Human AI Pin marketing picture. (Credting: Humane)

The AI Pin: A Smart Body Camera That Wants To Compete With Smartphones

November 11, 2023 by Maya Posch 21 Comments

Seeking to shake up the smartphone market, Humane introduced its ‘AI Pin’, which at first glance looks like someone put a very stylish body camera on their chest. There’s no display, only the 13 MP camera and some other optics visible above what turns out to be a touch panel, which is its main gesture-based input method, while it’s affixed to one’s clothing using either a magnet on the other side of the fabric, a wireless powerbank or a clip. Inside the unit you find a Qualcomm octa-core processor with 4 GB of RAM and 32 GB of eMMC storage, running a custom Android-based ‘Cosmos’ OS.

The AI Pin home screen, demonstrating why hand palms are poor projection surfaces. (Credit: Humane)

There is also a monochrome (teal) 720p laser projector built-in that provides something of a screen experience, albeit with the expectation that you use your hand (or presumably any other suitable surface) to render it visible. From the PR video it is quite clear that visibility of the projection is highly variable, with much of the text often not remotely legible, or only after some squinting. The hand-based gestures to control the UI (tilting to indicate a direction, touching thumb & index finger together to confirm) are somewhat of a novelty, though this may get tiresome after a day.

An article by [Ron Amadeo] over at Ars Technica also takes a look at the device, where the lack of an app ecosystem is pointed out, as well as the need for a mandatory internet connection (via T-Mobile). Presumably this always-on ‘feature’ is where the ‘AI’ part comes in, as the device has some voice assistant functionality, which seems to rely heavily on remote servers. As a result, this ends up being a quirky device with no third-party app support for a price tag of $700 + the $25/month for online service. Not to mention that people may look a bit odd at you walking around with a body camera-like thing on your chest that you keep rubbing and holding your hand in front of.

To be fair, it’s not often that we see something more quaint in this space come out than Google Glass, now many years ago.

The Rise And (Eventual) Fall Of The SIM Card

March 20, 2023 by Tom Nardi 107 Comments

There are few devices that better exemplify the breakneck pace of modern technical advancement than the mobile phone. In the span of just a decade, we went from flip phones and polyphonic ringtones to full-fledged mobile computers with quad-core processors and gigabytes of memory.

While rapid advancements in computational power are of course nothing new, the evolution of mobile devices is something altogether different. The Razr V3 of 2003 and the Nexus 5 of 2013 are so vastly different that it’s hard to reconcile the fact they were (at least ostensibly) designed to serve the same purpose — with everything from their basic physical layout to the way the user interacts with them having undergone dramatic changes in the intervening years. Even the network technology they use to facilitate voice and data communication are different.

Yet, there’s at least one component they share: the lowly SIM card. In fact, if you don’t mind trimming a bit of unnecessary plastic away, you could pull the SIM out of the Razr and slap it into the Nexus 5 without a problem. It doesn’t matter that the latter phone wasn’t even a twinkling in Google’s eye when the card was made, the nature of the SIM card means compatibility is a given.

Indeed there’s every reason to believe that very same card, now 20 years old, could be installed in any number of phones on the market today. Although, once again, some minor surgery would be required to pare it down to size.

Such is the beauty of the SIM, or Subscriber Identity Module. It allows you to easily transfer your cellular service from one phone to another, with little regard to the age or manufacturer of the device, and generally without even having to inform your carrier of the swap. It’s a simple concept that has served us well for almost as long as cellular telephones have existed, and separates the phone from the phone contract.

So naturally, there’s mounting pressure in the industry to screw it up.

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An iPhone sits in a users hand open to the YouTube app. What is unusual is that the iPhone is bent in an L shape and is still functioning properly.

First Folding IPhone Doesn’t Come From Apple

November 11, 2022 by Navarre Bartz 26 Comments

Folding phones are all the rage these days, with many of the major smartphone manufacturer’s having something in this form factor. Apple has been conspicuously absent in this market segment, so [KJMX] decided to take matters into their own hands with the “iPhone V.” (YouTube – Chinese w/subtitles via MacRumors).

Instead of trying to interface an existing folding phone’s screen with the iPhone, these makers delaminated an actual iPhone X screen to use in the mod. It took 37 attempts before they had a screen with layers that properly separated to be both flexible and functional. Several different folding phones were disassembled, and [KJMX] found a Motorola Razr folding mechanism would work best with the iPhone X screen. Unfortunately, since the iPhone screen isn’t designed to fold, it still will fail after a relatively small number of folds.

Other sacrifices were made, like the removal of the Taptic Engine and a smaller battery to fit everything into the desired form factor. The “iPhone V” boasts the worst battery life of any iPhone to date. After nearly a year of work though, [KJMX] can truly claim to have made what Apple hasn’t.

Curious about other hacks to let an iPhone do more than Apple intended? Check out how to add USB-C to an iPhone, try to charge it faster, or give one a big memory upgrade.

Teardown: BlackBerry Smart Card Reader

September 28, 2020 by Tom Nardi 22 Comments

Years before Steve Jobs showed off the first iPhone, the BlackBerry was already the must-have accessory for mobile professionals. Back then, nobody was worried about watching movies or playing the latest games on their mobile devices, they just wanted a secure and fast way to send and receive email on the go. For that, the BlackBerry was king.

Fast forward to today, and the company is just a shell of what it once was. They don’t even bother making their own hardware anymore. Over the last several years they’ve opted to partner with a series of increasingly obscure manufacturers to produce a handful of lackluster Android phones so they still have something to sell to their dwindling userbase. Anyone excited about the new 5G BlackBerry being built by Texas start-up OnwardMobility? Did you even know it was in the works before now?

But this article isn’t about BlackBerry phones. It’s about something that’s even more irrelevant to consumers: the BlackBerry Smart Card Reader. Technically, this little device isn’t dependent on the phones of the same name, but it makes sense that Research In Motion (which eventually just renamed itself to BlackBerry Limited) would market the gadget under the brand of their most popular product. Though as you might expect, software was available to allow it to work with the BlackBerry phone that you almost certainly owned if you needed a dedicated smart card reader.

For those who might not be aware, a smart card in this context is a two-factor authentication token contained in an ID card. These are used extensively by organizations such as the Department of Defense, where they’re known as Common Access Cards, that require you to insert your ID card into a reader before you can log into a secure computer system. This sleek device was marketed as a portable reader that could connect to computers over USB or Bluetooth. Worn around your neck with the included lanyard, the battery-powered reader allowed the card itself to remain on the user’s body while still being readable by nearby devices.

Civilians will recognize the basic technology from modern “Chip and PIN” debit and credit cards, but we’ve never had to stick one of those into our laptop just to log in. To be sure, the BlackBerry Smart Card Reader was never intended for the average home computer user, it was sold to companies and organizations that had tight security requirements; which just so happened to be the same places that would likely already be using BlackBerry mobile devices.

Of course, times and technology change. These devices once cost $200 apiece and were purchased in vast quantities for distribution to trusted personnel, but are now all but worthless. Even in new and unopened condition, they can be had for as little as $10 USD on eBay. For that price, it’s certainly worth taking a peek inside. Perhaps the hacker community can even find new applications for these once cutting-edge devices.

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Google Turns Android Up To 11 With Latest Update

September 9, 2020 by Tom Nardi 32 Comments

Just going by the numbers, it’s a pretty safe bet that most Hackaday readers own an Android device. Even if Google’s mobile operating system isn’t running on your primary smartphone, there’s a good chance it’s on your tablet, e-reader, smart TV, car radio, or maybe even your fridge. Android is everywhere, and while the development of this Linux-based OS has been rocky at times, the general consensus is that it seems to have been moving in the right direction over the last few years. Assuming your devices actually get the latest and greatest update, anyway.

So it’s not much of a surprise that Android 11, which was officially released yesterday, isn’t a huge update. There’s no fundamental changes in the core OS, because frankly, there’s really not a whole lot that really needs changing. Android has become mature enough that from here on out we’re likely to just see bug fixes and little quality of life improvements. Eventually Google will upset the apple cart (no pun intended) with a completely new mobile OS, but we’re not there yet.

Of course, that’s not to say there aren’t some interesting changes in Android 11. Or more specifically, changes that may actually be of interest to the average Hackaday reader. Let’s take a look at a handful of changes and tweaks worth noting for the more technical crowd.

Continue reading “Google Turns Android Up To 11 With Latest Update” →