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It would be a massive understatement to suggest that robot toys are a mixed bag. They largely get the looks right, but brains are another thing altogether. Look at the time and money that went into building the first Roomba, for example, and it becomes very clear why the dream of ubiquitous home robot still seems like a lifetime away.

Just ahead of the holidays, I got a tinge of nostalgia from robot toys of yore. A friend told me they’d picked up a Roboraptor for a child in their life. I naturally asked, “they still make Roboraptor?” Granted, that’s probably not the first thing you want to hear after spending $70 on what you’d thought was a bleeding edge robot toy.

They do, indeed, still make Roboraptor – “they” being Wowee, a toy company founded in Montreal that now operates out of Hong Kong. Hasbro bought the company in the late-90s, only to sell it again in 2007. Roborapter debuted to some acclaim the following year and a deluge of robot toys – including Robosapian – followed. The company also gave the world this terrifying monstrosity of a robotic “watch dog.” A “houndroid,” per the add.

In recent years, the company has been less focused on robots. Earlier this year, WowWee’s “My Avastars” were the target of a lawsuit from Roblox Corp over the “blatant and admitted copying of” its IP. WowWee called the suit “completely meritless.”

Today the company returns to CES with MINTiDDog-E, a strangely named, but less threatening robot dog toy than the iron-jawed Megabyte Cyber Watch Dog. It’s not exactly a Sony Aibo, either, as reflected in the $80 price tag. The robot dog does, however, take advantage of the Dog-E app, which saves different “profiles” to the dog. The “minting” refers to a kind of robot dog imprinting process. Per the company,

Dog-E is a smart, app-connected robot dog with life-like movements, audio sensors to hear sounds, touch sensors on its head, nose and sides of its body, and a POV (persistence of vision) tail that displays icons and messages to communicate. As soon as you turn on Dog-E, your all-white pup comes to life through the minting process, which reveals its unique colors and characteristics. The minting process can begin by petting its head, touching its nose, or playing with it, among a long list of other interactions.

The dog is up for pre-orders now and shops this fall.

WoWee returns to robots with a dog named ‘Dog-E’ by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch

Harman, a Samsung subsidiary that specializes in connected car technology and other IoT solutions, revealed at CES a suite of automotive features geared towards enhancing the health and safety of drivers and passengers, including an advanced driver monitoring system (DMS) that can measure a driver’s heart and breath rate.

Harman initially launched its DMS, called Ready Care, in September to measure driver eye activity and state of mind to determine cognitive distraction levels and then have the car initiate a personalized response to help mitigate dangerous driving situations. Based on the driver’s stress levels, Ready Care could also provide alternate routes, perhaps away from traffic jams, that might help to alleviate stress.

On Wednesday, Harman added to the Ready Care product contactless measurement of human vitals such as heart rate, breathing rate and inter-beat levels to further determine a driver’s state of well-being. Now, rather than just relying on an infrared global shutter camera, Harman has added to its set of sensors an in-cabin radar. Harman says this will also allow the vehicle to detect if a child is left unattended.

“With its unique ability to deliver customized and personalized driver interventions via a closed-loop approach, from detections via analysis to adjusting the temperature, audio settings and vehicle lighting, Ready Care offers solutions and protective intelligence that constantly prioritizes the driver’s well-being,” said Armin Prommersberger, SVP of product management at Harman, in a statement.

Through Harman’s software development kit and supporting APIs, OEMs and other third party suppliers can integrate their own vehicle features or functions as part of the in-cabin customized interventions against driver drowsiness and distraction, said Harman. The company didn’t say which OEMs it plans to partner with, but when Harman initially launched Ready Care, BMW showcased the tech at the North America auto show.

Harman also revealed two new products dedicated towards enhancing the audio experience inside and outside the vehicle for safer driving. Together, the Sound and Vibration Sensor (SVS) and External Microphone can help people inside the vehicle better identify emergency vehicle sirens, listen for exterior speech commands from other drivers or traffic controllers, detect glass breakage or vehicle impact and more, according to Harman.

“Audio has the power to deliver incredible experiences for drivers and passengers, and safety is no exception,” said Mitul Jhala, senior director of Harman’s automotive embedded audio team, in a statement.“With our new embedded audio solutions, SVS and External Microphone, OEMs can now offer the acoustic sensing and exterior sound detection consumers are looking for, while enhancing safety both inside and outside the vehicle.”

Harman said the SVS can be invisibly integrated into a vehicle’s exterior and the external microphone can handle environmental elements like wind, sun and poor weather. The company said SVS and the external microphone are future-proofed for an autonomous world, and can be integrated into a vehicle’s larger sensor suite to increase awareness of sounds not just for vehicle occupants but also for self-driving systems.

Harman’s driver monitoring system can measure your heart rate by Rebecca Bellan originally published on TechCrunch

Spotify is introducing a new in-app experience called “Playlist in a Bottle” that is designed to let you capture your current music tastes and revisit them one year later. The streaming service announced on Wednesday that the new user experience will help users capture the moment by the time January 2024 rolls around.

To get started with your Playlist in a Bottle, you need to ensure your Spotify mobile app is up to date with the latest version. Then, you need to navigate to spotify.com/playlistinabottle from your mobile device. From there, you can begin the experience by selecting your time capsule of choice. The options include a bottle, jean pocket, gumball machine, lunch box or teddy bear.

The feature will then ask you a series of song-inspired prompts. For example, you may be asked what song you want to hear live in 2023 or what song reminds you of your favorite person. Once you’re done, you can digitally seal your musical time capsule and send it off. You also have the option to share a personalized card to your social channels with the hashtag #PlaylistInABottle. Come January 2024, you’ll receive your personalized time capsule reminding you what you were listening to one year prior.

The new feature is live starting today in 27 markets, including Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, U.A.E., U.K. and the U.S. Playlist in a Bottle is available for both free and premium users across iOS and Android devices.

Given the success of Spotify Wrapped, which has taken the internet by storm over the past few years every December, it’s no surprise that Spotify is looking to recreate the same sort of buzz toward the start of the year as well. Spotify Wrapped is largely popular because you can share it across social media, which is also possible with Playlist in a Bottle.

After January 31, you will no longer be able to create a Playlist in a Bottle, so get started on yours if you don’t want to experience FOMO a year from now when everyone’s sharing their results.

Spotify’s new time capsule feature will let you revisit your musical taste a year from now by Aisha Malik originally published on TechCrunch

Last year, Amazon and Disney announced a plan to develop a custom voice assistant that combined Alexa’s smarts with Disney’s library of character voices and original recordings. Dubbed “Hey Disney!,” the voice assistant was the first non-Alexa assistant to become available on Echo devices and installed at select Disney Resort hotels. Now, for the first time, Amazon is showing off the new voice assistant to the general public at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. And soon, it says, customers will be able to purchase the Disney Magical Companion voice assistant for use in their own homes, as well.

The launch of the Disney voice assistant has been something of an experiment for Amazon, which has struggled to get its own Alexa users to use its voice assistant for anything more than basic tasks — like setting timers, making lists, or controlling their smart home via their Echo smart speakers and smart screens or other Alexa-powered devices. Unfortunately for Amazon, shopping via Alexa also didn’t take off — nor did other attempts to monetize Alexa through things like in-app purchases or subscriptions to voice apps.

As a result of this and other economic forces, workers in the Alexa division, were among those hardest hit by Amazon’s recent layoffs.

Meanwhile, Amazon’s Disney partnership, which includes access to Disney’s intellectual property, allows Alexa’s technology to be used for a broader range of experiences, while also offering Amazon a potential revenue stream from custom client solutions.

Before today, the Disney voice assistant was available in select Disney Resort hotel rooms, as a free service for the guests. Visitors could ask the assistant for pertinent information like park hours, directions to the park, or where to eat. They could also make guest service requests at the hotel, like ordering extra towels or room service.

And, of course, the assistant is packed with Disney features — like jokes, interactive trivia, greetings from favorite Disney characters, and access to “soundscapes” inspired by Disney films. Supported voices include those from over 20 popular characters from Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, and more. When you ask for the weather, Olaf from “Frozen” might tell you when it’s cold outside, for instance. The experience itself is guided by the Disney Magical Companion, not Alexa — but some guests have complained the voice is not a known character, like Mickey.

The assistant itself was built using Amazon’s Alexa Custom Assistant (ACA) solution, which allowed Disney to customize Alexa’s technology while also supporting its own in-house tech. To start, Hey Disney! will work with Disney’s interactive wearable, the Disney MagicBand+, which will enhance Disney’s trivia game by turning the band into a game show buzzer of sorts that reacts with lights and haptics as players answer the trivia questions. The band, which is typically used in the park for entry and other things like Lightning Lane access, will also light up and buzz when an alarm or timer the guest sets goes off.

Amazon aided in the development of the assistant, it says, helping Disney to create hundreds of pieces of custom content. It’s also using the platform to introduce voice assistants to consumers who have yet to interact with them by offering hints and prompts about things they can do — like hear a joke or play a game.

“Disney is the master storyteller, and its stories are so powerful for so many people,” noted Aaron Rubenson, the vice president of Alexa, in a statement released during CES. “Now people can keep talking to a character, they can continue with the storyline when they go back to their room at the end of the day, or when they go home after the vacation is over. It’s just gratifying to imagine that we’re a part of literally bringing that magic home,” he added.

Disney and Amazon will make the Disney Magical Companion available to U.S. customers for purchase later this year, but does not have a launch time at this time.

Amazon’s custom-built ‘Hey Disney!’ voice assistant will become available for purchase later this year by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Cars become an extension of the body when humans drive; we can feel the lack of grip in our car’s tires when driving over icy or wet roads. Autonomous vehicles don’t exactly have the same sensory abilities, which is one of the reasons why most AV testing and deployment happens in sunny climates.

Gatik, a Canadian autonomous trucking company, thinks tire-sensing data might be the key to bringing self-driving tech to wintery roads. The company is working with Goodyear, the iconic tire company, to prove that intelligent tires can accurately estimate tire-road friction and provide real-time information back to Gatik’s automated driving system.

“The tire is the only part of the vehicle that touches the ground, and this new level of data sophistication can communicate vital information to the vehicle, enhancing safety and performance,” said Chris Helsel, Goodyear’s senior vice president global operations and chief technology officer, in a statement. “This is another step to evolve the tire to not only deliver its core, traditional job but also be a nexus of new data and information.”

The companies shared at CES 2023 that they recently deployed Goodyear’s road friction detection technology, called SightLine, in Canada. The deployment involved continuously measuring tire sensor-derived information — like wear state, load, inflation pressure and temperature — against other vehicle data and real-time road weather data. All of this information was then connected to Goodyear’s cloud-based proprietary algorithms to come up with a friction estimate. Goodyear said over the course of the trial, these friction estimates successfully detected low grip conditions, like snowy or icy conditions.

The idea down the line is for the friction estimates to be sent back to Gatik’s autonomous fleet to assist with path planning and providing recommendations for safe driving speed, vehicle acceleration limits and vehicle following distance, according to Goodyear.

Of course, the potential for SightLine doesn’t end with better detection of snowy roads or even with autonomous driving. Goodyear said it expects to deploy the tech on “select original equipment vehicles” in 2023. Tire technology can also provide information on the health of the tire and collect information about road conditions like potholes.

In 2021, Goodyear Ventures and Porsche Ventures strategically invested in Tactile Mobility, an Israeli startup that said its tech could measure tire grip estimation and tire health. It’s not clear if Goodyear collaborated with Tactile Mobility to develop SightLine, and the company didn’t respond in time to TechCrunch’s queries.

Goodyear, Gatik say tire tech is key to bringing AVs to winter climates by Rebecca Bellan originally published on TechCrunch

Sam Bankman-Fried’s not guilty plea to several federal fraud charges was largely anticipated, and something a few legal experts suggested was a tactical response.

The former CEO of crypto exchange FTX, whose company collapsed in November, made the plea in Federal District Court in New York.

It’s very common in the federal criminal justice system for defendants to plead not guilty at their initial appearance, Mary Beth Buchanan, a former U.S. attorney now advising blockchain companies, said to TechCrunch.

The expedited timeline of FTX’s collapse and the legal actions against those involved was unexpected and unprecedented.

In less than two months, Bankman-Fried faced eight federal criminal charges, while others close to him — including FTX co-founder and former CTO Gary Wang and Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison — pleaded guilty to multiple charges and accepted plea agreements.

But Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty “because he had the absolute right to do so,” Anthony Sabino, a professor of law at The Peter J. Tobin College of Business at St. John’s University, said to TechCrunch. “And it was the smart play. Keep your options open. Do not give the government an edge. Wait it out. A deal can always be made later.”

Michael Fasanello, crypto compliance officer at AnChain.AI, agreed. “The initial plea of ‘not guilty’ is really just a formality of process and recognition of the charges by the defendant.”

By pleading not guilty, it gives Bankman-Fried more room to try and strike a deal with prosecutors, if that’s something he and his lawyers want, Sabino noted.

Lewis Kaplan, the senior judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, set Bankman-Fried’s next trial date for October 2. But not everyone expects that date to be set in stone or is confident that Bankman-Fried will hold his plea until then.

“This is not a case where you want to either plead ‘not guilty’ and wage all-out war or plead ‘guilty’ and throw yourself on the mercy of the court,” Fasanello said. “The middle ground is the sweet spot, here.”

Bankman-Fried’s defense team will need more time to prepare, given the expected mountain of evidence to sift through, Sabino said. “Far more important, it is more likely than not the prosecutors and SBF will talk a deal. So time will be needed to negotiate a plea bargain.”

SBF’s anticipated not guilty plea was a ‘smart play’ by Jacquelyn Melinek originally published on TechCrunch

Vimeo rings in the new year with another round of layoffs, affecting 11% of its workforce. In an email to staff today, CEO Anjali Sud cited an “uncertain economic environment” as the reason for the reduction.

“This was a very hard decision that impacts each of us deeply. It is also the right thing to do to enable Vimeo to be a more focused and successful company… It positions us to both invest in our growth priorities and be sustainably profitable while continuing to innovate to bring the power of video to every business in the world,” Sud wrote. She added that impacted employees were told via individual emails and were sent an invitation to meet with their team leader and a member of human resources.

Employees in the Sales and Research & Development departments made up the majority of the layoffs.

This isn’t the first round of layoffs for the video hosting platform, which cut 6% of its staff in July 2022. Since the July layoffs, Vimeo has seen a “further deterioration in economic conditions, in the form of prolonged geopolitical conflict, rising interest rates, and global recession fears,” Sud said. In November, the company reported its third-quarter earnings, showing a loss of about 100,000 subscribers from the previous quarter and an operating loss of $22.9 million.

However, Sud is confident that Vimeo can make a comeback. “We are entering 2023 with a more focused strategy to simplify Vimeo, and ultimately, our team size and composition needs to reflect that focus,” she wrote. “This reduction enables us to achieve our growth and profitability goals in a way that is far less dependent on the broader market, putting us in full control of our destiny.”

In May of last year, Vimeo went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Launched in 2004, Vimeo now claims over 260 million users, including big corporations, small businesses, organizations and content creators.

As of December 2021, Vimeo employed 1,219 full-time workers, per its annual regulatory filing.

Vimeo joins the growing list of tech companies that have downsized in the past few months, from Salesforce and Twitter to Meta, Amazon and more.

Vimeo enters 2023 with a round of layoffs, impacting 11% of employees by Lauren Forristal originally published on TechCrunch

Withings, best known for its smart scales, watches, and other health-focused consumer tech, released a new gadget at CES in Las Vegas today. Making a splash in an underserved market, U-Scan aims to help customers track what’s going on in their urine, without having to worry about catching their wastewater in a cup or messing about with test strips. The device syncs to the company’s ever-expanding Health Mate app and promises to give actionable insights.

The U-scan is designed to be installed in the toilet bowl, which gives users hands-free access to urine analysis. While routine in medical settings, Urine is a rarely-tapped opportunity for at-home health monitoring. That may change quite a bit over the next few years if Withings has its way. The company points out that urine has more than 3,000 metabolites, giving an immediate snapshot of the body’s balance and health.

“The ability of U-Scan to perform daily urine analysis from home will allow Withings to take its mission to help consumers fully utilize urine data to an entirely new level,” said Mathieu Letombe, Withings CEO at a press conference. “It’s one of the most exciting and complex products we have ever announced. We begin this journey with U-Scan Cycle Sync and Nutri Balance and look forward to announcing more cartridges on an ongoing basis as well as medical applications of the technology.”

The rechargeable U-Scan reader knows the difference between flush water and urine and ensures it collects only the samples it needs. When in use, urine flows efficiently to a collection inlet, activating a pump when a thermal sensor detects the presence of urine. The sample is guided through a microfluidic circuit and injected into a test pod. Here, the reaction is read by an optical sensor and reported back to the app. Every subsequent flush of the toilet cleans the system, resetting it for the next sample collection.

In Europe, the U-Scan Nutri Balance app shows an analysis of specific gravity, pH, vitamin C and ketone levels. The combination of these measurements helps people monitor their metabolic intake to optimize their daily hydration and nutrients. The ‘actionable’ part of that is that the system can recommend workouts, offer dietary suggestions, and recipes, all to help health-conscious users achieve their goals. The company points out that US functionality of Nutri Balance may vary, depending on what the FDA has to say about the matter.

The product will make its debut in Europe with dwo different health cartridges aimed at consumers. Medically focused cartridges will follow in the not-too-distant future. The price tag is €499.95, and includes one U-Scan reader and a cartridge providing 3 months of testing. The first two cartridges that are becoming available are Cycle Sync, which will help people who have monthly cycles track them, and a Nutri Balance cartridge, which will gives a detailed metabolic guide for nutrition and hydration. The company isn’t sure when the device will be made available in the US, as its launch will be depending on FDA clearance.

Incredibly, U-Scan can tell the difference between various users (and therefore assigning the results to the correct person using the device), through it’s amazingly named Stream ID feature. Low-energy radar sensors embedded within the reader measure multiple variables to identify an individual’s “urine stream signature”, by detecting the movement and distance of the stream. Stream ID information can be affirmed in the app.

In addition to the consumer-focused product, Withings Health Solutions, the company’s business-to-business division serving the healthcare provider market, is making the technology available to partners for research purposes.

The company told TechCrunch it is planning to make the cartridges available on a subscription basis, or on an individual basis.

Pee is the magic number, as Withings puts a urine analysis lab in your toilet by Haje Jan Kamps originally published on TechCrunch

While German startup Trade Republic is better known as a mobile app that helps you buy and sell stock, the company is adding interest on uninvested cash. Users who hold cash in their Trade Republic account will receive 2% in annual interest.

This feature reminds me of Robinhood’s brokerage cash sweep program. In the U.S., Robinhood users currently get 1.5% interest on cash sitting in their accounts.

With this new feature, Trade Republic will likely attract new customers who are looking for higher interest rates as inflation impacts the savings of European consumers. Of course, the company probably hopes that users will also start trading stock with its app. Trade Republic makes money from payment-for-order flow and some small fees.

More precisely, Trade Republic says that interests will be calculated on a daily basis and the startup credits user accounts once per month. Users only generate interest on cash balances up to €50,000. For now, the company promises 2% APY so it’s going to be interesting to see if it can maintain a high interest rate over time.

“With 2% effective annual interest per year, we are passing on the benefits of the new interest rate environment directly to our customers. Every investor can now benefit directly and easily from interest”, co-founder Christian Hecker said in a statement.

Trade Republic currently operates in 17 European countries and was one of the fintech startups that raised a mega funding round in 2021. It reached a $5 billion valuation following its $900 million round.

2022 was a bit different. The company announced a $264 million (€250 million) Series C extension but also laid some people off. In addition to shares, Trade Republic also offers exchange-traded funds (ETFs), derivatives and cryptocurrencies.

Trade Republic, a popular stock trading app, adds 2% interest on cash by Romain Dillet originally published on TechCrunch

New York financial regulators have found that the popular cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase violated anti-money laundering laws by failing to conduct adequate background checks. Coinbase will pay a $50 million fine to the New York State Department of Financial Services, and is also required to spend $50 million on improving its compliance program.

Coinbase disclosed that this investigation was in progress in its annual 10k filing in 2021.

State regulators first noticed problems at Coinbase in May 2020 during routine supervisory examinations. The Department of Financial Services found what it called “significant deficiencies” in various compliance programs, including customer due diligence procedures, transaction monitoring systems, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) programs and anti-money laundering risk assessments. Upon closer examination into potential legal violations, regulators also found issues with Coinbase’s “retention of books and records” and reporting to the state department.

“During the course of the Department’s investigation, the compliance situation inside Coinbase reached a critical stage,” the filing reads. The regulators found that by the end of 2021, Coinbase had a backlog of over 100,000 unreviewed transaction monitoring alerts, plus a backlog 14,000 users requiring enhanced due diligence.

These backlogs were due in part to Coinbase’s dramatic growth in 2021 — the filing says that Coinbase signups in May 2021 were fifteen times higher than January 2020, and by November 2021, there were twenty-five times more monthly transactions than in January 2020.

Regulators say that Coinbase did not have enough staff to keep up with growing compliance needs. Yet when Coinbase laid off 18% of its workforce (or 1,100 people) in June 2022, CEO Brian Armstrong said that the cuts were a result of over-hiring after the company’s 2021 boom.

According to the filing, it was instead the responsibility of over 1,000 third-party contractors to catch up with the backlog, not full-time employees. Regulators found that Coinbase didn’t properly oversee or train these contractors, so “a substantial portion of the alerts reviewed by third parties was rife with errors,” the filing says.

“The training Coinbase provided was not scalable for the size of the contractor force, and attendance at the training sessions was not adequately tracked,” regulators wrote. “The quality control process was not always performed by the contractor organizations to the standards that Coinbase provided, and initially, Coinbase did not have a system in place to audit the quality control that was done.”

As a result of these inaccuracies, regulators wrote that Coinbase failed to report potential instances of money laundering, narcotics trafficking and CSAM-related activity to authorities.

The filing also states that since 2018, Coinbase has been aware of its failures to meet state standards for money laundering and financial terrorism compliance.

“Although Coinbase has worked to correct these issues, its progress has been slow: progress in certain areas did not occur until recently, and work remains outstanding to the present,” the filing states.

The risks of this non-compliance are haven’t been merely hypothetical, regulators wrote.

The department found that one former Coinbase customer had faced criminal charges in the 1990s related to child sexual abuse material (CSAM). After engaging in “suspicious transactions potentially associated with illicit activity” for more than two years, Coinbase detected the activity, shut down the account and cooperated with law enforcement.

Another customer claimed to be an employee of a corporation and managed to gain unauthorized access to that corporation’s bank — by setting up a fraudulent Coinbase account in the name of the corporation, the customer transferred $150 million to their new account. Coinbase didn’t detect this fraud until six days later when contacted by the corporation in question; the money was later recovered after an investigation by law enforcement.

These charges come at a time when consumers are losing trust in popular cryptocurrency exchanges. After filing for bankruptcy, FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is facing criminal charges including wire fraud and conspiracy to misuse customer funds; Bankman-Fried has plead not guilty to all charges.

“Coinbase has taken substantial measures to address these historical shortcomings and remains committed to being a leader and role model in the crypto space, including partnering with regulators when it comes to compliance,” said Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal. “We believe our investment in compliance outpaces every other crypto exchange anywhere in the world, and that our customers can feel safe and protected while using our platforms.”

Coinbase reaches $100M settlement over background check failures by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch