WP Pro Online

For the past several CESes, Qualcomm’s big announcements have largely revolved around automotive news. There will likely still be a fair bit of that this week, as well, but the company just announced an upcoming mobile feature in this down time between the Snapdragon Summit and MWC.

The Southern California chipmaker is partnering with Iridium to bring satellite messaging to select Android devices, starting with those running its new flagship SoC, Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. The technology utilizes the 5G Modem-RF Systems on the Qualcomm hardware, coupled with Iridium’s satellite constellation to deliver emergency messaging, following in the recent footsteps of Apple and T-Mobile.

Garmin is in the mix here, as well, adding support by way of its Response feature built atop the Iridium network for emergency messages in remote locations where no carrier coverage exists. That technology was built with hikers in mind, though certainly there are plenty of other scenarios in which such SOS features could prove a literal life saver.

“Garmin Response supports thousands of SOS incidents each year and has likely saved many lives in the process,” Garmin VP Brad Trenkle says in a release, “and we are looking forward to collaborating with Qualcomm Technologies and Iridium to help people connect to emergency services no matter where life takes them.”

Applications include two-way emergency texting and messaging applications beyond SMS, using Iridium’s L-band. With today’s news, Qualcomm is opening access to the feature up to OEMs. The first batch of smartphones to get the feature will be arriving this year. I’d anticipate some more concrete announcements on that front right around MWC.

Qualcomm partners with Iridium to bring satellite messaging to Android phones by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch

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Welcome back to Chain Reaction and Happy New Year! As we kick off 2023, I’m curious to see if the crypto industry will be living the, “New Year, New Me” motto or if history will repeat itself. Hopefully the former. Anyways, let’s get into it.

The New York Attorney General filed a lawsuit on Thursday against Alex Mashinsky, the co-founder and former CEO of crypto lending platform Celsius, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 2022.

The attorney general claims Mashinsky defrauded hundreds of thousands of investors for billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency. This announcement follows a bankruptcy judge ruling from Wednesday that Celsius owns users’ interest-bearing crypto accounts thanks to its fine print.

Separately, FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried plead not guilty to all eight counts of U.S. criminal charges on Tuesday.

Prior to the announcement, he was expected to plead not guilty, so this wasn’t a huge shocker to most, but this decision could turn into a lengthy legal battle. Bankman-Fried could face up to 115 years in jail if convicted on all charges. His trial date has been set for October 2, 2023…so stay tuned.

In other big news, Coinbase reached a $100 million settlement after New York financial regulators found the crypto exchange to be violating anti-money laundering laws by failing to conduct adequate background checks.

More details below.

The week in web3

Coinbase reaches $100M settlement over background check failures

As mentioned above, 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.

Bankruptcy judge rules Celsius Network owns users’ interest-bearing crypto accounts

The verdict gives Celsius ownership of the $4.2 billion in cryptocurrency that users deposited into its high-interest Earn program, according to a 45-page filing from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Southern District of New York on Wednesday. Celsius had approximately 600,000 accounts in its Earn program, and the accounts held a collective value of approximately $4.2 billion as of July 10, 2022, the filing noted. About $23 million of that value consisted of stablecoins. But all of that is now property of the estate, aka Celsius, the judge ruled.

SBF’s anticipated not guilty plea was a ‘smart play’ (TC+)

Former CEO of FTX 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. 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.”

Solana price spikes as newly launched dog coin BONK gains community hype

Last week, Solana (SOL) fell to its lowest level since February 2021. But its price has slightly risen this week and some are crediting it to interest from Solana community members in Bonk, a new meme token that airdropped about 50% of its 56 trillion token supply to users last week. The Shiba Inu–themed cryptocurrency has risen about 43.7% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.

Investors say web3 and hype are in for 2023, high valuations are out — maybe? (TC+)

Some think 2023 will just be the start of a venture winter and overall economic recession, while others think we could see some stabilization as things head back to normal by midyear. But who is to say? To find out how investors are thinking about the year ahead and what they’re planning, we asked more than 35 investors to share their thoughts.

The latest pod

Chain Reaction’s first season ended in December, but we’ll be bringing in new content for Season 2 next week, stay tuned!

Subscribe to Chain Reaction on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the latest episodes, and please leave us a review if you like what you hear!

Follow the money

MSafe closed a $5 million round to develop multi-signature wallet solutions
Assure Wallet raised $1.4 million for its pre-Series A round
On-chain platform Ondefy raised $1 million to grow DeFi adoption
Web3-focused online education infrastructure DeSchool closed its seed round, hitting a $15 million valuation
Digital wallet Centbee raised $1 million to support Bitcoin remittances

This list was compiled with information from Messari as well as TechCrunch’s own reporting.

Crypto is ringing in the New Year with new lawsuits and new chaos by Jacquelyn Melinek originally published on TechCrunch

We didn’t make it to the in-person CES last year, but we did manage to get our hands on a few products from the comfort of our own homes. That list included Power1, an iPhone battery case with a built slot for AirPods charging. The product’s creator, AXS Technologies, has since done a rethink of the accessory, which debuts at this year’s show.

Like its predecessor, the Model 3 relies on the iPhone’s MagSafe feature, but instead of running the full length of the phone, it’s significantly smaller — though the the company says it adds up to 5x battery life for AirPods. There are two modes – one just charges the headphones, while the other charges both them and the phone at the same time. The pad itself has a magnet strong enough to stick to a phone in a MagSafe case.

“Power1 Model 3 is our most significant and advanced design yet giving users the ability to attach our charging system directly on iPhones or on most MagSafe cases” says CEO John Merenda. “Power1 is the first product to offer all-in-one on-device charging of AirPods and iPhone and creates a new category of charging systems”.

The product is compatible with AirPods Generations 2 and 3 and is set to start shipping in the spring, priced at $100 – the same as its predecessor.

The Power1 AirPods charging case gets a lot smaller by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch

Want to get a “text” from your dog when he’s hungry, wants to go outside, or wants to play? The dream of being able to communicate with your dog is coming closer to reality with the launch of FluentPet’s new app-connected talking button system. The new product is an update to the model first made popular by a dog named Bunny, whose 9 million+ social media followers landed the sheepadoodle on Forbes’ list of the top 50 social media creators of 2022.

On TikTok alone, Bunny has 8.2 million followers on the @whataboutbunny account.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, FluentPet was demonstrating its new communication system for pets, the FluentPet Connect.

Like the first version, the new system involves programmable buttons that, when pressed, speak voice commands. The dog can press the buttons with its paw or nose, while hexagonal, multicolored tiles — which the company called “HexTiles” — hold the buttons in place and offer visual cues for the dogs as to the button’s location. The system can be expanded by snapping together more tiles as the dog’s vocabulary grows.

To use FluentPet, dog owners will record their voice speaking command words, like “water,” “outside,” “ball,” “play,” and others they want to teach their pet to know and understand. Dogs already know words, of course — as any pet owner will tell you — but what makes this system interesting is that the dog can press a button to communicate what it wants. The sound itself emits from a base station with a speaker attached.

Some dogs are smarter than others, and not all dogs will be able to achieve Bunny’s level of success with such a system, of course.

However, the company says that over 70% of dogs using the system will get two buttons within a month — a “play” button and an “outside” button, typically. Then the dog owner may then add on an “All Done” button to signal that a play session has ended. On average, dogs learn up to 9 words with the buttons, the company has found.

Still, the findings from the sales of the original FluentPet system have been eye-opening. Since starting shipping its first-gen product in June 2020, the company has reached over 100,000 households. It surprisingly found that dogs weren’t just able to learn individual words, but were also putting together word combinations to communicate — like “water” plus “bone” to indicate they wanted an ice cube.

“Because we’ve got all of these people that are kind of co-creating this new product category with us, they’re able to communicate to us interesting new things — new button combinations that their dogs seem to use. So this is why we think of it as ‘translation,” explains FluentPet CEO FluentPet CEO Leo Trottier.

Trottier’s background is in cognitive science and A.I., he says — noting he left the Ph.D. program at UC San Diego after doing his undergrad at the University of Toronto in order to build the company that became FluentPet. Originally called CleverPet, the goal had been to build something more in the dog games space. (The other original co-founders have since left).

The data (with users’ permission) is being shared with the Comparative Cognition Lab, and soon, with John Hopkins.

FluentPet’s other co-founder Alexis Devine, is Bunny’s owner — so it turns out, Bunny’s social media across Instagram and TikTok was actually a savvy marketing campaign for FluentPet’s systems.

Work on the updated model began in 2021. This version now introduces Wi-Fi connectivity and a connected mobile app. That means when the sound buttons are pressed by the dog, their message is also sent to the app. If you’re in a different part of the house and can’t hear the sound, the app will alert you.

“There’s app notifications — you can get a ‘text’ message from your dog,” said Trottier. (It’s not really being delivered over SMS, to be clear — it’s from the app.)

The FluentPet Connect system is accepting pre-orders now. The starter pack — aka FluentPet’s “Get Started” Kit — comes with 6 connected buttons, 3 HexTiles and the battery-powered base station with a higher-quality speaker for $159. Original system owners can swap out their old buttons and base station for the new ones, but continue using their own tiles.

The pre-Series A company has raised funding from Republic.com and angel investors; 3 million+ was raised as CleverPet while another 750K came after the pivot.

FluentPet’s talking button system lets you get a “text” from your dog by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Venture capitalists are in the business of predicting the next big thing, even if they get burned in the process. While everyone piled onto crypto in 2021 — and many remain bullish about its future despite multiple failures this year — 2022 saw the rise of generative AI.

But as is the case with any transformative new tech, hype is sure to accompany growing adoption, and generative AI has garnered so much attention and money that many VCs already feel the budding sector will be the next bubble.

TechCrunch recently surveyed more than 35 investors working in different geographies, investment stages and sectors about how they were feeling about next year. One of our questions sought their prediction of where the next bubble would be, and almost half of those surveyed mentioned generative AI.

While several investors said they were bullish on the new tech overall, they also admitted that the sector was likely to get lost in its own hype.

Don Butler, managing director at Thomvest Ventures, feels the bubble is already here. “We believe that the applicability of AI to so many use cases will lead to a very large number of startups being funded in the space, including at some eye-watering valuations, and so we think that the next big bubble is already expanding in this area,” he said.

This isn’t surprising, given how the sector has burgeoned recently as consumer tools like ChatGPT, DALL-E and Lensa AI soared in popularity both in and outside the tech community.

Whoops! Is generative AI already becoming a bubble? by Rebecca Szkutak originally published on TechCrunch

Come on in, the water is lovely. You wouldn’t have thought there was space for more players in the busy soup that’s the crowded sous-vide market, but Typhur begs to differ, thank you very much. At CES in Las Vegas, the company released an exquisitely designed $99 temperature sensor and announced its flagship product, the Sous Vide Station.

Now, sous-vide (which means ‘under vacuum’) isn’t a new technology. The idea of cooking at lower temperatures for longer, to ensure even heat distribution through the food was first described in 1799. For sous-vide, you vacuum-seal something you want to cook in a bag, and then cook it at a very specific temperature for a specific amount of time. If you have a way of accurately controlling the temperature of the water, and a timer, you’re good to go. A determined hacker with $40 to spare can make one themselves in 10 minutes, so it’s no surprise that Kickstarter is full of sous-vide projects, with various degrees of success, and a variable amount of sophistication.

Typhur skipped Kickstarter, raised $20 million, and is placing itself at the high end of the sophistication scale.

“Food is a science that requires precise timing and temperature to extract the best flavor,” said Frank Sun, Founder of Typhur Inc. “The process of cooking sous vide style has always been a well-kept secret in high-end restaurants. It’s a technique cherished for its ability to deliver a consistent and exact level of doneness in everything from savory steaks to poached eggs. With Typhur’s comprehensive Sous Vide Station, anyone can become an iron chef in their own home kitchen—even if the cooking is in a small space.”

Typhur’s answer to the challenge is admittedly extraordinarily fancy. It packs a 12.3-inch LCD screen, video-based guides and recipes, a powerful 1,750W heater and circulator, and a very cool design indeed. Among other things, the company created reusable vacuum bags and a hand-held air extraction pump that magnetically connects to the side of the machine, where it also wirelessly charges. It wouldn’t look out of place in the most high-design fancy home kitchens. At CES, the team insists that the pricing has not yet been set, but the Typhur website lists it with a $900 price tag, and a pre-sale price of $700. Pre-orders are opening ‘soon’.

The company also showed off the first product it is shipping: the Typhur InstaProbe, a $100 temperature probe to see if your food is done. You can buy less sophisticated versions for $15, but it can’t be denied that the InstaProbe is a fantastically sleekly designed version.

“We are thrilled to release what will be the fastest and most accurate food thermometer on the market” said Sun. “The speed and precision offered by the InstaProbe offers unparalleled control over your meats. Most food thermometers take 2-5 seconds to get a reading and are not completely accurate, The Typhur InstaProbeoffers highly accurate readings in less than a second thanks to our patentedtechnology.”

We have no way of verifying Typhur’s claims, so we’ll have to take their word for them, but it is undoubtedly one of the better-looking food thermometers we’ve seen, and there’s no shortage of people who optimize for that sort of thing, so we can absolutely see these showing up in high-end kitchen goods stores and at Silicon Valley barbecues in the near future. The thermometers are shipping now.

Typhur launches sous-vide cooker with 12-inch display by Haje Jan Kamps originally published on TechCrunch

Can Katrina Lake save Stitch Fix? The founder of the nearly 13-year-old, subscription-based online personal shopping service is going to try, returning today to her role as CEO one-and-a-half years after stepping down from the position.

Indeed, according to a new CNBC report, it was Lake who today informed the company’s 1,700 salaried employees that 20% of them are getting cut in a drastic cost-saving measure. Stitch Fix further confirmed to CNBC that the brand’s Salt Lake City distribution center will also be closing and that employees at that center will also be laid off, though it declined to disclose how many people work there. (TechCrunch has separately reached out to Stitch Fix for comment.)

The bearer of bad news may have surprised some. Lake founded Stitch Fix in late 2010 and took the company public in 2017. At the time, she was the youngest woman to do so. But in April of 2021, she relinquished her day-to-day oversight of the company to become its executive chairperson, a role Lake said at the time she would use to focus on Stitch Fix’s sustainability efforts and its marketing. In her stead, Stitch Fix promoted to the role of CEO Elizabeth Spaulding, who joined the company as president in 2020 and worked previously as a partner at Bain & Company.

Spaulding had herself overseen one layoff, in June of this year when Stitch Fix confirmed that it was shedding 330 jobs, or 15% of its salaried workforce, owing to its changing fortunes. While bored shoppers actively used Stitch Fix while trapped in their homes during the pandemic, the business suffered as Covid-related restrictions were lifted and those same customers ventured out to spend some of those discretionary dollars.

Further, says CNBC, a direct-buy option instituted during Spaulding’s brief tenure, wherein Stitch Fix invited customers to buy single items without signing up for a plan or paying a styling fee, appears not to have panned out.

No word yet on Spaulding’s next moves, but Lake reportedly said today that Spaulding will be stepping down immediately. Lake also reportedly told employees that those impacted by today’s layoff will receive at least 12 weeks of pay, and more with tenure.

Stitch Fix’s stock is currently trading at roughly $4 per share. During its peak, in January 2021, shares were trading at more than $96 apiece.

Lake has long been listed as Stitch Fix’s sole founder, but as reported in 2017 by the WSJ, a footnote in one of Stitch Fix’s pre-IPO regulatory filings named a cofounder, Erin Morrison Flynn, who sued Lake and eventually settled with her.

According to a lawsuit filed in the Superior Court of California in 2012 by Flynn (and surfaced in that same WSJ article), the pair started the company, originally called Rack Habit, in October 2010; by 2012, according to the lawsuit, their relationship deteriorated after Lake allegedly asked Flynn to give up some of her ownership to distribute the shares to new hires.

Among Lake’s challenges in turning around Stitch Fix are countering economic headwinds, as well as so-called box fatigue, with customers looking to pare down the number of products and services to which they are currently subscribed.

Katrina Lake is back as CEO of struggling Stitch Fix, a year-and-a-half after stepping down by Connie Loizos originally published on TechCrunch

At CES, Delta Air Lines today announced that it will launch free WiFi for all members of its SkyMiles frequent flier program, starting February 1. This free service, which the company is launching in partnership with T-Mobile, will be available in the majority of the company’s domestic, Viasat-enabled mainline aircraft first, with full availability across its regional aircraft and on international flights by the end of 2024.

“At work, at home and everywhere in between, connectivity is essential to daily life, and your journey on Delta should be no different,” said Delta CEO Ed Bastian at CES 2023 in Las Vegas. “Our vision has long been to deliver an experience at 30,000 feet that feels close to what our customers have available on the ground.”

Since more users will likely make use of this free service than ever paid for it, the airline put a lot of emphasis on hardening its systems in recent months. Delta said it worked with engineers at Viasat to test and scale its in-flight connectivity service to enable this rollout.

“We didn’t just want free Wi-Fi to offer base-level service – we wanted it to be transformative for the entire onboard experience,” said Bastian. “It is imperative all customers onboard can enjoy their favorite content just as they would at home, and we’ve put this system through meticulous tests to make that possible.”

To use this service, fliers have to be members of Delta’s SkyMiles frequent flier service (though as a spokesperson told me, they’ll be able to sign up an account while on the plane, too). And even though this service is rolling out in partnership with T-Mobile, you don’t have to be a T-Mobile customer to use it.

“It’s going to be available to everyone,” Bastian said today. “Doesn’t matter what price you paid for your seat, what class of service you chose, what credit card you used, what mobile carrier you’re connected to — it’s going to be free to all and it’s something that is so important to the way. The good news is there’s no fine print. It’s free.”

One thing worth noting, as Bastian confirmed in his keynote today, the free WiFi will extend to however many devices you have with you, not just a single phone or laptop.

A lot of other airlines are also now moving in this direction, be that in a more limited form by offering free access to messaging apps (as Delta already did) or by partnering with telcos to offer free WiFi for their customers. United, for example, offers free WiFi for T-Mobile customers on most flights these days.

With this, Delta is also launching Delta Sync, its unified brand for its software, connectivity and in-flight entertainment offerings. In many ways, this builds about the company’s announcements since it first attended CES in 2018. The idea here is to offer fliers a more personalized service using, for the most part, its mobile app, as well as new airport experiences, all linked to a flier’s SkyMiles account. This includes Delta’s (optional) facial recognition-based boarding system, which it is currently trialing in Atlanta and Detroit, but also the new free WiFi offering and new entertainment offers that will only be available to SkyMiles members.

Indeed, the new Delta Sync on Demand will provide fliers with a personalized seatback entertainment system that is more akin to the smart TV they have at home, Delta promises. For now, on top of the entertainment content, this will include food and beverage ordering in first class, a new journey planned, content recommendations and real-time notifications. The airline plans to start rolling some of the initial features of this system out by the end of the year, though many of the personalization features will only launch after that.

As Bastian also today noted, Paramount+ is going to be a partner here, with free Paramount+ streaming on board Delta’s plane.

These new Delta Sync experiences will roll out over the course of 2023.

“Delta Sync elevates what it means to be a Delta SkyMiles Member by enabling a journey that fits you perfectly and grows more rewarding the more you travel,” said Bastian. “The future of travel is one where your digital and physical experiences come together in a seamless, warm and personal way, making those human travel connections even more meaningful.”

Delta launches free WiFi by Frederic Lardinois originally published on TechCrunch

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Welcome back to Actuator and happy first day of CES! This will never not feel weird to say – and not just because of the highly objective “happy” bit. One of the dirty little secrets of CES coverage is that – by the official start of the show, us reporter types have already been on the ground hustling for at least 48 hours. I flew into Vegas on Monday, and have spent the past two days meeting with startups and investors, attending press conferences and and covering smaller pre-show events that purport to offer a microcosm of the week to come – putting the teapot before the tempest, if you’re a fan of mixed metaphors.

CES week lined up a little lopsided for Actuator. Today’s start of the show really refers to the floor opening. For us, that means the news coverage shifts a little bit, as we have more time for demos and carve out an hour between meetings here or there to seek out some weird stuff that would have almost certainly succumbed to the email deluge in our respective inboxes (did I mention that I came back to 1,600 unread messages last week?)

I write this preamble largely to say that what follows will be neither a definitive nor final account of robots at CES. The show will almost certainly spill into next week’s Actuator. Still, after weeks of meetings, emails and press releases, I do feel confident painting some relevant trends in broad strokes, as I shovel some hotel buffet scrambled eggs.

Another prevailing bit of weirdness in all of this is, of course, the whole pandemic dealie. I’d say conservatively that I’ve been to CES 15 times. They start blending after like number two. It’s been a constant in my life. A holiday sullying constant at the very beginning of every year. As such, it was strange sitting two in a row out, and it’s even stranger beginning back at it again. It’s great seeing all of the familiar faces slightly worse for wear after three very difficult years. It’s a homecoming for a town that has – more often than not – made your life hell, but for which you have a certain, unexplainable affection.

Again, it’s impossible to say anything definitive at this point, but I do feel comfortable noting that both the show and city just feel quieter in 2023. Many of the lifers decided the whole spectacle wasn’t worth it for them (a decision I certainly respect). The supply chain and economic crises are no doubt contributing to what feels like a general slowdown of announcements, and many of the bigger companies have drifted away from big, live shows in general.

In all of this, however, something altogether different is happening for robots. I’ve done robot roundups at the show for years, and for a long time it mostly felt like pulling teeth. Over the past several shows, however, there’s been a perfect storm. CES is starting to take robots seriously.

Putting the “R” in CES

I grabbed a cup of coffee with a robotics investor earlier this week who asked if I thought the show would be worth it for them. Their understandable misgiving in all of this is that the “C” in CES once stood for “consumer.” The CTA – the governing body that puts on the event – has been very aggressive in its insistence that CES simply stands for CES now. But this has always been a consumer show, as evidenced by the presence of firms like Samsung and Sony.

In 2023, however, someone who operates solely on the industrial side of the robotics equation could easily fill four-plus days here. CES is, by no means, a robotics show. But robotics’ slow permeation of technology and culture means they’re well represent and here to stay.

There are a few key drivers for the growing presence of robots in Vegas this week.

The pandemic has accelerated the industry in general.
Automakers are getting serious about investing in and acquiring robotics startups or building these technologies in-house. See: Ford’s Agility investments, TRI’s research and Hyundai’s events post-Boston Dynamics acquisition.
Big firms like Amazon have been aggressively pushing consumer robotics.

That last one is important for a lot of reasons. Thing is, there have always been robots – or robot-adjacent products at the show, but the category is about as mixed as bags come. A lot of startups have come and gone over the years with products that couldn’t find a market. There are also plenty of products that have been called robots that certainly look like something close to a platonic ideal of the concept. But more often not, these are toys – and not particularly good ones.

We’ve also seen some extremely questionable robots trotted out on stage by companies like Samsung and LG. A robot demo has always been a quick and easy shorthand to demonstrate to consumers and shareholders that your company is committed to the future and futuristic things.

There is – of course – still a lot of that here. If anything, the broader excitement around the category has convinced those people that they’re very much on the right track. CES is also very much a show about being in the moment. You do your best to vet the validity of a product, but true due diligence is a near impossibility here.

Rounding up robotics

NVIDIA’s – along with other key chipmakers – usually has a sizable presence. It was nice to see a little focus on the robotics side of things. The company debuted an update to its Isaac Sim that brings simulated human robots into the equation, along with more realistic lighting conditions through ray tracing and the ability to render real-time sensor data.

“To minimize the difference between results observed in a simulated world versus those seen in the real world,” Nvidia notes, “it’s imperative to have physically accurate sensor models.”

Labrador, which has been something of a CES mainstay over the past few years, announced a partnership with Amazon (an outgrowth of support from the Alexa Fund) that leverages the Echo Show 10 as almost a robotic telepresence-style display.

“The proof-of-concept demo with the Echo Show 10 is a preview of what we will be testing in our next rounds of pilots with care providers,” CEO Mike Dooley said in a release. “Capabilities like this can make a dramatic difference in the quality of people’s lives and their ability to live independently while staying connected with others, and we’re grateful to Amazon’s team for their support on this project.”

Speaking of eldercare robots, Aeo is a nice little CES success story. The company tells me that getting noticed at the 2018 event led to its adoption in Japanese hospitals, care facilities and schools. It’s a small humanoid robot with one dexterous arm that can open doors and another that has a UV light for disinfecting surfaces – a big hit during the pandemic for obvious reasons.

Yeti is the first of delivery robots we’re sure to see this week. What makes Ottonomy’s robot particularly interesting is the inclusion of an auto dispense mechanism that can drop packages on porches or directly into a compatible locker for safe keeping.

“During the validation processes we ran pilots with airports, retailers and postal services which gave us the deep insights we needed on the most effective use cases and scalability,” s co-founder and CEO Ritukar Vijay says of the company’s early deployments. “With our strategic alignment with Verizon and other enterprises, we are in the prime position to fill the gap that companies like Amazon and Fedex were not able to. As demand and the use cases for autonomous unassisted delivery continue to grow, we are positioned to provide robots as a service for restaurants, retailers and beyond.”

And for the fun of it, here’s a breathing robot pillow called Fufuly from Yukai Engineering, the folks who brought you the cat pillow with the wagging tail. Quoting myself here (I know, I know).

The hardware startup says the product utilizes “respiratory entrainment,” which refers to a phenomenon where in the rhythm of a patient’s breathing matches that of a respirator. Here that basically means the person’s breathing matches up with the robot cushion, rather than the other way around.

Lastly, Kyle rounded up some of the AI-powered gadgets from this year’s show, including a self-driving – and parking – stroller.

All right, back to it. See you soon.

Consumer Robotics Show by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch

The Federal Trade Commission proposed a rule on Thursday that would block employers from using noncompete agreements to restrict workers from pursuing employment with competitors.

In its push to throw out noncompete agreements, the FTC cites Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which prohibits “unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce.” The agency will now open up the issue for public comment on the practice, which limits employment prospects for tens of millions of Americans.

“The freedom to change jobs is core to economic liberty and to a competitive, thriving economy,” FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said. “Noncompetes block workers from freely switching jobs, depriving them of higher wages and better working conditions, and depriving businesses of a talent pool that they need to build and expand. By ending this practice, the FTC’s proposed rule would promote greater dynamism, innovation, and healthy competition.”

The new FTC rule would prevent employers from entering into noncompetes with workers and block them from maintaining a noncompete agreement or representing to a worker that they are subject to a noncompete agreement. If the rule goes into effect, contractors and non full-time workers would also be protected from employers who would try to strong-arm them into one of the agreements. Employers would be forced to dissolve noncompete agreements currently in place and inform workers that they are no longer bound by those agreements.

Antitrust advocates and worker’s rights groups cheered the FTC’s action on the issue. “Millions of workers, future new business owners, everyday consumers, and the American economy overall will be better off because of the FTC’s vote today,” Executive Director of the American Economic Liberties Project Sarah Miller said on Thursday.

We had a sense that the Biden administration was working on specific action to dismantle the practice of noncompete agreements. The White House took aim at noncompetes in a 2021 executive order that criticized the practice and encouraged the FTC to take regulatory action to end it. The executive order, crafted to promote economic competition by laying out priorities for rule-making agencies, condemned noncompetes as “cumbersome” requirements that “impede economic mobility” by preventing workers from changing jobs freely.

The FTC moves to ban noncompete agreements by Taylor Hatmaker originally published on TechCrunch