Pinned spin?

Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno were sitting under a palm tree in Hawaii. They were there to meet the head of a software company called Salesforce. When they showed him two devices, he pointed to one of them: "This one," he said, "is huge."

The device was the AIA computer programme that has been designed to think.  Pin. It weighs slightly less than a tennis ball and is about half the size of a cigarette packet. It is designed to be worn on clothing.

Tapping it allows you to talk to a virtual assistant which can answer questions, help you make phone calls or send texts. It uses a laser to project text and images on your hand.

It can also take photos and translate a conversation into another language as it takes place.

Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno are a husband-and-wife team who met at Apple. Together they set up a company called Humane. Creating the AI Pin took five years and cost £195m.¹

Many other tech companies have been searching for a successor to the smartphone. Apple has been investigating mixed-reality headsets. But, says Chaudhri, "The future is not on your face."²

He wanted to create something which was as useful as an iPhone but less addictiveSo enjoyable that you do not want to stop.. It would work for you without the temptation to follow a link or swipe to see another TikTok video.

One of their team, Jose Benitez Cong, said he joined to help him "get over my guilt of working on the iPhone".

The AI Pin costs £570 plus a £20 monthly subscription. But some features such as videos will not be available to begin with. Further ones are being worked on, such as a calorie-counterCalorie counting is a method of self-monitoring that estimates how much energy (calories) we consume each day. connected to the camera.

"To tech insiders, it's a moonshot," write Erin Griffith and Tripp Mickle in The New York Times. "To outsiders, it's a sci-fi fantasy."

Can it live up to the hype?

Yes: Chaudhri and Bongiorno have huge experience in this field and have two of the world's leading tech companies as partners. They would not be releasing AI Pin if they did not believe it would work.

No: The more complicated devices like this are, the bigger the chance they will go wrong. At its launch the AI Pin was asked a general knowledge question about a solar eclipseA solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, casting a shadow over parts of Earth and blocking the face of the Sun for observers in those locations. which it got wrong.

Or... Even if it works, people may not want it. According to Erin Griffith and Tripp Mickle, "The tech industry has a large graveyard of wearable products that have failed to catch on."