In the tech world, talks about the future of smartphones have become an important topic that often comes up time again. The past few decades have seen the rise of smartphones and iPhone, which keeps developing to add new features to make lives smoother.
But Imran Chaudhuri, founder of Humane, has developed a product that can replace smartphones in the coming decades. The product offers the same use as a smartphone but with AI assistance that does not need hands to operate it. Learn what this new product is and who is the person behind this new product.
Who is Imran Chaudhri?
Imran Chaudhri is a British-American designer who founded the company Humane, which created a wearable AI that can replace smartphones in the future. A former employee of Apple plans to change the future of the tech world by replacing smartphones with his company’s developed wearable AI Pin.
Imran Chaudhri is also one of the six-member team that designed the original iPhone. He is known for designing the user interface and interactions in iPhone. He also worked as a designer for several other Apple products like Apple computer or Mac, iPod, Apple TV, AirPods, HomePod, iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch.
He worked at Apple for two decades before starting his company, Humane.
Imran Chaudhri’s Time At Apple
Imran Chaudhri worked closely with Steve Jobs, who invented iPhone. He joined Apple as an intern in 1995 and worked his way up to become the design director of Apple’s human interfaces group. He has hundreds of patents to his name, including the “slide to unlock” patent.
He also played an important role in designing the Home Screen of the iPhone.In 2016, according to Tripp Mickle’s book “After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul,” Apple’s core design team started to break apart.
After Jony Ive stepped down from the daily management duties after working under Steve Jobs for a decade, Imran Chaudhri contemplated leaving Apple after a few months. He informed other design team members, including Jony Ive and Alan Dye, about his decision.
He planned to leave the company after collecting his part of the equity shares as a part of his compensation from the company. A month before his departure, he sent his colleagues an email announcing his departure from Apple.
He quoted the Persian poet Rumi in his email, “When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
Further adding, “Sadly, rivers dry out, and when they do, you look for a new one,” that referred to the state of affairs in the company after Steve Jobs’s death and leadership under Tim Cook.
After this email, Alan Dye fired Imran, stating his email had financial implications, and his remark interpreted that the best days of Apple were over. He was denied of his compensation in equity shares, too. Chaudhri left the company in 2017 to focus on starting his own company.
What Is Humane?
In 2017, Imran Chaudhri started his own company, Humane, alongside his wife, Bethany Bongiormo, and another former employee of Apple who led Apple’s software development team for Apple computers, iPhones, and iPads.Humane is based in San Francisco, USA.
Humane aim was hidden until recently and did not reveal what they worked on. Earlier this year, Imran Chaudhri revealed a snippet of what they were working on all these years in Ted Talk and Paris Fashion Week.
They developed an Artificial Intelligence or AI Pin to wear on your clothes and voice access. Smartphones and reality headsets all come with displays that help us do different activities. But Chaudhri’s Humane focused on creating a device without display or screens.
Combining artificial intelligence with screen-free computing hardware to create an AI Pin that works the same as a smartphone without having to carry it. You can just wear it over your shirt and use its different camera on top of the pin and sensors to project a visual interface on any surface, including hands or tabletops, to access it.
You can pin it on your chest and send texts, click pictures, or use its powerful virtual assistant to do your command. The virtual assistant is as good as ChatGPT, claims Chaudhri. The AI Pin is the first product made by Humane.
In last week’s Ted Talk, Imran Chaudhri talked about the AI pin: “This is so much more than devices just getting smaller or more powerful. This is the possibility of re-imagining the human-technology relationship as we know it.”
Chaudhri envisions this new AI Pin will work more efficiently than any smartphone and has the potential to replace the present smartphone market.
AI Pin
AI Pin is set to go on sale from 16th November in the United States and priced at 699 dollars. The AI Pin also comes with 24 monthly pass from T-Mobile that offers unlimited texting, calling, and data. The orders will be shipped in early 2024, which can bring forth a new change in the latest tech market.
AI Pin comes with a magnetic attachment that can easily be attached to your clothing and used with voice commands. AI Pin offers its users Microsoft and Open AI-powered AI tools to command action from the device without using your hand.
The Humane AI Pin has sensors and cameras to project a visual interface on any surface. It has an ultra video camera, laser projector, and depth detectors. You can activate the hardware product using voice, gesture, touch, or laser ink display. It does away with downloading apps or finding things on your phone with your hands.
In the last few decades, smartphones and iPhones have captured the industry, making several developments. But recently, not many changes have been seen in the devices other than increased size or bringing back old features like fold. With new development in the Artificial Intelligence sector, the incorporation of AI with computer or other applications are being experimented on to develop something new in the tech market. From Robotics Process Automation using AI to combining software with AI to create an application like ChatGPT, many developments are taking place in the tech market.
Humane Workforce Consists Of Former Apple Employees
Humane consists of 50% of employees who formerly worked for Apple. After leaving Apple, Imran Chaudhri brought in many Apple employees to work in his company. The creator of the iPhone’s touchscreen keyboard, Ken Kocienda, works as a product architect in Humane since late 2020.
Apple’s former team member of the industrial design group (2007-19), Gary Schulz, works as a lead industrial designer and head of services at Humane since August 2022. Schulz was in charge of engineering at Apple for Home, Apple Pay, and iCloud.
Humane has raised 230 million dollars in funding, with a reported company valuation of 850 million dollars. Some of the investors in the company are Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce Microsoft, and investments from LG, Qualcomm, and Volvo.
Seems like Apple’s new competition, AI Pin, might be just the one that changes the smartphone game in this decade. Let us wait and see how Imran Chaudhri’s Humane AI Pin fares in the market in the coming months.
Will it give tough competition to Apple and other smartphones in the market or become a flop?
Share your thoughts with us on this latest device. Who knows, 2024 might just be the start of a new era of AI-operated screen-less devices.
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