Cuộc đặt cược táo bạo mang tính khoa học viễn tưởng của Thung lũng Silicon vào thiết bị ra đời sau điện thoại thông minh

It was just weeks before the start-up’s gadget, the Ai Pin, would be revealed to the world — a culmination (đỉnh cao) of five years, $240 million in funding, 25 patents, a steady drumbeat (tiếng trống) of hype (sự cường điệu) and partnerships with a list of top tech companies, including OpenAI, Microsoft and Salesforce.

Their mission (nhiệm vụ)? No less than liberating (giải phóng) the world from its smartphone addiction (nghiện). The solution? More technology.

Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, Humane’s husband-and-wife founders, envision a future with less dependency (phụ thuộc) on the screens that their former employer, Apple, made ubiquitous (phổ biến).

They’re billing the pin as the first artificially intelligent device. It can be controlled by speaking aloud, tapping a touch pad or projecting a laser display onto the palm (lòng bàn tay) of a hand. In an instant, the device’s virtual assistant can send a text message, play a song, snap a photo, make a call or translate (dịch) a real-time conversation (cuộc trò chuyện thời gian thực) into another language. The system relies on A.I. to help answer questions (“What’s the best way to load the dishwasher?”) and can summarize incoming messages with the simple command: “Catch me up.”

... At Humane, there’s deep anxiety (lo lắng) about the weeks ahead. The tech industry has a large graveyard (nghĩa địa) of wearable (đeo được) products that have failed to catch on (không phát triển được). Humane will begin shipping the pins next year. It expects to sell around 100,000 pins, which will cost $699 and require a $24 monthly subscription, in the first year. (Apple sold 381,000 iPods in the year after its 2001 launch.)