21–30 of 45 posts
A bit off topic perhaps but what's difficult about making this a product? Please forgive my ignorance. Its just a microphone, speaker, could be a Bluetooth controller and a battery, and have it go through your phone. Maybe a small local neural net to monitor for keyword locally. I guess it's a few more parts if you don't want it to go through your phone, but is that all that's happening here? What am I missing? Is th…
A bit off topic perhaps but what's difficult about making this a product? Please forgive my ignorance. Its just a microphone, speaker, could be a Bluetooth controller and a battery, and have it go through your phone. Maybe a small local neural net to monitor for keyword locally. I guess it's a few more parts if you don't want it to go through your phone, but is that all that's happening here? What am I missing? Is th…
This is something you can accomplish very easily in a ESP32 form factor, streaming audio over wifi/bluetooth. However, it doesn't fully deliver the same experience; the goal was for it to replace your phone, so it needs to support a lot more functionality such as data persistence, offline support, notifications, cellular, maybe some form of visual IO (the laser projector), etc. From my perspective I was just interest…
Debatable. The pin ran hot and had a short battery life, often less than a day even with the extended battery. The magnetic attachment was fiddly to use, and some users had trouble with it not staying put. The laser projector had serious usability problems - it wasn't very bright or clear, and interacting with the projected image (which was required to unlock the device, among other features) was extremely awkward.
One can argue that some of these are implementation issues, but working within the limitations of available technology is an inextricable part of industrial design. Dreaming up a perfect fantasy device is easy; designing one which can actually be implemented is much harder.
“ Suddenly one day about a week in I got a random anonymous message on Signal containing a single file of 1,704 bytes. I cautiously examine this rogue file in a hex editor and find that it looks like a real private key.”
I’m very unfamiliar with Android development so I’m not sure what the author is implying here. Is this some random Humane owner sending his key to him, or maybe a former Humane employee?
They are cool but both Humane pin and the Rabbit R1 products were largely flops and failures. I do hope in the next 10-20 years this same tech will advance and actually work and be cool.
The actual idea itself seems flawed rather than just the implementation. Ordering an uber on your phone and seeing where it is on the map is always going to be easier than trying to do it through voice and a hand projector. And the rabbit was just an android app bundled with a low end phone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The actual idea itself seems flawed rather than just the implementation. Ordering an uber on your phone and seeing where it is on the map is always going to be easier than trying to do it through voice and a hand projector. And the rabbit was just an android app bundled with a low end phone.
I agree. It looked like a solution in search of a problem. Which is very common when everyone has big hires screens and oodles of compute power in their pocket. What can a new entrant offer which couldn't be an app?
Laptops put a computer in your backpack.
Smartphones put a computer in your pocket.
(I’m not sure what is next, but it’s coming, eventually.)
This part confused me: “ Suddenly one day about a week in I got a random anonymous message on Signal containing a single file of 1,704 bytes. I cautiously examine this rogue file in a hex editor and find that it looks like a real private key.” I’m very unfamiliar with Android development so I’m not sure what the author is implying here. Is this some random Humane owner sending his key to him, or maybe a former Humane…
Seeing that it's a super flawed idea, surprising that Humane put in so much effort in this product. I thought it was just a quick cash grab attempt.