> I don't understand the insistence on using voice as the main interaction and ditching the screen.
There was a google i/o talk a few years back were they talked about users wanting multi-modal, an example being they ask for restaurant recommendations by voice, then get the list they can view on their device. Both query and results are presented in their easiest modal, and humans will naturally switch between them.
This thing seem dead on arrival. Who wants to hold their hand up like that? Who wants to look at an uneven "screen"? Can you use it while walking or experience the movement in a vehicle? (car, bus, subway)
I agree with you on all points except one. Arguably the uneven "screen" problem can be solved with a depth camera and warping the projection to match the contours of your hand. Since they already support hand gestures on the target hand it's possible they already have the equipment built-in to do this.
If you've used VR passthrough, you'll know that the latency will not work out well. You have to capture, analyze, calculate, and project in low, single digit milliseconds, against a moving target from a moving target
Eyes should stay mostly fixed relative to a pin on your chest, as long as you're looking in the same direction (ie your hand). I think the differences would be small enough, especially since the display seems pretty blurry anyway
Projection warping should be viewer position independent (within a limited scope), only relying on the position of the projector and the screen. Some home theater projectors which already do this to an extent. And there are some famous public performances where video is projected onto a building and warped to match the contours in such a way as to give a convincing 3d effect (Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ_5sDvAlNY). You can perform this kind of projection warping on a raspberry pi.
I repeat: it's a combadge. It solves the self-evident problem of there not being combadges available and in use.
Or, at least, it's almost a combadge. A good qualitative jump forward, but with plenty of unwanted features like subscription (I guess this could work for a Ferengi combadge), screen, wake words, etc. A combadge doesn't need to be an image projector, nor does it need rich tactile controls. But I guess you can improve the product-problem fit by ignoring those features.
People are thinking about the form factor after the cell phone. Apple is busy training everyone to use hand gestures with the new Apple Watch and upcoming Apple Vision. Humane is going down the path of projecting on the hand and touch.
"What comes next" is interesting as a problem formulation insofar as it encourages solution based thinking ("Here's the solution I think is next, for an problem still to be identified- other than it is what comes next.)
> People are thinking about the form factor after the cell phone.
That presumes there is one. There's not yet a "form factor after the car" for example. Just refinement of the same basic 4-wheeled template, with a few oddball vehicles for niche uses.
A possible indicator here is the apparent lack of demand for small screen phones. To me it suggests that screen real estate is more valuable than portability for most people.
This looks like a cool toy that high-level members of an organization will buy, and nobody else.
It can’t compete in the consumer space, because it doesn’t let you waste time on social media. It can’t compete in the corporate world because it doesn’t have a screen — no email, no spreadsheets, no collaborative chat application we’ve all grown used to. And it can’t even be great for photography, since you need another device to view the photos and videos this thing takes.
If this thing takes off for its impressive AI capabilities, smartphone makers can pump R&D into their AI, and give us this for free as a software update. But right now, the only people who will use this are folks whose job involves scheduling meetings and firing off quick text messages to colleagues and clients.
This thing is great for old people who can't see the screen. It is like a life alert on steroids that can order pizza. It is also great for kids for obvious reasons.
The guy had a Ted talk a while back going into his motivations. I believe the main one was he didn't like how phones get between you and the world, and take you out of the moment. This was an attempt to make tech that isn't a distraction in your life but that fades into the background. That was his driving principle, I believe.
I can see something like this filling a niche with the elderly population as like an external memory. (Or even just for forgetful adhd folks like myself, having something I can ask "wait, what did my wife just say to me 5 minutes ago?" ;) )
Black Mirror's "The Entire History of You" S1E03 episode has one take on what would happen if we could effortlessly record -- and replay -- everything. As with most Black Mirrors, there are some dark but believeable ideas.
Incidentally, it was written by Jess Armstrong who later created "Succession".
I recommend "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" by the brilliant Ted Chiang, a short story featuring a related social situation. People in the story use a recorder with highly advanced search and indexing capabilities so it becomes possible to instantly access a video of anywhere you've been, or of any conversation you've had.
The elderly example is actually an extremely good/thought provoking idea. I can imagine my Grandparents getting huge use out of this, including with smart home functionality, if it got to where it needs to get to.
Not just Apple. Any smart watch or ear buds with Google or Amazon AI. I think ear buds paired to a phone are already the perfect form factor for this kind of thing. My Pixel Buds are already pretty good at this and I absolutely never use it.
Part of me just wants to get rid of my phone if I get a device that does the actually useful things. Get info about something, checks and sends messages in a smart way, checks the bus.
Most of the other stuff is just idling. I don't expect I would idle in the same way with an actually good assistant that respects me.
But then I'd prefer an open source Wikipedia/Wikimedia like organisation behind it.
> Part of me just wants to get rid of my phone if I get a device that does the actually useful things. Get info about something, checks and sends messages in a smart way, checks the bus.
This requires an always-on device, or always-in-the-cloud server processing your data and pushing updates to your device.
The former is limited by physics (battery), the latter is limited by how much data you want accessed from the cloud. Neither are solved by open source.
The route is usually shown in great detail on your car's display. You also get a voice prompt just before you need to start thinking about turning. Is this a genuine problem?
I assume this pin will use GPS? It’s not always accurate. Sometimes the GPS is off. With a phone screen, you can better estimate where you’re standing by looking around you and then comparing what’s on the map.
For example, the GPS is almost never accurate in Hong Kong, when I visited.
A bit tongue in cheek - I said "instantly destroy" because if the main selling point is an ai voice assistant, then people would just use what's already built into their phone/watch/airpods instead of paying 600$ if apple was to implement a better LLM for siri.
I'm skeptical of the usefulness of the hand projection vs a watch. And I think anyone who wants to bring a camera would be far better served by an iphone (or any phone).
Why wouldn't I use my existing watch/phone/earbuds/pods instead of paying 600$+subscription for this?
I don't understand the insistence on using voice as the main interaction and ditching the screen.
At least google glass/AR let's me read