Being a designer myself, but in the interest of public good, I will share my design here and urge anyone else to copy it. The ideal form factor for this device is a cowboy hat. Here's why
1. Such a device will require significant local compute, generating a lot of heat. It cannot be too close to the body, and require efficient cooling. In the cowboy hat, the processing can be placed above the head in the bucket of the hat, and the cooling dispersed in a large surface area around the brim
2. Such a device requires 360 degree camera vision, thus cannot be a backpack or vest type design (which also bring heat too close to the body). It also must be close to eye level (cannot be shoes).
3. Has to be able to be worn in any environment, with any style. A cowboy hat is great for sun protection, and in the rain.
alexose · 3h ago
4. Allows for future product tiering, e.g., a sombrero-style "plus" model
moltude · 3h ago
The "Urban Sombrero" if you will.
---
"It combines the spirit of old Mexico with a little big city panache."
- Elaine Benes
hnuser123456 · 3h ago
I've been wanting an AI drone companion for decades. Forget having to wear any tech. But I'll be building my own. And I'll just wear a regular cowboy hat when it's hot and sunny.
> will be capable of being fully aware of a user’s surroundings and life, will be unobtrusive, able to rest in one’s pocket or on one’s desk,
Sounds an awful lot like the phone. But it s not a phone. But people forget that a tool with the form factor of a phone has been man's best friend for millenia: it was a knife, a purse, a notebook, and now a phone. They are not going to beat that , is my bet. If it can be integrated in a phone, it's a phone
> a third core device a person would put on their desk after a MacBook Pro and an iPhone.
That's my car keys. now i will have to charge them too?
paxys · 3h ago
Tech elite continue to be completely out of touch about what people actually want.
jeremyjh · 3h ago
They know people don't want it, they just hope to be able to convince them otherwise because right now OpenAI is a feature, and not a product. The real money is in owning a product platform and so executives are forced to pitch some product idea to continue working there.
bcrosby95 · 3h ago
It is kind of interesting to note that the 1 thing tech was able to successfully get us to add to things we carry with us was the phone.
And that had prior signals that we would accept that: basically every household in the US had a phone. Cordless phones gained popularity. Beepers were a thing. We knew people wanted phones with them, we just couldn't do it yet.
The odds of creating a brand new device that no one has ever heard of that people will carry everywhere with them is basically zero.
duderific · 2h ago
> The odds of creating a brand new device that no one has ever heard of that people will carry everywhere with them is basically zero.
If there is enough utility in the device, and the form factor is well done, I think the odds are much higher than zero.
dmonitor · 3h ago
the iPod / Walkman are there as well, but definitely less ubiquitous
kurthr · 2h ago
Yeah, LOL it definitely won't be AR like this with compute in the cloud:
You see, nobody wants their phone listening to them all the time. But a third core device? That’s different!
You’re going to love it!
whywhywhywhy · 3h ago
>stealth will be important for their ultimate success to avoid competitors copying the product before it’s ready.
shouldn't statements like this be bearish for OpenAI? If what they had internally was so far ahead of everyone else then why would it matter if the physical hardware were cloned, the model would make the difference in the same way the iPhone software and focus on scroll fidelity made it leagues above the LG Prada.
ToucanLoucan · 3h ago
None of it makes any difference because they've managed to be worth over 300 billion without an ounce of moat.
This shit is gonna go nuclear, and probably soon. Valuation is utterly detached from reality for the mediocre products they've shipped and the only reason it's still going is the tech sector doesn't have anything else to show for itself. Purchasing user numbers must be absolutely pathetic what with the complete silence on them, and even their highest tier paying customers have them hemorrhaging money, let alone all the cheaper/free ones.
Microsoft clearly got tired of being the pay-pig and is scaling back datacenters. OpenAI is supposedly taking up that stock but the projects are stalling because OpenAI doesn't have any money. Softbank is supposedly funding them but it also doesn't have the money, which is a huge issue what with them being the only substantial investor. And that's JUST for THIS YEAR. By all accounts they'll need dozens more billions for 2026.
For what? Chat bots and boring pictures/video that nobody aside from AI hype people give the slightest damn about.
Like, to put this in perspective: OpenAI is supposedly worth a tenth of what APPLE is worth. Fucking APPLE. Love em or hate em, Apple is one of the most valuable companies on the fucking planet, for a reason. What on Earth is OpenAI shifting in terms of actual products-to-customers that deserves to be in the same ZIP code as the Mac, iPhone or iPad?
Ludicrous.
palmotea · 52m ago
> For what? Chat bots and boring pictures/video that nobody aside from AI hype people give the slightest damn about.
I shed a tear when I saw those Sora demos of people walking down a street. I'd never seen anything so beautiful in my life. No human has ever filmed anything so good. Just amazeballs.
jeremyjh · 3h ago
The only thing they have of value is the ChatGPT brand. They have no moat, and AI needs to be embedded in products to have value. OpenAI doesn't sell any products, and anyone can sell tokens through an API.
duxup · 6h ago
>The product will be capable of being fully aware of a user’s surroundings and life, will be unobtrusive, able to rest in one’s pocket or on one’s desk, and would be a third core device a person would put on their desk after a MacBook Pro and an iPhone.
We're all comfortable with phones with all sorts of sensors, but most of those are on or off in a way we understand.
I'm not a fan of the idea that someone else around me brings a device that is perpetually "fully aware of a user’s surroundings and life" around me and then now my privacy is gone ...
andrewfromx · 6h ago
you know the story of callerID from the 1990s? The whole idea that it was a person's right to see WHO was calling them was deemed crazy. Before this it was consider your right to call people anonymously. Now when we see "Unknown Caller" no one answers. In 2030 this little orb will be so standard if someone wants their privacy back it will be seen the same way. They are the ones wanting to call someone anonymously.
rendaw · 3h ago
I don't think this applies here. That's "other people's privacy" not "your own privacy".
Not that I think you're wrong, people put alexa in their houses, buy samsung smart tvs, etc.
falcor84 · 5h ago
While I don't like this future, I'm afraid that you're correct in your prediction.
This is actually the sentiment I had about Google Glass - people (and tech) were not ready then, but I think that slowly the world is moving towards the acceptance that everything is being recorded and analyzed, by default. I just hope that we'll still be able to have some private spheres where there is no recording, but am concerned that this would have to be enforced by just not having any electronics there at all.
duxup · 5h ago
The idea of Google glass in the bathroom still creeps me out.
>just not having any electronics there at all
A few decades ago the company I worked for sent people out to a government contractor's site and the rule was ZERO electronics. Outside you and your clothing nothing that went in came out. Your car and keys were kept at the gate securely. You were blindfolded and lead to the location to do your work.
Blindfolds aside, I think that's the future.
andrewfromx · 4h ago
Google glass in the bathroom - like a locker room at a gym? Yeah, but then again any picture taken of someone fully clothed AI can just remove the clothing. There was this new "Take it down Act" law just passed. But with AI it's almost moot? Any picture can now be just altered to be explicit.
flir · 3h ago
No, it can replace the clothes with a naked body that is statistically representative of the naked bodies found in American porn.
No matter how many times I try, it never renders my third nipple correctly.
delfinom · 4h ago
Yea they don't do blindfolds these days. They tend to just have projects in their own independent rooms. No electronics are still a rule. You leave your phone with security at the front desk if you need it more accessible than the parking lot.
duxup · 1h ago
In this case the location was in the American southwest and the "front desk" was a gate.
flir · 3h ago
Privacy (or maybe, more precisely, anonymity) was a temporary side-effect of the industrial revolution and the move to cities. We didn't have it in villages, and we won't have it in the global village.
(Not an original idea, but I can't remember who I stole it from. Maybe it was David Brin).
JohnFen · 6h ago
> I'm not a fan of the idea that someone else around me brings a device that is perpetually "fully aware of a user’s surroundings and life" around me and then now my privacy is gone
This is my primary concern about these things. I'd be very likely to avoid being around people that I know are using something like this to the greatest degree I can.
BurningFrog · 3h ago
I'm not a fan either, but I think it's inevitable that everything we do, at least in any not 100% private space, will be recorded in the not distant future.
Because recording will be so very cheap and useful.
As an example, my car has at least 5 cameras that are constantly on. This is - or will be soon - true for all cars. So anytime you can see a car, you're being recorded.
somenameforme · 3h ago
More likely we're just in a liminal phase. There are basically no meaningful privacy protections to speak of basically anywhere in the world. And the same was once true of drug laws, gambling laws, weapons laws, advertising laws (as in you could sell a bag of chalk and claim it was whatever you wanted at one time), and so on endlessly.
The odds of there being no privacy laws perpetually into the future are probably 0. So we're just in a period that'll probably be thought of, in terms of privacy, of how we might think of the 'wild west' in terms of guns/violence. And I think the change will probably come fairly soon, especially if this idea isn't as DOA as wearable AR stuff was.
darth_avocado · 3h ago
Most people will give privacy away for convenience or because they want the thing buys them status. The few holdouts will be pressured into get the new thing because they risk being left behind or not be in the loop. If done right, this will go exactly like smartphones did.
JohnFen · 3h ago
> Most people will give privacy away for convenience or because they want the thing buys them status.
Which is totally fine.
What is not totally fine is people giving my privacy away for their convenience and/or status.
duxup · 1h ago
I fear the lines are blurred. Someone gives access to say their texts, that's some of yours too, and so on.
duxup · 1h ago
I fear that's true, people just don't care.
lif · 3h ago
so, basically:
Total Information Awareness* (pitched as personal 'ultimate' convenience gadget, of course)
(Anyone hear read _We_?)
bjelkeman-again · 3h ago
What is this thing for?
That is going to be a hard no in so many contexts. Hospitals, gyms, many work environments, my house, the list is going to be long. We know the companies can’t keep their government from forcing access at some point or another. We also know at some point a zero day exploit will allow pin point targeting of who you want to spy on. We see this already on mobile phones.
Edit: When I read the archive link above I can’t actually see the quote referenced.
wnevets · 3h ago
> He suggested the $6.5 billion acquisition has the potential to add $1 trillion in value to OpenAI, according to a recording reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Crazy part is there will be investors who will absolutely believe this. Nothing has shattered the illusion the rich are smarter than everyone else for me than the sagas of madoff, ftx, holmes and now the AI hype.
athorax · 3h ago
It is so blatantly obvious OpenAI is paying these ridiculous prices for acquisitions to try and justify their own valuation. The emperor has no clothes, indeed.
neilv · 2h ago
> and would be a third core device a person would put on their desk after a MacBook Pro and an iPhone.
Or build an AI-enabled device that replaces both. All you really need is local sensors, local emitters, and lots of local+remote processing+storage.
The laptop/desktop mostly goes away, when most people won't need desks, since most desk-requiring jobs will soon be done passably by "AI". (Whether the "AI" is actual intelligence, or just robo-plagiarism of training material.) Do you really need a keyboard, when there's nothing for you to type. Do you really need a bunch of screens, when you're not looking at and reasoning about lots of information.
If anyone is going to build a one-device for the idle and disaffected eloi, to be harvested of remaining value, by the weathly, who increasingly consolidate all of the wealth and power, it may well be OpenAI building that device.
Apple isn't the best candidate to nail this, because they have lingering whiffs of hippie counterculture in their self-image. And for a long time, Google thought of themselves as the good ones, with vestiges of that enduring, no matter how much DoubleClick metastasizes. But OpenAI staff was confronted unambiguously with its true self early on, so doesn't have the encumbrances that the others do.
baxtr · 3h ago
I must say I lost a lot of respect for Jony Ive in the last couple of days.
joshstrange · 2h ago
His last few years at Apple lost him a large amount of my respect (or at least proved he wasn't the genius he had been portrayed as) but this OpenAI move took whatever respect was left to 0.
That video they posted was completely over the top and absurd (especially without announcing/shipping a product). Watching Sam and Jony fellate each other was nauseating. I don't SNL could have done a better (worse?) job.
baxtr · 2h ago
Yeah, Steve Jobs would have not approved.
rwmj · 3h ago
He saw investors pouring tens of billions into a big money pit and has siphoned off probably a billion or two for himself. The boy done good as we say here in Britain.
baxtr · 3h ago
I guess selling your soul is always an option when you’re running out of money!
deepfriedchokes · 1h ago
Altman is trying to do an end run around Google/Apple/Microsoft. They’ve got search, now they’re adding hardware, next they’ll extend their interface to replace the traditional OS with an AI agent. Altman probably has a social strategy as well.
I think they’ll fail because they’re discounting how much energy it takes for people to change ecosystems, but it’s a great idea that the big boys will copy.
neilv · 30m ago
> 24 points by MrJagil 5 hours ago [...] 73 comments
Don't forget to upvote when you comment.
sigmaisaletter · 3h ago
* The first generation were those silly AI pins last year.
* The second generation will be this opaqueAI ivePad.
* And when the third generation comes out, all phones will already have whatever makes this special.
I don't think Sama and Ive are smarter than everyone else, but even if they are, I don't see how this flies.
HarHarVeryFunny · 3h ago
People already carry around a smartphone plenty capable of accessing AI, whether in the cloud or increasingly local. Smartphones, with screens, are not going away because people have plenty of uses for screens from photos to videos to texting, etc.
The WSJ article says this proposed device can either sit on your desk or go in your pocket, so it's basically either an Alexa in-home device or a bigger pocket-bound Humana pin, or some worse-than-either fits-in-your-pocket compromise.
Not sure what Altman was thinking in paying $6B for an idea that seems bound to fail, unless it is indeed part of a plan to help him cash in on OpenAI, even if that means throwing $6B of stock away.
oops · 3h ago
> Smartphones, with screens, are not going away because people have plenty of uses for screens from photos to videos to texting, etc.
I agree but for the sake of discussion: could smart glasses fill this role?
HarHarVeryFunny · 2h ago
I don't think so, for a bunch of reasons:
1) Battery size/life compromised by form factor (or have cumbersome wire to battery pack in pocket)
2) WiFi/5G connectivity - form factor seems to compromise antenna design, and anyways health impact of antenna on your head all day is unknown
3) Fashion - most people care more about appearance than any debatable benefit smart glasses might have (AR?) over a smart phone
4) Smart glasses AR displays are a cool piece of tech, but quality-wise nowhere near that of a phone screen, used for photos and videos - TikTok on smart glasses ?
5) Texting seems a very popular type of communication for all age groups, and much preferred (and more discreet) that having to voice dictate into smart glasses, or listen to incoming messages via smart glasses speakers
It just seems that a smartphone provides so much, checks so many boxes in terms of features and usability, that most people won't want to not have one, and if you do have one, then the incremental benefit of another device becomes minimal.
micromacrofoot · 1h ago
Compute and battery aren't small enough yet, glasses have to be fashionable.
fellowniusmonk · 3h ago
It's honestly only because apple and google have so locked down their devices that we can't use them as little digital motherships for all of our peripherals.
the whole pattern of usage for the slab phone medium is based on sucking up as much of our attention as possible.
That and doing anything with bluetooth makes one long for a simple life in the woods.
adrr · 3h ago
You can go install another OS on your android phones like LineageOS.
McGlockenshire · 3h ago
This is only possible for a minority of android hardware. Non-flagship and low-end devices will never get support.
fellowniusmonk · 2h ago
Also, never mind having RCS messaging if you switch from stock android messenger.
DebtDeflation · 3h ago
So basically an Alexa/Echo except with always-on microphone and camera communicating with OpenAI's servers?
flir · 3h ago
Every other device (audio player, gps, portable games console, camera, watch, calculator, alarm clock, notebook, flashlight, dictaphone, step counter) was folded into the phone.
I can't understand why anyone thinks this wouldn't be. Software eats the world.
DebtDeflation · 2h ago
It's absurd.
>"The product will be capable of being fully aware of a user’s surroundings and life, will be unobtrusive, able to rest in one’s pocket or on one’s desk, and would be a third core device a person would put on their desk after a MacBook Pro and an iPhone."
Why exactly would I want a "third" device for my desk or a second one for my pocket?
The only additional device I'd consider at this point would be an eyeglass sized VR/AR.
hbarka · 3h ago
If Plaud.ai is a Nokia phone, I hope what they’re building is like iPhone-level of change.
Can't he just ask one of his diffusion models to come up with a design?
paradox460 · 3h ago
It would be made for a hand with eight fingers
einrealist · 3h ago
Can the device work offline or does it need constant connection to a data center? Already sounds like a security and privacy nightmare.
Isamu · 3h ago
I’m not looking for this product but my daughter could use something that identifies and reads everything in the environment that she can just query
lantry · 3h ago
maybe it will also be able to give her love and affection, and feed her and change her diapers. Then we can finally realize the dream of parenting without human interaction! because the only reason to grow new adults is to keep that gdp line going up!
eabeezxjc · 3h ago
AI today use text. Human prefer image or(and) sound. Therefore assistent must be a big screen, ocular or .... implant
jsheard · 3h ago
> He suggested the $6.5 billion acquisition has the potential to add $1 trillion in value to OpenAI, according to a recording reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Not sure if he's high on his own supply or just lying through his teeth, but it's one of those. You're going to get value comparable to owning half of Google from acquiring a small hardware design team? Really?
micromacrofoot · 3h ago
It's not rocket science, these people aren't even all that clever. It's going to be some kind of camera (maybe lidar) and microphone, there's nothing else it can be — you need to put something into AI to get something out of it.
It'll probably be some goofy 180/360 degree camera — phones aren't really designed to be omnipresent so the form factor isn't ideal for the always-on nature of AI they're trying to reach.
y04nn · 3h ago
Most likely, a glorified black monolith brick like Ive loves them, without any display or a really small oled. Or a stick, like a pen you can clip on your pocket, but the battery may be an issue.
micromacrofoot · 2h ago
Yeah sounds about right. Maybe a detachable module with camera/mic that communicates back to the compute brick (which also serves as a charger).
At the end of the day, essentially a phone with some AI-specific form factor. There's just not much else it can be.
1. Such a device will require significant local compute, generating a lot of heat. It cannot be too close to the body, and require efficient cooling. In the cowboy hat, the processing can be placed above the head in the bucket of the hat, and the cooling dispersed in a large surface area around the brim
2. Such a device requires 360 degree camera vision, thus cannot be a backpack or vest type design (which also bring heat too close to the body). It also must be close to eye level (cannot be shoes).
3. Has to be able to be worn in any environment, with any style. A cowboy hat is great for sun protection, and in the rain.
---
"It combines the spirit of old Mexico with a little big city panache." - Elaine Benes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOsWfzzvlkU
Or was that an episode that I missed in the last ... 15 years... Oh man...
> will be capable of being fully aware of a user’s surroundings and life, will be unobtrusive, able to rest in one’s pocket or on one’s desk,
Sounds an awful lot like the phone. But it s not a phone. But people forget that a tool with the form factor of a phone has been man's best friend for millenia: it was a knife, a purse, a notebook, and now a phone. They are not going to beat that , is my bet. If it can be integrated in a phone, it's a phone
> a third core device a person would put on their desk after a MacBook Pro and an iPhone.
That's my car keys. now i will have to charge them too?
And that had prior signals that we would accept that: basically every household in the US had a phone. Cordless phones gained popularity. Beepers were a thing. We knew people wanted phones with them, we just couldn't do it yet.
The odds of creating a brand new device that no one has ever heard of that people will carry everywhere with them is basically zero.
If there is enough utility in the device, and the form factor is well done, I think the odds are much higher than zero.
https://arstechnica.com/google/2025/05/glass-redux-google-ai...
You’re going to love it!
shouldn't statements like this be bearish for OpenAI? If what they had internally was so far ahead of everyone else then why would it matter if the physical hardware were cloned, the model would make the difference in the same way the iPhone software and focus on scroll fidelity made it leagues above the LG Prada.
This shit is gonna go nuclear, and probably soon. Valuation is utterly detached from reality for the mediocre products they've shipped and the only reason it's still going is the tech sector doesn't have anything else to show for itself. Purchasing user numbers must be absolutely pathetic what with the complete silence on them, and even their highest tier paying customers have them hemorrhaging money, let alone all the cheaper/free ones.
Microsoft clearly got tired of being the pay-pig and is scaling back datacenters. OpenAI is supposedly taking up that stock but the projects are stalling because OpenAI doesn't have any money. Softbank is supposedly funding them but it also doesn't have the money, which is a huge issue what with them being the only substantial investor. And that's JUST for THIS YEAR. By all accounts they'll need dozens more billions for 2026.
For what? Chat bots and boring pictures/video that nobody aside from AI hype people give the slightest damn about.
Like, to put this in perspective: OpenAI is supposedly worth a tenth of what APPLE is worth. Fucking APPLE. Love em or hate em, Apple is one of the most valuable companies on the fucking planet, for a reason. What on Earth is OpenAI shifting in terms of actual products-to-customers that deserves to be in the same ZIP code as the Mac, iPhone or iPad?
Ludicrous.
I shed a tear when I saw those Sora demos of people walking down a street. I'd never seen anything so beautiful in my life. No human has ever filmed anything so good. Just amazeballs.
We're all comfortable with phones with all sorts of sensors, but most of those are on or off in a way we understand.
I'm not a fan of the idea that someone else around me brings a device that is perpetually "fully aware of a user’s surroundings and life" around me and then now my privacy is gone ...
Not that I think you're wrong, people put alexa in their houses, buy samsung smart tvs, etc.
This is actually the sentiment I had about Google Glass - people (and tech) were not ready then, but I think that slowly the world is moving towards the acceptance that everything is being recorded and analyzed, by default. I just hope that we'll still be able to have some private spheres where there is no recording, but am concerned that this would have to be enforced by just not having any electronics there at all.
>just not having any electronics there at all
A few decades ago the company I worked for sent people out to a government contractor's site and the rule was ZERO electronics. Outside you and your clothing nothing that went in came out. Your car and keys were kept at the gate securely. You were blindfolded and lead to the location to do your work.
Blindfolds aside, I think that's the future.
No matter how many times I try, it never renders my third nipple correctly.
(Not an original idea, but I can't remember who I stole it from. Maybe it was David Brin).
This is my primary concern about these things. I'd be very likely to avoid being around people that I know are using something like this to the greatest degree I can.
Because recording will be so very cheap and useful.
As an example, my car has at least 5 cameras that are constantly on. This is - or will be soon - true for all cars. So anytime you can see a car, you're being recorded.
The odds of there being no privacy laws perpetually into the future are probably 0. So we're just in a period that'll probably be thought of, in terms of privacy, of how we might think of the 'wild west' in terms of guns/violence. And I think the change will probably come fairly soon, especially if this idea isn't as DOA as wearable AR stuff was.
Which is totally fine.
What is not totally fine is people giving my privacy away for their convenience and/or status.
(Anyone hear read _We_?)
That is going to be a hard no in so many contexts. Hospitals, gyms, many work environments, my house, the list is going to be long. We know the companies can’t keep their government from forcing access at some point or another. We also know at some point a zero day exploit will allow pin point targeting of who you want to spy on. We see this already on mobile phones.
Edit: When I read the archive link above I can’t actually see the quote referenced.
Crazy part is there will be investors who will absolutely believe this. Nothing has shattered the illusion the rich are smarter than everyone else for me than the sagas of madoff, ftx, holmes and now the AI hype.
Or build an AI-enabled device that replaces both. All you really need is local sensors, local emitters, and lots of local+remote processing+storage.
The laptop/desktop mostly goes away, when most people won't need desks, since most desk-requiring jobs will soon be done passably by "AI". (Whether the "AI" is actual intelligence, or just robo-plagiarism of training material.) Do you really need a keyboard, when there's nothing for you to type. Do you really need a bunch of screens, when you're not looking at and reasoning about lots of information.
If anyone is going to build a one-device for the idle and disaffected eloi, to be harvested of remaining value, by the weathly, who increasingly consolidate all of the wealth and power, it may well be OpenAI building that device.
Apple isn't the best candidate to nail this, because they have lingering whiffs of hippie counterculture in their self-image. And for a long time, Google thought of themselves as the good ones, with vestiges of that enduring, no matter how much DoubleClick metastasizes. But OpenAI staff was confronted unambiguously with its true self early on, so doesn't have the encumbrances that the others do.
That video they posted was completely over the top and absurd (especially without announcing/shipping a product). Watching Sam and Jony fellate each other was nauseating. I don't SNL could have done a better (worse?) job.
I think they’ll fail because they’re discounting how much energy it takes for people to change ecosystems, but it’s a great idea that the big boys will copy.
Don't forget to upvote when you comment.
* The second generation will be this opaqueAI ivePad.
* And when the third generation comes out, all phones will already have whatever makes this special.
I don't think Sama and Ive are smarter than everyone else, but even if they are, I don't see how this flies.
The WSJ article says this proposed device can either sit on your desk or go in your pocket, so it's basically either an Alexa in-home device or a bigger pocket-bound Humana pin, or some worse-than-either fits-in-your-pocket compromise.
Not sure what Altman was thinking in paying $6B for an idea that seems bound to fail, unless it is indeed part of a plan to help him cash in on OpenAI, even if that means throwing $6B of stock away.
I agree but for the sake of discussion: could smart glasses fill this role?
1) Battery size/life compromised by form factor (or have cumbersome wire to battery pack in pocket)
2) WiFi/5G connectivity - form factor seems to compromise antenna design, and anyways health impact of antenna on your head all day is unknown
3) Fashion - most people care more about appearance than any debatable benefit smart glasses might have (AR?) over a smart phone
4) Smart glasses AR displays are a cool piece of tech, but quality-wise nowhere near that of a phone screen, used for photos and videos - TikTok on smart glasses ?
5) Texting seems a very popular type of communication for all age groups, and much preferred (and more discreet) that having to voice dictate into smart glasses, or listen to incoming messages via smart glasses speakers
It just seems that a smartphone provides so much, checks so many boxes in terms of features and usability, that most people won't want to not have one, and if you do have one, then the incremental benefit of another device becomes minimal.
the whole pattern of usage for the slab phone medium is based on sucking up as much of our attention as possible.
That and doing anything with bluetooth makes one long for a simple life in the woods.
I can't understand why anyone thinks this wouldn't be. Software eats the world.
>"The product will be capable of being fully aware of a user’s surroundings and life, will be unobtrusive, able to rest in one’s pocket or on one’s desk, and would be a third core device a person would put on their desk after a MacBook Pro and an iPhone."
Why exactly would I want a "third" device for my desk or a second one for my pocket?
The only additional device I'd consider at this point would be an eyeglass sized VR/AR.
Will we have another moment like this: https://youtu.be/MnrJzXM7a6o
Not sure if he's high on his own supply or just lying through his teeth, but it's one of those. You're going to get value comparable to owning half of Google from acquiring a small hardware design team? Really?
It'll probably be some goofy 180/360 degree camera — phones aren't really designed to be omnipresent so the form factor isn't ideal for the always-on nature of AI they're trying to reach.
At the end of the day, essentially a phone with some AI-specific form factor. There's just not much else it can be.