[gizajob]

My gut tells me this is going to crash and burn in a hilarious way.

Not only is it worse than holding a smartphone while being less useful, street kids are going to pull these off people at a phenomenal rate, leaving people with just unhappy memories alongside a battery pack swimming somewhere inside their jumper.

[kkielhofner]

> street kids are going to pull these off people at a phenomenal rate, leaving people with just unhappy memories alongside a battery pack swimming somewhere inside their jumper.

I can't believe I didn't think of this.

Imagine a dev conference for these things... The first headline would be "Humane AI Pin Developers Cleaned Out". A group of bad actors could (would) just run down a line/through a room and snatch these one after the other with nothing more than a weak magnet slowing them down.

Yes they can be locked down but even with Apple and Google-level measures implemented over the years phones still get stolen to be sent to China (or wherever) and parted out for pennies on the dollar for the thief. There's also the usual problem of a lot of this being opportunity/impulse crime and a lot of criminals are just going to think "I don't know what that is, looks expensive", grab it, and see what they can get for it later.

This is probably the best example of the "Silicon Valley elites in their bubble disconnected from the real world" tropes that are always floating around.

[paulcole]

> I can't believe I didn't think of this.

Because it’s not going to happen.

There were about a trillion sets of wired white earbuds pointing to iPods/iPhones for about a decade plus. Sure, there were some thefts, but to say they happened at a “phenomenal rate” would be nonsense. And iPods/iPhones were orders of magnitudes more popular than this Pin will ever be.

Street kids won’t even know what a Pin is.

[gizajob]

I reckon spending the day in central London would prove that not to be the case. The difference with this and iPods/iPhones is that those things can at least be secured in a pocket or a hand - this thing is there floating on you, out of your context. One bump on the tube and it's gone. One kid running past you before you can move your hand to hold it, and it's gone. Street kids will totally know what this is, they're really tech savvy, particularly with new tech. One of the most prevalent groups using Blackberries back in the day were street kids. One wouldn't think street kids know the value of luxury wrist-watches, but people are being held up all the time to have them stolen from them. Stealing one of these pins, even for lulz, is beyond trivial if its only attachment is a magnet.

[dcreater]

I think it's simpler. It's not going to be a thing at all.