$750m? That company worth about three fiddy.
this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
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Surprised Pikachu
I want to say up front that, I don't feel any sympathy for the company, nor do I have any love for the ewaste they created.
That being said, it's a decent idea, and I would have liked to see where it went. Their implementation was completely wrong on do many points, but it was still a half decent idea. Basically having what Google assistant should have been, pinned to your chest like a comm badge sounds pretty cool. The laser projector for your hand was interesting, but very hokey, the data communication was poorly thought out, far too slow to be useful, the design wasn't the worst, but still not great. The battery life was questionable at best....
But the concept of what it was supposed to be able to do, was not terrible. Possibly the last terrible part of the product.
Personally, I want a personal assistant. Since I'm not rich, I can't exactly hire one. Having an AI assistant, that you talk to through a communications badge seems like a decent idea. I'd want it to basically run from my phone, mostly local to my phone, so my data isn't pushed everywhere, but the tech isn't quite there yet. Not enough TOPS, not enough memory, not enough storage for all the models; and certainly not enough battery to power AI running on your phone.
I can see what they were going for but they fell so far short of the goal that it's not really visible in what was delivered.
I imagine the pitch meeting about this being something along the lines of a guy rushing in after watching Star Trek discovery, when they got the holographic comm badges, and going, I want to make that! With the Zora AI and everything! And then people jumping on the bandwagon, knowing full well that they're not even going to come close.
I hope everyone that works there gets new jobs in sectors that aren't using AI as a parlor trick or buzzword to try to move units.
Good bye, company I don't care enough to remember the name of. We hardly knew you, and even that was probably too much interaction.
Absolutely none of this was a good idea.
Who would have guess that another overpriced solution to a non existent problem that no one wants would have been a commercial failure ....
We are in a capitalist dystopia. We could be using AI to predict energy usage and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, or help in discovering new protein folds ... but no ... Timmy wants to look like a cool futuristic dude and he's willing to pay $600 to look cooler than his peers
Yeah their videos were what everyone wants but their actual product was way more clumsy and primitive. Technology isn't there yet for what these guys were trying to make.
We could be using AI to predict energy usage and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels
That's happening
or help in discovering new protein folds
That too.
There's always been barnacles on the ship of progress. That doesn't mean it's only barnacles.
"barnacles in the ship of technology"
I really like that one. Very well put
these people live in a delusion, chasing star trek fantasies while the general population can barely afford rent. we are truly due for the chickens to come home to roost.
i just hope a lot of innocent animals don't get hurt in the process.
Surely the Star Trek fantasy is doing the above stuff. Star Trek is all about how money doesn't exist in the future
The problem is they're not creating a Star Trek future
who could have forseen that "the app, as a hardware device" wouldnt sell well.
I could see it being useful if it was an accessory to your phone. Not having to dig my phone out of my pocket to take a picture of something to look it up, or having a push-to-talk badge or pendant would make it more convenient, especially for folks like me who don't wear watches. And with Bluetooth it would have decent battery life.
But the damn thing can't even set a timer.
A lot of the form factor is already mostly available in smart watches. They have to, at the bare minimum, conver the bsse functionality of those before moving onto real time ai interaction that is never real time and is hardly a proper interaction.
Progressive enhancement would be great here, smart watch in a pin form factor but with AI powered features when they make sense. Maybe some kind of super fine tuned orchestrator that know when to pass onto siri/assisstant vs. some cloud model (setting a timer requires simple parsing but a complex philosophical question can be offloaded to AI)
„bethany bongiorno“ is the most made-up sounding name I‘ve ever heard
They got the name from a prototype pin.
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