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HP Acquires Humane's AI Software
- Havoc 2y agoCan’t wait for the inevitable AI enabled printers. Bonus points if it’s a multimodal vision model and requires and dance per printed page. (Plus subscription ofc)
- janalsncm 2y agoThis is really an advertisement for on-device ML. If shutting down the servers bricks your device, I’m less interested in expensive fledgling products.
- protimewaster 2y agoI'm pretty amazed that they built a $700 device that can't do anything onboard beyond telling you what the battery level is. $700 hardware can't do more than that?
- MBCook 2y agoTo be fair it couldn’t reliably do more than that with the cloud.
- jahewson 2y agoI think it's more an advert for not being a fledgling product.
- ipsum2 2y agoHumane raised $230 million, sold at $116 million.
- newsclues 2y agoThe folly of the capital allocators during this period was legendary.
- pwthornton 2y agoIt's incredible how easy it was to raise money in that time frame and how hard it is to raise money now. They would throw huge sums of money at you for the dumbest ideas. It's important to note that the AI Pin powered by ChatGPT was a bit of a pivot. If ChatGPT never came out, they wouldn't have even had that. It would have been more like having a dedicated Siri or Alexa device to do really basic stuff with. I can't imagine how much worse the product was going to be. What investor say that early pitch and work and was like, "sign me up?"
- moralestapia 2y agoEven Perplexity got funding, so yeah, even an absolute piece of trash business can raise money with the right group of people.
- rsynnott 2y ago> It's incredible how easy it was to raise money in that time frame and how hard it is to raise money now. They would throw huge sums of money at you for the dumbest ideas. Humane's series C was in 2023, long after the end of ZIRP. They will still throw huge sums of money at you for the dumbest idea, provided that you say the magic term 'AI' enough.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoRelated Bloomberg story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43095699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43095699
- necubi 2y ago> Device Timeline: Your Ai Pin will continue to function normally until 12pm PST on February 28, 2025. After this date, it will no longer connect to Humane’s servers, and .Center access will be fully retired. > Device Features: Your Ai Pin features will no longer include calling, messaging, Ai queries/responses, or cloud access. For a $700 device that was on the market for less than a year, that is a not a stellar way to treat your customers. Fortunately it seems there were very few of those. [0] https://support.humane.com/hc/en-us/articles/34374173951373-Important-Update-for-Consumer-Ai-Pin-Customers https://support.humane.com/hc/en-us/articles/34374173951373-...
- mrtksn 2y agoI have this regulation idea: If the hardware requires software that is not available for self service, then the customer is entitled for full refund at any time. In other words if the hardware is just an accessory for providing service through software then the money the user pays for the hardware should be considered a refundable deposit.
- saulpw 2y agoYou should propose it! I hear the CFPB is looking for new ways to protect consumers.
- slantedview 2y agoUnfortunately the CFPB is in the process of being eliminated.
- cgcrob 2y agoHP is where things go to die. (Since 1999 that is)
- sumoboy 2y agoI thought that was IBM, so confusing anymore.
- Spooky23 2y agoBroadcom became the ultimate necromancer when they acquired Computer Associates and digested them. OpenText is the smaller version.
- rsynnott 2y agoIt's been different companies at different times, but over the last 20 years HP does seem to have been particularly prolific at buying weird mostly-dead junk.
- throw16180339 2y agoDoes anyone else remember when the HP Way was a positive statement?
- paxys 2y agoSo this is just an acquihire right? Can't imagine what HP will do with Humane's "AI software" (aka ChatGPT wrapper).
- ryandrake 2y agoGruber[1] posted that Bloomberg reported[2]: "Humane’s team, including founders Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, will form a new division at HP to help integrate artificial intelligence into the company’s personal computers, printers and connected conference rooms, said Tuan Tran, who leads HP’s AI initiatives." So they'll hang around as some sort of director-level Thought Leaders or something? Sounds like a safe and lucrative landing. 1: https://daringfireball.net https://daringfireball.net 2: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-18/hp-116-million-deal-for-humane-includes-ip-but-no-ai-pin-device https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-18/hp-116-mi...
- tyre 2y agoAI Printers, hell yeah brother
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ryandrake 2y agoHey, now, don't give Brother any ideas!
- Workaccount2 2y agoHeeyy morning Jeff! Looks like we are still low on yellow ink today, so I'm probably not going to be able print anything for you. But if you'd like I could order a new cartridge set direct from HP? Would you like me to go ahead with that order or remind you in 15 minutes with another friendly greeting? If you like I could call you on your cell to remind you, send you a text, email you, or I could just shout loudly from right here in printer!
- light_triad 2y agoInteresting they thought they could disrupt phones: devices with almost 20 years of iterative improvements, extremely mature app stores, tons of functionality, fast ubiquitous internet, etc. You couldn't even connect the Ai Pin to your phone ?! Lock-in makes sense but it was a very risky bet. Essential viewing: Review of the Ai Pin - The Worst Product I've Ever Reviewed... For Now (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TitZV6k8zfA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TitZV6k8zfA)
- bee_rider 2y agoHuh, it is weird to think of smartphones as entrenched incumbents. Of course, they are. But it is weird (they are the first type of device where I was familiar with a world before them).
- aussieguy1234 2y agoIt's also interesting that, prior to the iPhone, no one would have thought that phones would disrupt the PC market.
- light_triad 2y agoThere's some revisionism here: having the internet in your pocket anywhere you went was a clear upgrade. Projecting a screen on your palm with low resolution was a clear downgrade. Disruption is incredibly difficult but this product was giving off Juicero vibes from the start.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoThat might also be because iPhone happened to coincide exactly when 3G mobile broadband internet became available. Pre and post 3G mobile broadband were different worlds.
- MBCook 2y agoIt absolutely was on the ragged edge of viable. In the first one (and 3G) you could easily scroll a webpage faster than it could render it. But it did what it needed enough to be extremely compelling. And it improved very fast in the early years.
- amazingamazing 2y agothis is a good reminder for all those developers that seem to think marketing is meaningless
- robinhood 2y agoIt's not actually. The problem was not marketing. The problem was the product itself. No marketing could have helped them, as the product was so bad. The good reminder here, is to build something people actually want.
- wnevets 2y ago> The problem was the product itself. Pretty sure the person means HP bought a joke of a company/product because of the marketing.
- Mistletoe 2y agoOh wow I totally missed that angle. In that respect the marketing was genius.
- amazingamazing 2y agoyes
- madeofpalk 2y agoWhat are you saying? That Humane didn't market their useless device better? Or that they had such great marketing they were able to land at HP?
- amazingamazing 2y agothe latter - the fact this product had any traction leading to this is a result of marketing almost entirely.
- BobbyTables2 2y ago
- xyst 2y ago> highly skilled technical talent, and intellectual property with more than 300 patents and patent applications. The only reason a dinosaur like HP is even buying out this no-name player.
- whyenot 2y agoMy prediction is that HP will make some half-hearted attempts to do something with it for a while, and then will sell it at a loss to LG. LG will use it in one or two of their smart TVs and then release it as open source, at which point it will be forgotten. (ref: WebOS)
- kylehotchkiss 2y agoUgh smart TVs powered by Humane by HP x LG makes me want to throw all my electronics into a volcano
- wepple 2y agoUgh smart… makes me want to throw all my electronics into a volcano But yeah what you said is way worse
- throw16180339 2y agoI think I'd prefer to just go live in a cave.
- lelandfe 2y agoA voice booms, “these allegorical shadows brought to you by Mountain Dew”
- throw16180339 2y agoAny reference to Plato's The Republic deserves an upvote.
- Rebelgecko 2y agoIf it's functional, I'd love to use a laser projection on my couch when I misplace my TV remote. Especially if it's able to adapt to my TV's current context
- MBCook 2y ago
- pityJuke 2y ago> Ai Pin will still allow for offline features like battery level > https://support.humane.com/hc/en-us/articles/34243204841997-Ai-Pin-Consumers-FAQ https://support.humane.com/hc/en-us/articles/34243204841997-... The only feature they could think of was “battery level”? That’s hilarious
- ceejayoz 2y agoIt’s like the Rick and Morty bit about the butter bot. “What is my purpose?” “You say your battery level.” “Oh my God.”
- epcoa 2y agoAt least the butter bot has some utility to someone.
- aitchnyu 2y agoI interviewed with more than one corp chatbot maker and punchline would be "You answer leave policy questions".
- jordanb 2y agoAt least the butter bot does something useful. This is more like a machine who's only function is to turn itself off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useless_machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useless_machine
- latexr 2y agoDirect link to the FAQ entry: https://support.humane.com/hc/en-us/articles/34243204841997-Ai-Pin-Consumers-FAQ#:~:text=3.%20Can%20I%20still%20use%20my%20Ai%20Pin%20for%20offline%20features%3F https://support.humane.com/hc/en-us/articles/34243204841997-... I like that it says “battery level, etc”. I’d really like to see the full list of features.
- ceejayoz 2y agoI think it might be the list.
- rvz 2y agoOf course. It definitely wasn't worth $1B as I said before [0] when they tried to sell at that valuation. [1] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40598742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40598742 [1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/6/24172718/humane-ai-pin-selling-hp-rumor-1-billion https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/6/24172718/humane-ai-pin-sel...
- ceejayoz 2y agoThe Verge on this: https://www.theverge.com/news/614883/humane-ai-hp-acquisition-pin-shutdown https://www.theverge.com/news/614883/humane-ai-hp-acquisitio... > After the shutdown, offline features like “battery level” will still work, Humane says, but “any function that requires cloud connectivity like voice interactions, AI responses, and .Center access” will not. I'd really like to know if the Humane PR flack typed that with a straight face.
- tough 2y agoChatGPT can!
- Mistletoe 2y ago"Battery levels are fine. Jump on in!"
- watusername 2y agoThe charitable interpretation is that they wanted to assure buyers that they would still be able to show off the laser projector to their friends :) But no, I wouldn't be able to write that sentence myself without wanting to find the closest hole to hide out of embarrassment.
- interactivecode 2y agoHopefully it will also improve the product design engineering quality at HP. While the AI pin is a bit useless the industrial product design is at a high level. From what I remember it’s mostly an core of Apple engineers
- throwaway314155 2y agoI thought they specifically outsourced the design to another company (Teenage Engineering).
- jsheard 2y agoThe charging case had to be recalled because it was a potential fire hazard, and the pin itself had a tendency to overheat during normal use. Hardly a success story on the hardware front.
- dangus 2y agolol, no it’s not. The basic premise that people would want to wear a device as a pin is an industrial design failure. The entire product is bad industrial design. Being built with nice materials is not automatically good industrial design. It was a scam destined to fail and HP is making a stupid acquisition of worthless tech.
- ChrisGammell 2y agoComing soon to your next printer: navigate through menus with a pico projector sending dim light onto your outstretched palm...
- nocoiner 2y agoHell, forget printing - it can just beam a picture of your documents onto a nearby wall. Chalk up another patent from Imran!
- psyonity 2y agoAfter refilling your projector ink levels, ofcourse.
- MBCook 2y agoHonestly that might be better than the terrible 1 inch LCD screens some modern ink jets have.
- PyWoody 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ntPxdWAWq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ntPxdWAWq8 :%s/Cloud/AI/g
- hnburnsy 2y agoFrom Robert Scoble... >The end of an AI hardware experiment. Lots of reasons this didn’t do well, from trying to get people to do something they don’t already do (wear a computer on their clothes) to poor execution. The research @IrenaCronin and I do shows glasses are the form factor but they are still years from having decent all color displays. Until then it will be hard to get people to use much other than their phones.
- AlexandrB 2y agoWhenever I see Robert Scoble's name this is all I can think of: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jwherrman/yes-you-can-wear-google-glass-in-the-shower https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jwherrman/yes-you-can-w...
- klausa 2y agoI tend to think more of https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/doree/woman-accuses-robert-scoble-of-sexual-harassment https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/doree/woman-accuses-rob...; but yours is also on my mind whenever the name pops up.
- zombiwoof 2y agoIs Scoble still relevant?
- eej71 2y agoSomething something lesser monster in the backrooms vibe is what I feel now when I see that picture.
- delfinom 2y agoLol "glasses are the form factor". Ignoring the massive industry of people actively having their eyeballs cut open and lasered just to avoid wearing glasses.
- hnburnsy 2y agoSunglasses, protective eyewear, and glasses for blocking blue light are things.
- wilg 2y agoIf any VCs who "invested" some of the $230 million into the dumbest product ever from obvious morons would like to instead invest with me, I'm pretty confident I can do better than a 0.5x return!
- exogeny 2y agoIt's not a 0.5x. It's much lower -- $230 million was the amount raised, not the valuation. It's closer to 0.1-0.2x.
- necubi 2y agoThe parent is right, investors would almost certainly have 1x preference, which means they get back the first $230M in an acquisition. The valuation doesn't matter if you exit for less than money in. Founders and employees would get nothing out of this (aside from whatever HP is giving them directly as incentive to stick around).
- braza 2y agoThat's the most interesting thing because if those folks managed to get a parachute for their 1x pref investors with this abysmal final price, what does it mean for the several companies at the same situation? It's a pity that we do not have a version of "Who's holding the bag?"[1] for LP and VC funds, but with all challenges to raise money, it would be interesting to see how many funds are losing money at the moment. This is the inherent feature from VC funds but still, one thing is raise cheap money and having a "circular" money flowing (from A -> B - (...) -> IPO -> A) but if they do not arrive even in the IPO how this ecosystem will work if a US 5 Year Coupon pays 4.40%? [1] - https://pscmevents.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Who-Is-Holding-The-Bag.pdf https://pscmevents.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Who-Is-Hol...
- signatoremo 2y agoAre you sure? If given $230 millions what would you do and which AI product would you build, to generate $115 millions?
- yalogin 2y agoDid anyone think the ai pin would go any other way? This was bound to happen the moment it was announced. The rabbit and others are also probably heading in that direction. The hardware just isn’t quite there yet and so is the software
- rsynnott 2y agoIt's also, well, unclear that it is a thing that anyone much _wants_. "What if a phone but with no screen and Siri listens to you constantly" just isn't an attractive proposition for most people.
- next_xibalba 2y agoDozens of worldwide users will be devastated by this news.
- MBCook 2y agoI would absolutely love to know how many API requests they get a day from users who don’t work at the company and aren’t related to people who work at the company.
- encoderer 2y agoHas the huge seed round thing ever worked?
- FinnLobsien 2y agoMistral?
- encoderer 2y agoFeels like their only hope is to be quasi-nationalized as THE European ai play. Maybe I missed something though.
- moralestapia 2y agoYeah, so ... no.
- natch 2y agoI can imagine the conversation at the meetings: Humane rep: Here’s what we can do. We can just shut it down. The fine print says we can. HP rep: Excellent! You’ll fit right in here at HP!
- zombiwoof 2y agoMore like the HP rep saying “any chance we can still bill them 1 dollar a month ?”
- crowcroft 2y agoWorking at HP is the punishment for dumping this product onto people for $700.
- FinnLobsien 2y agoWhile the device and company were clearly flawed and there wasn't even a tiny niche that seemed to love the product, some part of me admires their audacity in trying to do something transformational. There's a lot to post-mortem here, but failures like these are part of an entrepreneurial culture.
- gcanyon 2y ago$116 million is a pretty nice payday for a product that never remotely lived up to the hype and had, by the end, negative numbers of customers.
- paxys 2y agoHumane raised a total of $241M from VCs. It is pretty much guaranteed that no employee at the company, and not even the founders, will see a single dollar of that $116M. Investors always get first dibs.
- gcanyon 2y agoThose are some sad numbers.
- zombiwoof 2y agoThose founders milked their “ex Apple” creds to the limit. I was at Apple and they were just bozos
- sumedh 2y agoWhy was Imran fired from Apple?
- outside1234 2y agoIs Humane not a good enough explanation? :)
- latexr 2y agoAre you saying Apple are bozos, or that you were at Apple at the same time the Humane founders were and they specifically were bozos?
- macintux 2y agoGruber reports an insider describing Chaudhri as a fraud. https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/02/18/hp-buys-humane https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/02/18/hp-buys-humane
- tummler 2y ago“…$116 million…” does spit-take
- chipotle_coyote 2y agoSo if I'm reading this right, every single customer of Humane is going to have their device bricked in ten days? Wow, I bet both of them are going to be seriously pissed!
- peanuty1 2y agoAnd no refunds for purchases made before Nov 15, 2024.
- MBCook 2y agoIf you bought one anytime after the initial reviews just what were you doing? I just can’t imagine there was anyone who both knew it existed and didn’t know it was garbage. The only reason I can see anyone having bought one at that point is because they wanted to own an interesting little failure in gadget history. And even then just buy one used, there was no point in spending $700.
- throwaway48476 2y agoSome people collect failures.
- coffeebeqn 2y agoMaybe they can hack it to redirect the requests to some little server that can relay their questions to chatgpt. Might be better than Humanes original backend!
- moose44 2y agoMy thinking exactly. Would be a fun project.
- adolph 2y agothe only question is if there were enough sold to build a community like the spotify carthing, which now sell on Ebay for more than their original msrp (not inflation adjusted) https://github.com/ItsRiprod/DeskThing https://github.com/ItsRiprod/DeskThing
- dcchambers 2y agoI can't imagine that Humane has anything worth $100 million. HP just likes lighting money on fire I guess.
- thepasswordis 2y agoI don’t get it. Why did they not just sell this as a hardware device? The projector on it is cool. That alone starts competing with my Apple Watch. These guys figured out an entire new category of hardware peripheral, and did what I understood to be some pretty cool engineering to make it work. WHY do people push this closed off ecosystem stuff? Seriously I do not get it.
- phonon 2y agoBecause they were selling it below cost? They needed the service fees for the company to be viable.
- thepasswordis 2y agoSo raise the cost until it's profitable and see who buys it.
- coffeebeqn 2y agoBecause it didn’t really work on the hardware or software side. And it cost $700 which puts it into competition with some very powerful devices
- moralestapia 2y agoCongrats on turning $230M USD into $116M USD. Sounds easy but it took 6 years of hard work!
- msephton 2y agoIt's phrased in a way that indicates the Humane brand and company is not part of the deal? Just assets (patents, software, staff) but not the name or brand? I would not be surprised if it rose from the ashes at some point.
- coffeebeqn 2y agoThat IP has negative value. Why would anyone want it?
- msephton 2y agoI'd guess the founders want to keep it because of a sense of pride/attachment.
- Yizahi 2y agoA perfect match :)
- zecg 2y agoIf you thought HP's crapware was insultingly bad before, wait until they start putting some 8b models trained on their marketing bullshit to helpfully shill wherever a sidebar can be planted.
- plagiarist 2y ago"Don't you want to subscribe to your own printer? We'll reactivate this device after you subscribe to your own printer which you purchased."
- rsynnott 2y agoHP, noted compulsive buyer of complete junk, in buying complete junk shocker (see Autonomy, Palm, etc).
- dcreater 2y agoPalm was the opposite of complete junk. WebOS was absolutely ahead of its time back then and the pre devices were great
- _moof 2y agoIt may not have been technical junk but HP bought Palm three years after the iPhone came out. I loved my Palm Vx but that is truly hilarious timing. From a business perspective, in 2010 they were complete junk.
- lemonish97 2y agoTo be fair, HP buying Compaq in the early 2000s was pretty huge, considering they are doing decently well today because of their PC market share.
- Sohcahtoa82 2y agoHP is a bizarre company. Like, I think they recognize that printing is a dying business. They want to pivot to something else, but they have no idea what to pivot to. They keep buying out other companies, but then effectively canceling the product.
- rchaud 2y agoIt's easy to point and laugh at a failed product with puzzling features, but I have respect for what Humane tried to do. They attempted to produce an AI product and get it to stand on its own two legs (metaphorically). They didn't have an annoying CEO grandstanding about the amazing tech while handwaving away hallucinations and common bugs, something Valley leadership does way too much of. They didn't start with a VC-friendly strategy of free-then-paid to acquire market share. There was an off-putting monthly subscription right at the start. No confusion about what this product's business model or target customer was. Contrast that to the ham-fisted way Apple, Android and Microsoft are attempting to bootstrap their AI offerings by jamming it into successful hardware products and sneaking users into it with dark patterns to opt them in.
- mathw 2y agoI'll agree with you on that, but I think there's a really important thing that we have to also say about their business model: they developed and launched a product they knew couldn't live up to its billing or its price point. It shouldn't ever have made it beyond its conceptual investigation. Put it on the back burner, try again in five or ten years.
- rchaud 2y ago>they developed and launched a product they knew couldn't live up to its billing or its price point Most of the tech sector has this problem, which is why they rug pull customers with the price the second the VC money dries up. We're inured to seeing 10-20% price increases every year for SaaS, because the acquisition price point was artifically low. I'm glad a company decided to just set a "market price" for once. Unfortunately it failed and rugpulled customers by doing so.
- miunau 2y ago> They didn't have an annoying CEO grandstanding about the amazing tech while handwaving away hallucinations and common bugs, something Valley leadership does way too much of. I dunno: "Humane AI Pin founders banned internal criticism" https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/06/report-humane-ai-pin-did-7-million-in-sales-wants-to-sell-for-1-billion/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/06/report-humane-ai-pin... "The Disappearing Computer — and a World Where You Can Take AI Everywhere | Imran Chaudhri" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMsQO5u7-NQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMsQO5u7-NQ
- Angostura 2y agoThe main thing I'm sad about is that presumably their lovely custom font (Humane VF) will disapear. I covert it
- coffeebeqn 2y agoIf it’s on the device can’t you crack it open and grab it from the SD card or whatever storage they use? Given that it’s going to be bricked anyway
- vednig 2y agoGood Luck, HP trying to keep Humane afloat
- skc 2y agoThis product, it's build-up and it's eventual unveiling legitimately felt like the very best of satirical comedy.
- wruza 2y ago“HP jumps the train in a detached wagon.” That thing failed to explain what it does and how. As one reviewer said, “with this battery, I can spend a whole day”. Can’t believe they managed to find someone to buy this nothing-burger for $100m+.
- teepo 2y agoThis reminds me a lot of the 3Com "Audrey" [0]. And of course HP now owns that as well. I have some bittersweet memories of hacking on that thing after the services were terminated. Maybe this could follow that afterlife legacy. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3Com_Audrey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3Com_Audrey
- burnte 2y agoI can't believe they were able to squeeze $118 million out of this scam. There ain't no justice.
- nashashmi 2y agoI loved the interface Humane AI wanted the world to work through. But I hated the subscription fee, the lack of wifi, and the reliance on modem connectivity. It was supposed to be a wearable device (that connects to your phone). It was supposed to complement your smartwatch with an on-demand screen in the palm of your hands. It was supposed to be AI augmented, but not AI centered. I am glad someone will take the tech. But I am upset it is HP and I doubt they have a vision for the product.
- drowntoge 2y agoThe notion of a class-action lawsuit was born for this day.
- lowlevel 2y agowell, now you KNOW ai is worthless.
- mkrishnan 2y agoFWIW, They tried hard. they could have adopted ChatGpt Advanced Voice mode, what would have made the device a super hit.