Humane-Powered

Hewlett-Packard sichert seinen Stammplatz in der Liga der unbeliebtesten Tech-Konzerne seit Jahren umsichtig ab und kauft im Vorbeigehen ein gescheitertes AI-Unternehmen zum Schnäppchenpreis von 116 Millionen USD. Für Humane-Kundinnen sind das keine guten Nachrichten –

Humane is selling most of its company to HP for $116 million and will stop selling AI Pin, the company announced today.

AI Pins that have already been purchased will continue to function normally until 3PM ET on February 28th, Humane says in a support document. After that date, Pins will no longer connect to Humane’s servers. As a result, AI Pin features will no longer include calling, messaging, AI queries / responses, or cloud access. Humane is also encouraging users to download any pictures, videos, and notes stored on their Pins before they are permanently deleted at that shutdown time.

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.

– aber immerhin erhalten sie als HP-Kundinnen weiterhin – wenn die Sterne günstig stehen – telefonische Unterstützung in weniger als 15 Minuten:

Last week, they came up with a humdinger, even by their own standards. They announced that people who called their customer service line would be subject to mandatory 15-minute waits, even if there was a rep who was free to talk with them:

https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/20/hp_deliberately_adds_15_minutes/

During this mandatory 15-minute wait, customers would be bombarded with a recorded voice demanding that they solve their problems by consulting HP's website and its awful chatbots. [...]

But they're not entirely shameless. Within a day of Paul Kunert breaking the story in The Register, HP had reversed its policy, citing feedback (a corporate euphemism that means fury):

https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/21/hp_ditches_15_minute_wait_time_call_centers/

This is a rare win for the forces of disenhittification and it deserves recognition.