Captain Disillusion
1 HN recommender · recommended in 6 months, 2016–2024
13:26 · 12M views · Sep 24, 2016
Captain Disillusion debunks the Cicret Bracelet, a crowdfunded wearable that claimed to project a touchscreen onto the wrist. He looks at the concept, design, execution and fundraising.
HN uses the Cicret Bracelet as shorthand for vaporware, applied to products like the Humane AI Pin, and praises Captain Disillusion's production values.
7 comments from Hacker News
This seems like a good time to mention Captain Disillusion. A filmmaker and video editor, Alan Melikdjanian, started a YouTube channel back in 2007. He debunks viral videos and adverts, whilst performing in character as the rather surreal "Captain Disillision". Don't let the bizarre performance scare you off - his production values are simply outstanding, especially considering he does this all pretty-much singlehandedly, and has done so with hardly any recognition for the past 10 years. I think his channel only hit 100k subscribers last year, so it looks like he might finally be getting some well-deserved recognition. Here's a few links to some of his best stuff. You'll probably be thinking "WTF is this?" when you first start watching, but trust me and stick with it: - [LINK] - this video - [LINK]
The "laser ink display" looks a bit like the totally bunk display tech of the Cicret Bracelet "product" that VFX videomaker Captain Disillusion did a comprehensive takedown of a couple of years ago this video . While it looks like there are a few videos of apparent actual demos, I haven't seen one yet where the device (and more importantly, the recording camera's settings) are controlled by an impartial reviewer, and I'm extremely sceptical that this is usable in the real world. There's a demo by the founder where one of the inputs is to tilt your palm up, and even in the demo the projection struggles to compete with the indoor lights, nevermind the sun [LINK] . The pitch of this seems to be "no more distracting screens, and no need to download and manage lots of apps and services". Except there is a (very poor) screen, it's your hand. And you're limited to just one service and set of apps, the one that comes with the device. It's all well and good saying that the AI can do everything you want, but the real world (sadly) has copyright restrictions and content licensing agreements which an out-of-the-box service by a legit company will have to abide by. If the song I want to listen to isn't available on whatever music service this product is partnered with, could I transfer music files from my computer to this device? There's a lot of use cases like this where you very quickly start to want an actual screen, and actual methods of input more precise and domain-specific than conver
Thanks for the answers! I think it looks like interesting tech and it could be fun to play around with it, despite the limitations. But I really think you should reconsider the messaging around the product. I'd imagine most of your potential customers would be tech-savvy enough to ask the questions raised in this thread. Right now your marketing material is making us suspicious; it looks like you have something to hide. I think you'd be much better off if you were transparent about the technical limitations, so as not to be mistaken for another Cicret Bracelet ( this video ). Getting that out of the way would allow you to focus your story on the possibilities, why this tech is cool (because it is!). Also, judging by your description some of the material on the site is very deceptive, such as the animation with the horse. It appears to be very high resolution, there's no "slicing" even at acute viewing angles, and it has dark objects occluding lighter ones. That's not really OK.
“Humane is using sensory data from a wearable device to perform smartphone activities like writing messages, playing music, or opening Twitter via a projection on a person’s left hand.” Sounds like the “Cicret Bracelet” - see Captain Disillusion for how well that works: this video
Ah yes because light rays from lasers are fundamentally better than other light rays. Handheld projectors won't catch on until the next breakthrough in physics this video love with your heart, use your head for everything else