'humane AI pin' works as wearable smartphone that projects calls, apps, and more on hands

Humane AI pin introduces a non-physical smartphone

Humane AI Pin is a wearable projector that is pinned on clothes and works as a non-physical smartphone by flashing apps, calls, and voice assistance on hands or surfaces. Built from the ground up using artificial intelligence and by a former Apple design director Imran Chaudhri and his team, Humane AI Pin debuts a glimpse of its overall functionality at TED2023 in Vancouver, Canada. From its initial design, the finger-sized pin is equipped with cameras to scan and see the surroundings, hidden sensors to activate it, and built-in speakers.

Chaudhri leads the introduction where he can be seen answering the call from his wife as the pin attached to his jacket flashes the call onto his palm. The moment his wife Bethany Bongiorno, also an Apple alumnus in the software engineering sector, calls, Chaudhri is able to answer the phone call not by touching the green button usually found on smartphones but seemingly by his lexical command of ‘I’m going to have to get this.’ This phrase is synonymous with answering the call, hence triggering the pick-up function for the phone call.

Chaudhri adds that the user does not even need a smartphone or other electronics to pair with Humane AI Pin – they just need to wear it or pin it on their clothes to activate its features. It might sound like a Black Mirror episode, imagining people in a world where technology has become even more futuristic, but slowly and surely, Humane sets its eyes on truly releasing the wearable projector and smartphone in the near future.

images courtesy of Humane | screenshots courtesy of TED

Wearable projector that has smartphone functionality

Humane AI Pin uses optical sensors that allow contextual and ambient compute interactions to unfold a seamless, screenless, and sensing-based technology for the wearable projector and smartphone. In another example as seen in the video, Chaudhri asks the pin where he can find a gift for his wife before he leaves the city the next day. He does so by first putting his finger on the pin, implying where the sensors are located. After a few seconds, perhaps drawn from question analysis and seeking the fitting answer, Humane AI Pin gives a concrete answer – Vancouver’s Granville Island, in this case – to his question.

The wearable smartphone and projector also functions as a voice assistant beyond web search and quick queries. It seems that it can also become a personal assistant reminding the user of their health issues and helping them with their indecisiveness when it comes to decisions concerning their health. For instance, Chaudhri holds up a bar of chocolate in front of the pin and asks if he can eat it. Humane AI Pin answers by giving a description of the chocolate bar first before saying ‘given your intolerance, you may want to avoid it.’

Chaudhri believes that Ai presents a huge opportunity for people to redefine their relationship to technology and that it will enable personal mobile computing to become faster, more powerful, and easier to use. ‘The first Humane device will allow people to bring Ai with them everywhere and we’re really looking forward to revealing more at our launch later this year,’ he adds. Humane’s first device will be powered by an advanced Snapdragon platform from Qualcomm Technologies.

Humane AI Pin is a wearable projector that flashes apps on hands or surfaces, functioning as a non-physical smartphone