What a great scoop by the Verge! I’m sure we will get more details and videos when this thing launches today or next week, but this confirms many things.

Humane stands to be one of the first post cell phone devices with a shift from antiquated keyboards to voice input. The device is heavily integrated into its lead investor, Sam Altman’s, OpenAI tools and will heavily integrate features for building intelligent assistants demoed by OpenAI this week. The feature I’m most curious about is its ability to mimic you and respond to emails or text messages in your voice without you composing or writing a message.

If you know me, you know I can’t wait for a chance to test the device, and I imagine Humane is setting the stage for a new generation of post phone devices that stand to change how we work with computers.

Exciting times!

Exclusive leak: all the details about Humane’s AI Pin, which costs $699 and has OpenAI integration

Humane is trying to invent a new way to use your mobile devices.

Washington, DC, plans to offer free Apple AirTags to make it easier for you to find that stolen car, and they’re not the only city looking for inventive ways to combat car theft. Last week, a Canadian man celebrated finding his stolen car by using Apple’s Find My and AirTags.

Policies like this feel right, but it sets the stage for regulators and/or insurance companies to require location tracking to become standard in cars. The struggle is that while safety is important, it comes at the expense of our privacy. 

Once upon a time, a person could move 20 minutes from their house and disappear from existence. Today, my car has GPS tracking, my phone allows family and friends to see me in Find My, and many of our homes and cars have cameras that stream and record footage nearly 24 hours a day.  

Live in Washington DC? You might be able to get free AirTags for your car

The city of Washington D.C. will distribute free Apple AirTags to residents in certain neighborhoods, mayor Muriel Bowser announced on Wednesday. The aim: to make stolen cars easier for police to track down.

I really really wanted to like the Touch Bar, but it just didn’t work. I value the tactile feel of buttons, which the Touch Bar lacked, but that’s the same argument the crackberry keyboard folks made about the iPhone keyboard. 

The Touch Bar didn’t feel better than the buttons. As an example, increasing the volume or display brightness moved from something I could do without looking to requiring me to tap and then intently look as I adjusted the bar with my finger, something that I can adjust on my phone with its button in my pocket. Great concept but it simply didn’t work.

That said, the keyboard remains one of the oldest and least evolved ways we use computers. Today, my keyboard should adapt to the app’s needs, like a tablet or phone updates the keyboard or input to what makes sense for the user. Our computer’s input is ripe for disruption, but the Touch Bar wasn’t it. 

Goodbye, Touch Bar, you held incredible promise

You just rarely delivered.

I loved Mint and started using it a year before the Intuit acquisition. Loved the app then but it failed to keep up with the times and never evolved into the budgeting app I hoped it would become.

These days, I’m a big fan of CoPilot, and unlike an increasingly large number of apps that get revenue from selling financial data, they seem focused on making revenue from building the best budget product out there. Give them a try, and if you’re not a fan YNAB is my runner up.

Intuit is shutting down Mint, its popular free budget-tracking app

Intuit is shutting down its free budgeting app Mint, which had 3.6 million active users in 2021.