, when in fact they, themselves, are the dip.
xavier666I can’t even remember the last time when some hot new technology changed our lives significantly. I’m inclined to say Android because it was a new mobile OS and now it’s everywhere and various devices but even that is more than a decade old.
ඞmirBluetooth ANC IEMs/earbuds were rare a decade ago, and now I see half the people around me wearing them all day
helenslunchremember how over the past few years almost everything brand new had the word “blockchain” shoehorned into it
I don’t think “Blockchain” ever reached anywhere near this level of shoehornery.
oh, for a while there, it was close. things have changed even in the past 2 months since I wrote that comment.
Scam how? Selling pre-launch could have been a scam. Money taken from investors could have been a scam, depending on what they pitched. But selling after a complete and known flop of a release? There’s no cards left on the table to be scammy about. “Here’s our brand name. Here’s our patent collection. We’d like to think our patents are worth a ton of money, but we know we’d be lucky getting twenty million.”
My assumption is that, since they were always going to be about collecting, processing, and selling data (usually what AI is used for commercially) that they might have what they think is between 500m and 1b in data to sell.
This might be enough to start a company from or just to assimilate the data into your own company.
The price tag has to be over estimated though by quite a lot. If we read a story about the company selling for a few million, I dont think it would seem outrageous.
It’s just how the us economy works
ekZeppdramatic music score
ghewlTheir adoption plan was just wrong. Few people want to give up their phones, and the general public has had enough of a learning curve struggle with mobile phones. The device didn’t make sense, at least not in its current state.
The AI bubble will burst soon, and when it does, real innovation will happen.
They designed a product that doesn’t solve a problem that anyone has. On top of that they designed something that doesn’t even work well.
Yep, at high price+monthly fee, too.
If they had a couple of unbeatable patents that they just could figure out how to turn into products, that’s almost forgivable – you blew your launch, so you sell out to a company who has the resources to make your ideas into something the public will buy. But as far as I can tell, these guys don’t really have any IP worth buying them out for.
And it was overpriced. I can see people buying a useless toy for 50 bucks, but not for $700.
I never looked into it, but assumed it was just like an “echo dot”. May deserves a premium for being smaller and belatedly powered, as much as $30?
Even if they did want to give up their phones, they wouldn’t for anything with a two to four hour device. Let alone something that only has a mild neato factor of a low powered laser projector. Smart watches do the same shit with a longer battery life and virtually no one’s replacing their phones with those, either.
And even smartwatches found their own niche on the well being and health space. Since being constantly attached to your wrist they can monitor heart-rate, blood pressure, walking cadence and steps taken. A perfect sport training partner. But this thing doesn’t have any such hook.
Elias GriffinWhen you find out you were only good because you drank the trillion dollar brand Kool-Aid.
Here is female founder’s LinkedIn background image, web search result top 20, with that thing on.
media.licdn.com/dms/image/…/1700176960650?e=21474…
Demographic is…I mean was?
Here is an awkward photo of both Founders: images.fastcompany.net/…/i-Bethany-and-Imran.jpg
They wanted so bad to be the next Jobs-Wozniak duo. They even made their marketing and presentations coded to look Apple like. There’s a really cringe presentation of Imran showing the pin, and he literally pauses after grand statements several times waiting for cheers and applause, but the audience is completely silence. Once they applaud out of pity or something after an awkwardly long pause, and the dude says something like “thanks, finally” or something along those lines. They were extremely cringe and awkward all the time.
This is the same as Ben Shapiro telling people to sell their houses once Florida goes under water from a climate crisis. To who? Neptune?
Obviously to the Merfolk…duh!
“Spectacular custom built oceanback, home, impressive land views & only a 5 minutes swim to the beach!”
Fucking Aquaman
He really said that? Lol, I’d listen to that gladly, I despise the moron. Do you have a source?
Here. Classic example of yapping too fast and expecting people to not realize how much nonsense it is
SELL THEIR HOUSES TO WHO, BEN?
Dem BosainDo they accept NFTs?
Why not? They can only go up in value!
Maybe you could resale the one nabbit ured to sell to you !
Honestly, it seems like the only appropriate “currency” to pay for this.
Rabbit R1 will soon to follow
photonic_sorcererMeh, that one is cheap enough and has a passable update cycle, I’d say it can stay relevant.
It is also created by a crypto-scheme company. So I’m not sure I have too much confidence
demonswordthat one is cheap enough
Rabbit Holed
Thank you to Emily Shepherd for her hard work reporting parts of this story, as well as her assistance clarifying details related to GAMA and finding company documents related to Rabbit and Cyber Manufacture. In November 2021, a company called Cyber Manufacture Co raised $6 million for its “Next Generation
It’s cool tech that is ahead of its time. 5-10 years from now, a big tech company will make something like this and everyone will cry Huzzah!
Magic Leap went the same route.
It would be prettier useful to have one of those com badges from Star Trek. That seems to be the form factor.
What now successful tech is this Magic Leap? I don’t think I have heard of them.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Leap
Judging by the downvotes, I didn’t state my point well enough. Magic Leap took a LOT of money, got a lot of hype, and nearly went out of business multiple times.
But they were also the first ones to demonstrate and kick off overlaying data on top of real world, what we now call Augmented Reality. Their implementation was clunky and the device was expensive, but it showed people a glimpse of what was possible in a head-mounted, immersive form factor. 10 years later, Apple released the Vision Pro which used different tech, but did pretty much what ML1 was trying to do.
I think the Humane AI pin tried some interesting concepts, but is heading in the same direction. The idea of a small, wearable, AI device is interesting. Ten years from now, when you can run it all on-device and have a hands-free, GPT-8 level conversation with it with no cloud connection may well be a yawn.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Leap
Judging by the downvotes, I didn’t state my point well enough. Magic Leap took a LOT of money, got a lot of hype, and nearly went out of business multiple times.
But they were also the first ones to demonstrate and kick off overlaying data on top of real world, what we now call Augmented Reality. Their implementation was clunky and the device was expensive, but it showed people a glimpse of what was possible in a head-mounted, immersive form factor. 10 years later, Apple released the Vision Pro which used different tech, but did pretty much what ML1 was trying to do.
I think the Humane AI pin tried some interesting concepts, but is heading in the same direction. The idea of a small, wearable, AI device is interesting. Ten years from now, when you can run it all on-device and have a hands-free, GPT-8 level conversation with it with no cloud connection may well be a yawn.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Leap
Judging by the downvotes, I didn’t state my point well enough. Magic Leap took a LOT of money, got a lot of hype, and nearly went out of business multiple times.
But they were also the first ones to demonstrate and kick off overlaying data on top of real world, what we now call Augmented Reality. Their implementation was clunky and the device was expensive, but it showed people a glimpse of what was possible in a head-mounted, immersive form factor. 10 years later, Apple released the Vision Pro which used different tech, but did pretty much what ML1 was trying to do.
I think the Humane AI pin tried some interesting concepts, but is heading in the same direction. The idea of a small, wearable, AI device is interesting. Ten years from now, when you can run it all on-device and have a hands-free, GPT-8 level conversation with it with no cloud connection may well be a yawn.
Edited my post to explain better.
I understand your point but there is a huge difference between the 2 products.
Right now, we are basically asking AI pin companies “Why can’t this be an app?” And they are giving us vague dodgy corporate answers. Magic leap is a fundamentally different product from a standard smartphone. It failed because the hardware wasn’t there yet even though there was a lot of interest.
In 2023, even with a company like Apple, Apple Vision is seeing slow adoption rates of the product. Why? Bulky + power hungry + expensive, similar issues from back then, albeit to a lesser degree. Till the technology becomes accessible, it will remain as a niche. It has the potential to change a lot of things in healthcare and manufacturing but it still has a long way to go.
The metaverse is also suffering from a similar problem. What can the metaverse do that 2nd Life/Minecraft can’t do? It needs be better than the existing solutions while still having a low barrier to entry price-wise. Do note I’m completely skipping the fact that it’s being heavily pushed by a privacy nightmare of a company.
alright guys I’ll take one for the team and buy the company
Relevant username.
I’m gonna buy you too windie
I’ve got some chores that need to get done, how much can I rent your guys for?
Pretty sure that’s been illegal since 1865
Like with everything, only if you do not have enough money.