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Tech News
Guidance on Fitbit devices clarifies that users can restart their watch as often as needed without harming the hardware. Restarting is recommended as a troubleshooting step for issues like failed app syncing, unresponsive screens, delayed touch input, or inaccurate activity tracking.
Startup Aina has unveiled a smart ring featuring a tiny OLED screen, a microphone, and touch-capacitive controls that let wearers manage AI agents and connected devices. The ring is designed to learn user habits from a phone or PC and surface relevant prompts, such as approving an agent's action, directly on its display. It is priced at $400, available for pre-order now, and expected to ship in early 2025.
Google confirmed to Android Authority that a fix for the severe Pixel Watch battery drain issue is rolling out over the next few days. The bug had cut battery life to about 12 hours on largely idle devices across multiple Pixel Watch generations. Users can apply the fix immediately by manually updating their apps through the Play Store on the watch.
A team at the National University of Singapore, led by Assistant Professor Tural Khudiyev, has created a flexible display by weaving 54 electronic fibers—each embedding LEDs and touch sensors within a one-millimeter-thick structure—into a garment sleeve. The 168mm by 105mm prototype displays images and video at 30 frames per second, responds to touch, connects wirelessly to devices, and maintains performance after 50 machine-wash cycles.
Nonprofit APOPO is training African giant pouched rats fitted with lightweight, high-tech backpacks to search for survivors trapped in earthquake rubble. The devices allow the rats to navigate confined spaces that are too dangerous or small for human responders and robotic rescue equipment to reach.
Whoop, the fitness wearable founded by Will Ahmed, is expanding its focus beyond elite athletes to target Medicare recipients as part of a broader strategy to integrate with the U.S. healthcare system. The move follows the company's reported $10.1 billion valuation and mirrors a similar strategy pursued by rival wearable maker Oura.
Fitbit has released a new device called the Edge, positioned as a simpler fitness tracker rather than a full-featured smartwatch. Early reviews describe it as focused on core activity tracking rather than the broader feature set found in recent wearables.
Engineers at the National University of Singapore, led by Fu Heng, created millimeter-thick fibers embedding thousands of LED chips and pressure sensors, woven into a sweater sleeve to act as an interactive display. The fibers survived 50 machine washes and 1,000 bending cycles, and can be produced up to 10 meters long with added components like microphones and temperature sensors, though the prototype still needs external batteries and controllers.
More than a month into its beta release, Apple's updated Siri AI is proving capable of answering personalized queries by pulling from a user's messages, emails and other on-device data, such as past hotel costs or old contact details. The assistant remains slow to respond even to simple requests, according to a 9to5Mac columnist's hands-on account.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge, working with spin-out GlitterinTech, have built a low-cost optical spectrometer only centimeters in size. Called a convolutional spectrometer, it uses the convolution theorem to analyze light, which the team says yields accuracy and measurement range exceeding existing compact spectrometer designs.
Nirva, founded in 2025 by ex-Meta Reality Labs employees Wei Lyu and Jason Chen along with jewelry designer Hanying Hu, closed a $25 million pre-Series A round. Combined with an earlier $8 million from investors including Lightspeed and South Park Commons, the startup has now raised $33 million total. Its first product is an eight-gram pendant or bracelet with a three-day battery that is designed to listen only to the wearer's own voice, using onboarding voice samples to filter out other speakers.
Oura has introduced two new cardiovascular health features for its smart ring: Cardio Effort, which measures exertion during activity, and Automatic VO2 Max, which estimates aerobic fitness without requiring a dedicated test. The features add to the ring's existing suite of health and recovery metrics.