Tech & AI
The Metric Is Not The Mission: The Long Decline Of Certainty
The Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it around its own metrics, incentives and assumptions. Across the series, the argument follows the evolution of the platform economy—from the optimism of the early internet to the growing tensions around power, prediction, geopolitics, accountability and the future of digital life.
The series will be published in two parts each week over five weeks, with each installment building on the one before it. At the end of the series, the complete essay will be brought together in a single PDF edition, providing the full argument in one place.
Part VIII — The Long Decline of Certainty
In Part VII, the universal ambitions of the internet met the realities of geopolitics. Part VIII turns to another form of reckoning: the growing gap between Big Tech’s extraordinary technological capability and the declining certainty that capability alone is enough.
The history of technology is often written as a succession of inventions. We remember the steam engine, the telegraph, electricity, the automobile, the personal computer and the internet as though each represented a discrete breakthrough that propelled humanity from one age into another. Yet technologies rarely transform societies on their own. What changes history are the systems of belief that emerge around them.
The railway altered far more than transportation; it changed how people understood time itself. Electricity did not simply illuminate cities; it transformed architecture, labor, domestic life and the rhythms of human activity. The internet was never merely a communications network; it also carried with it an entire philosophy about openness, participation, decentralization and the distribution of knowledge.
The platform era represented a further evolution of that philosophy. It proposed that complexity itself could be managed through increasingly intelligent systems. Human relationships could be organized more efficiently. Information could be filtered more effectively. Communities could be cultivated at planetary scale. Public conversation could be optimized through algorithms that learned continuously from billions of interactions.
For a time, the proposition seemed not only plausible but self-evidently true. Then something curious happened. The technology continued improving while confidence in the underlying philosophy began to erode. This is a pattern that historians encounter with surprising regularity. Empires often reach the height of their administrative sophistication shortly before their political legitimacy begins to weaken. Financial systems become increasingly efficient in the years preceding systemic crises. Institutions acquire extraordinary technical competence while gradually losing public confidence. Institutional decline rarely begins with the collapse of capability. More often, it begins with the discovery that capability is not the same thing as legitimacy.
By almost every measurable indicator, today’s largest technology companies remain astonishingly capable. Their engineering talent is unrivaled; their computational infrastructure stretches across continents; and, their investments in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and biotechnology are redefining the frontier of scientific research. Their products continue to mediate the daily lives of billions of people. Judged solely by conventional measures of corporate performance, they have never appeared stronger. And yet something important has changed.
For much of the platform era, the central political question was whether governments would regulate Big Tech. That question produced years of commissions, hearings, white papers, consultations, investigations, and legislative proposals. Some of these produced important rules. The GDPR changed how personal data is treated. Competition authorities have imposed significant constraints. The Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act and other legislation have begun altering the legal environment in which the largest platforms operate.
But legislation has its limits. Big Tech has spent decades learning how to operate inside political systems. It has the resources to lobby governments, influence legislative drafting, challenge rules in court, negotiate implementation, and shape the technical details that determine whether an ambitious principle has a meaningful effect in practice. Even the strictest legislation can be weakened by exemptions, delayed through litigation, narrowed during implementation, or transformed into a compliance exercise that leaves the underlying structure of power largely intact. This does not mean regulation is futile. It means that regulation is not self-executing.
A law can establish a boundary. It cannot, by itself, guarantee that the institutions subject to that boundary will surrender power willingly. Large corporations do not usually change because they have experienced a moral awakening. They change when the cost of maintaining existing behavior becomes greater than the cost of changing it.
The question is therefore no longer simply whether legislators can produce sufficiently ambitious rules. The more consequential question may be who has the power to enforce a different understanding of corporate responsibility when governments are slow, politically divided, or vulnerable to corporate influence. Increasingly, the answer may lie elsewhere: it may lie with users and it may lie with courts.
Konstantinos Komaitis, PhD, is a veteran of developing and analysing Internet policy to ensure an open and global Internet.
When you’re in a public space like an airport or the subway, it’s not advisable to connect to the available public Wi-Fi because doing so could carry security risks. And if you do, there are certain things you shouldn’t do on your device when connected to any public Wi-Fi. But instead of depending on public Wi-Fi, you can use your phone as a mobile hotspot. Doing so provides a quick and easy way to get internet access on all your devices, either through tethering or by creating a wireless access point that multiple devices can connect to.
Your phone’s mobile hotspot can also come in handy if you’re in an area with no wireless access point whatsoever or when your regular Wi-Fi is down. However, while using your phone as a mobile hotspot offers flexibility and convenience, it isn’t perfect. It comes with several drawbacks you need to keep in mind before making it a habit.
As someone who uses their phone as a mobile hotspot from time to time, most commonly to provide internet access to my car’s infotainment system and also to get my household devices online when Wi-Fi is out, I’ve experienced several issues firsthand that I can share from my own experience.
Your phone batteries drain faster
One of the biggest drawbacks you’ll run into every time you use your phone as a mobile hotspot is increased battery consumption. Typically, anything that makes your phone work harder than usual, such as gaming, does cause the battery to drain faster than usual, and the same applies here.
When you enable the mobile hotspot feature, your phone has to do two things. First, it has to maintain a cellular data connection and, second, broadcast a Wi-Fi signal so that other devices can connect to it. That adds an extra load on your device, resulting in more battery drain than simply using it to browse the internet. You might also experience your phone getting hot when the hotspot is turned on, an indication of just how hard it is working to keep your devices connected to the internet.
As a result of the faster battery drain, you’ll need to charge your phone more frequently than you normally do. And don’t forget batteries are consumable parts that degrade over time. So using your device as a mobile hotspot will also negatively impact your phone’s overall battery health and longevity because you have to recharge it frequently.
Your mobile data consumption increases
Another challenge with using your iPhone or Android phone as a mobile hotspot is that it’ll increase the amount of data you use. If your cellular subscription has a certain specified limit each month, you might quickly run through your quota before the month ends if you’re not careful. The reason for that is pretty simple: Sharing your connection with other devices means they’ll be accessing the internet using the same data bundle you normally rely on to browse the web, stream videos, and other online activities.
With multiple devices accessing internet data from the same plan doing all kinds of things from streaming videos, playing games online, or browsing the web, they’ll eat into your monthly allocation faster than you typically do, which can result in overages. Of course, if you pay for a cellular plan with unlimited high-speed data, that shouldn’t be a problem.
However, some unlimited plans usually have a catch. They’ll offer a specific amount of high-speed data, which once exhausted will throttle your internet speeds, forcing you to purchase more data within the month to continue enjoying fast internet access. For example, US Mobile’s Unlimited Flex plan gives you 10 GB of high-speed data, which once exhausted, allows you to continue accessing the internet but at a slower 1 Mbps speed.
Your internet connection may be unstable or slow
The other drawback of using your phone’s mobile hotspot is that the internet connection can be inconsistent. Unlike using Wi-Fi, which generally offers a more stable connection, your phone relies on a cellular network, which doesn’t provide a consistent experience. Even if your ISP plan promised Gigabit speeds, the actual internet speeds that you’ll enjoy when connected to a cellular network depend on factors such as coverage, signal strength, and network congestion.
If you live in an area where the cellular coverage isn’t great (which is pretty common in some rural areas), or your house is located a distance from the tower so it doesn’t get the best reception, your mobile hotspot can’t deliver the best speeds. Instead, that speed will fluctuate depending on where you are and how many people are connected to the same cellular tower at that point.
To make matters worse, the multiple devices connected to your mobile hotspot mean they have to compete for the same bandwidth, which in turn leads to a sluggish experience for everyone. This doesn’t only apply to mobile hotspots alone; connecting many devices to regular Wi-Fi can also slow down your internet connection.
Slashdot reader alternative_right shares a story that has drawn international attention for being potentially the first documented instance of a robot being used directly in a sexual assault. According to the Associated Press, German police have opened a sexual harassment investigation after a robot allegedly touched a 16-year-old girl’s buttocks and made thrusting motions while two young men reportedly filmed and streamed the incident. Investigators seized the robot and the suspects’ phones and are trying to determine whether the movements were preprogrammed or controlled in real time. From the report: Cologne police spokesman Christoph Bermel said the two male teenagers have not been charged but are considered suspects, and investigators were examining whether the robot’s movements were preprogrammed or controlled in real time.
Police were unfamiliar with this type of incident, he said. “We have not been aware of this phenomenon so far,” Bermel told The Associated Press, saying it was “new territory for us.” […] The robot, said to be 120 centimeters (about 3 ft 11 inches) tall, was dressed in a white tank top, black sweatpants and wearing a gold chain and sunglasses. It also had what appears to be a fake mustache. Videos circulated on the internet show two young men escorting the robot toward a group of women, bumping into one and hugging others, on a lively nighttime street.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The “Power to the Players Act” bill would direct the FTC to write rules ensuring that buying a video game translates into ownership and not a revocable license. Games that depend on online servers would also have to offer an offline mode before those servers are switched off. Rep. Ritchie…
Read Entire Article
Source link
Zach Yadegari has enjoyed an immense amount of success for someone who only recently graduated from high school. Founder of the AI-fueled calorie tracking app Cal AI, Yadegari is only 19 but his company has rocketed to viral fame over the past two years. At TechCrunch Disrupt on Thursday, Yadegari shared details of that surprising rise to prominence.
Cal AI, which was founded in 2024, exploded onto the internet thanks largely to Yadegari’s strategy of deploying a small army of influencers to promote the brand. The company generated over $30 million in revenue in two years and was acquired by MyFitnessPal for an undisclosed amount of money in March.
Discussing his social strategy onstage, Yadegari noted that an early sign of success came when an influencer’s post about them led to approximately a thousand new users over the course of two days.
“From there, we figured out, okay, this can actually work for us, and so we started recruiting influencers as fast as we could — paying as many people as possible to start posting for us,” he said. “What we saw was that it was a clear formula. It was pretty linear, but it was extremely fast. I guess linear in the sense that every post they did would get a certain number of viewers that would convert.”
The Forbes 30 Under 30 alumnus told the audience that part of his company’s strategy was to negotiate rates with influencers, promising them certain payouts for a certain scale of reach. A lot of influencers are “broke college kids” who “just want cash,” Yadegari added. “You just ask them, okay, we’ll pay you this, but we need to get us at least this amount of use and keep posting until you get there.”
Another important component of success was finding the right influencers whose reach can be quantified. “The biggest thing for us was finding influencers that had very tight communities,” the founder said.
Yadegari, whose father was in the audience, also credited his family with giving him the freedom to go after his ambitions. Does he also credit higher education for his success? Not so much.
“I think the only real reason to go to college is if you want to have a fun social time as a kid and be with other people,” he said, to audience laughter.
Earlier this month, Yadegari also launched Persona, a new AI agent startup that has already raised $10 million.
Yadegari said the “overarching mission” with Persona is to “make computing seamless with human life.” The company’s personal AI assistant will “live anyplace with internet connection,” he said, including “iMessage, app, email, phone call.” He added that part of what distinguishes the company’s plans for this AI assistant is to build a “hardware ecosystem around” the app.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
If there’s one thing Porsche is known for, it’s consistency. Whether the car is an original 1965 911 or a brand-new equivalent off the showroom floor, there’s a specific design language that has always just screamed, “Porsche.” It makes sense — much like how Subaru has used its boxer engine since time immemorial, having that single identifiable “thing” helps with brand recognition and lends the car a certain character. That said, it has certainly not stayed the same over the years — a 1960s Porsche looks very different to a 2020s model, only sharing that fastback silhouette.
It’s more accurate, then, to describe Porsche’s lineage as evolutionary, building upon a single concept over many generations. Well, as of October 15, 2026, the brand has evolved once more. The Mission S, as it’s called, represents not just another facelift or, indeed, even the next flagship supercar that it is. This likely is the prelude to the next generational leap in Porsche’s design architecture, an aesthetic that combines stark futurism with retro-inspired vibes in a way only the German marque can truly pull off.
That said, let’s not overblow it. We’ve seen the leaks and know what to expect, after all. Even so, the new halo car is truly a sight to behold, building upon Porsche’s storied motorsports heritage coupled with the svelte proportions of a lightweight monster. Obviously there’s no word on powertrain or anything else; it’s just a concept car, after all. There’s no given that it’s even powered. But as a design study, it’s incredibly intriguing and potentially a teaser into Porsche’s future.
What the photographs tell us
The Porsche Mission S Concept is, put simply, what would happen if you put a modern 911 in a blender with a classic 911 GT1, the 935/76, and the 917K. It’s like a “Greatest Hits” album of Porsche’s finest racing cars; the company has certainly done more specialized vintage-inspired concept cars, like the modern 935. But it’s never truly combined all of the different elements of these disparate machines into one single vehicle.
To begin with, you have the upright-facing headlights crowning an LED bar, revealing the image of that 935 with its pronounced front brow. It also shares the gaping mouth of 911 race cars seen right up to the present day, flanked with pronounced aerodynamic elements like canards and a sharp front splitter. Those canards continued down the side, reminiscent of the 919 endurance Hypercar. Those lines terminate at the rear, where the car is buttressed by the rear wing in an identical style to the 911 GT1 from the late-1990s. Lastly, you have the roof line that ends with the iconic fan cowling, a nod to the 917 and its air-cooled flat-12 engine.
The overall profile is, of course, very 911. It has the twin headlight tunnels on either side of a deep-cut hood, a fastback profile without a pronounced wing, and smooth, elegant lines throughout. The aerodynamic elements at the rear are incorporated into the silhouette, so sideways-on and it looks like it doesn’t even have a rear wing at all. Moreover, the width of the car’s fenders evoke yet one more famous Porsche racer, the air-cooled 911 GT2. Overall, it’s a fantastic silhouette despite its many ingredients or, perhaps, because of them.
Is this the future of Porsche?
It’s hard to say for now whether or not this truly represents the next chapter of Porsche, but it seems that the company at least desires the Mission S to be a sound proof-of-concept for its coming era. The marque stated its clear intentions to use the car as the pillar for its reimagined design identity, recommitting itself to providing a small, driver-focused experience to customers of means. Porsche had several statements regarding the Mission S, namely that it’s mid-engined, has a purist interior design, and the exterior is a harbinger for the next generation.
A few factors became apparent with this latest photoshoot, which echoes the original Porsche 550 Spyder photoshoot from 1953 in front of the same Manhattan skyline. The artistic language of the car, the photography itself, and the corporate statements all point to a renewed interest in heritage and preservation, something which Porsche is particularly good at, considering how famous the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart is.
So if this is a sign of things to come, then we absolutely welcome the future of Porsche with open arms. Combining retro design elements is certainly nothing new, and let’s face it, Porsche’s entire sports car image is practically built upon its iterative 911 design. But taking inspiration from racing machines that rarely, if ever, saw road use is certainly an interesting decision, one which will hopefully continue well into the company’s future. Frankly, even by today’s supercar standards, this thing is absolutely gorgeous, and certainly among Porsche’s coolest concept cars. More of this, please and thank you.
If the proposal is enacted, it could cost $240 a year to watch YouTube in the UK.
The UK government will consider charging residents a national fee to access video streaming content, meaning it may cost almost $240 a year just to watch YouTube in the region. The Independent reported that later this year, UK leaders will propose extending the BBC license fee to cover streaming video platforms.
For our non-UK readers, the license fee is responsible for a large amount of funding for the BBC. It is levied on all residents who watch content on a television, whether or not that content includes BBC programming. The standard fee is currently £180 (~$239) a year. Paying the fee grants viewers access to all domestic TV channels, several pay TV services, live TV shown via streaming platforms and on-demand content via BBC iPlayer.
The proposed changes would expand the license fee and apply it to several streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon, Disney+ and YouTube. Proponents of the change argue that people can use those platforms on their mobile devices or computers rather than their TVs to evade the tax. “It’s not fair that people are essentially able to watch television content but avoid the license fee,” an unnamed source told The Independent about the proposed changes.
The additional funding from expanding the license fee would reportedly be put toward supporting local journalism and combatting misinformation campaigns. The UK’s national broadcaster is also facing budget issues, with a 2 million decline in the number of license fees paid over the past five years, according to The Independent. Despite that decrease, YouGov data suggests the BBC remains the most popular media platform in the UK.
The BBC recently announced that it would begin streaming a 24/7 news channel on YouTube for viewers in the UK and the US. The broadcaster already has similar channels active in Australia, Kenya, Nigeria and Poland.
One of the singular features of Baotou, an industrial city of 2 million people in Inner Mongolia, is a 10-square-kilometer (4-square-mile) lake that is among the most polluted in the world. The artificial lake, referred to by the name of the dam associated with it, Weikuang Dam (or Baogang Tailings Dam), has for decades collected the effluent from minerals processing for China’s globally dominant iron, steel, and rare-earths industries.
Built in the late 1950s, the lake contains a highly toxic stew of industrial chemicals with substantial amounts of radioactive thorium, the latter resulting primarily from the processing of monazite ores for rare earths. China has since greatly tightened its environmental regulations and restrictions on mining and minerals processing. For example, largely because of the environmental disaster that is Weikuang Dam, the country doesn’t permit the development or operation of stand-alone monazite mines—that is, mines where nothing is mined except monazite ore.
Now, with industrialized nations in North America, Asia, and Europe spending billions to shore up their rare-earths supply chains, and counting on monazite to help them do it, China’s history and experiences with monazite offer important lessons.
Monazite ore is a pillar of China’s rare-earths industry because it is a prime source of some less common but extremely important rare-earth elements, notably dysprosium, terbium, yttrium, and erbium. The country mines and processes vast quantities of monazite ore; it also imports huge amounts of monazite ore for processing.
Most of the domestically mined monazite ore comes from a single mine: the mammoth Bayan Obo complex, 150 kilometers north of Baotou in Inner Mongolia. Bayan Obo, which is primarily an iron-ore mine, also happens to contain the largest known rare-earth deposit in the world. It’s the source of nearly half of all the rare-earth ore mined on the planet in a typical year. Most of the rare-earth ore mined at Bayan Obo is a type called bastnaesite; it’s the mining of that bastnaesite that makes it legal to mine monazite ore at Bayan Obo as well.
All told, ore from Bayan Obo was used to produce 170,000 tonnes of rare-earth metal last year, according to David Merriman, research director at the minerals intelligence firm Project Blue. Roughly 30 to 40 percent of the rare-earth ore mined at Bayan Obo is monazite. That amount alone would be enough to make China the world’s largest processor of monazite for rare earths.
China’s 2025 Monazite Imports Topped 70,000 Tonnes
But a more detailed picture of China’s interest in monazite emerges when you consider the country’s imports of the ore. Last year they amounted to more than 70,000 tonnes, says Thomas Kruemmer, a Singapore-based consultant on minerals and metals. That figure becomes more impressive when you consider the unique challenges of shipping monazite by sea. Because of its radioactivity, concentrated monazite ore is classified as Class 7 dangerous cargo under the International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code. That means, Kruemmer notes, that the ore can be imported through only four ports in China.
In addition, importation of some kinds of monazite into China is supposed to go through a joint venture consisting of the China National Nuclear Corp. and Shenghe Resources, which are at least partly state-owned. But lots of imported monazite doesn’t go through those organizations, notes Merriman. That’s because heavy mineral sands, which may contain roughly 2 or 3 percent monazite by weight, are not subject to the same import controls as concentrated monazite ore. So companies import the heavy mineral sands; separate out various profitable concentrates, including the monazite mineral concentrate; and then process the monazite concentrate to recover the rare earths.
China has lately stepped up its efforts to secure rare-earth ore around the world. One reason, says Kruemmer, is simply to make up for recently lost supplies. In 2025, the U.S. government invested US $400 million in MP Materials, which operates the Mountain Pass mine and processing facility in California. The deal put an end to longstanding contracts under which MP Materials had been selling tens of thousands of tonnes of rare-earth concentrate annually to a trading affiliate of Shenghe Resources.
But other Westerners speculate that China has strategic reasons for stepping up its efforts to acquire heavy mineral sands or other rare-earth assets abroad. By locking down rights to deposits or projects abroad, Chinese organizations are making them unavailable to non-Chinese developers, according to this reasoning.
Merriman points out that your view of these activities largely depends on where you sit. The U.S. government recently made a conditional loan commitment of up to $725 million to U.S. monazite processor Energy Fuels, which has been aggressively securing substantial monazite supplies in Australia, Brazil, and Madagascar. To a Chinese observer, those moves probably look rather strategic.
China, meanwhile, is doing what it has been doing for decades. “China’s playing its game,” says Merriman.
From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
HP has introduced the ZBook Ultra G3a 16-inch mobile workstation in India. This mobile workstation is designed for professionals working in artificial intelligence, engineering, design, and content creation. The device uses an AMD Ryzen AI Max + PRO processor and enables running large-scale AI models. HP has also designed it with a thin-and-light form factor for easy work in various locations.
HP ZBook Ultra G3a Specifications, Features
The HP ZBook Ultra G3a uses up to the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495 processor. It includes a 55 TOPS NPU and supports up to 192GB of unified memory. The system also offers up to 160GB of dedicated VRAM and can run large language models (LLMs) with up to 300 billion parameters locally. HP has included an upgraded thermal design that can support up to 81.8% more TDP and up to 100W of performance. This computer weighs about 1.9 kg and is 17.9 mm thick.
This device features a 16-inch 2.8K OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. This display provides excellent visual performance with accurate colors suitable for professional use. According to HP, the device’s 96Wh battery can provide up to 14 hours of operation. The company also offers 140W and 180W chargers using GaN technology. This workstation also supports 5G and HP Wolf Security. It also has a keyboard that you can easily replace yourself. These features support AI development, multi-agent workflows, engineering, design, and high-resolution content creation.
Speaking on the launch, Sanjeev Pathak, Senior Director – HP Solutions, HP India, said:
As AI becomes integral to professional workflows, the need for technology that combines performance, mobility and intelligence is growing. The HP ZBook Ultra G3a 16” bridges this gap by bringing AI at the edge to a mobile workstation, enabling users to run advanced AI workloads and apply agentic AI to complex workflows.
Price in India, Availability
HP has priced the ZBook Ultra G3a 16-inch mobile workstation at Rs 2,89,990 in India without taxes. The ZBook mobile workstation is now available from HP commercial channel partners in India. Customers interested in purchasing it can reach out to their respective authorized partners. HP has not mentioned any other color options in the announcement.
Your next funding round. Your next hire. Your next big product decision. Building a startup means making choices that can shape the business for years. Taking time to question your approach could be one of the most valuable investments you make.
Savings of up to $200 end October 16 for TechCrunch Founder Summit. These savings for Founder and Investor Passes vanish after Friday. Join 1,000 founders and investors on November 4 at Boston’s SoWa Power Station. Bring your toughest questions and make the day count for your business.
Put your next business decision on the agenda
Where should you focus before raising capital? How do you know you’re ready to scale? Which hire would make the biggest difference? The Founder Summit agenda covers fundraising, hiring, product-market fit, and building an AI native company, with practical guidance to inform your next move.
Speakers include Kent Bennett of Bessemer Venture Partners, Lior Div of 7AI, and Vineet Edupuganti of Cogent Security. Come with a decision you’re working through. Consider which assumptions you need to test, where your plans need strengthening, and what you want to do differently when you return to work.
Make room for the conversations that matter
Founder Summit brings together founders across different stages with investors and experienced entrepreneurs. It’s an opportunity to broaden the circle of people you can learn from. Use that time purposefully. Compare challenges with another founder. Ask for a perspective you haven’t considered. Start a conversation you can continue after Boston.
Book before the October 16 deadline
Founder Passes are currently $199, and Investor Passes are $399. Both include deep-dive roundtables, breakout sessions, and 1:1 and small-group networking. If Founder Summit is on your calendar, now is the time to secure your pass. Book by Friday, October 16, before these savings disappear.
Get your TechCrunch Founder Summit pass
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
Amazon has unveiled two new Bee “personal AI” devices designed to continuously record, transcribe, and analyze conversations: the $75 wearable Bee Frontier and the $100 phone-mounted Bee Eclipse. Amazon says the devices can generate conversation summaries, surface recurring themes, and recommend actions or purchases, while claiming audio itself is never stored and users can delete transcripts and summaries. CNBC reports: The Bee Frontier is an upgraded version of Amazon’s existing wearable that can either be worn on a wrist or clipped to clothing. Similar to earlier generations, the Bee Frontier has up to seven days of battery life, but it’s also more expensive, costing $75 compared with its $50 predecessor.
Amazon acquired Bee, a San Francisco startup known for its always-listening bracelet, in July 2025 for an undisclosed amount. Bee bracelets are equipped with artificial intelligence and microphones that can record, transcribe and analyze conversations. The dual mics on the Bee Frontier have upgraded noise filtering, “so it can take note of what matters and ignore what doesn’t, even in noisy environments like a crowded restaurant or open office,” Amazon said in a blog post.
Amazon also debuted the $100 Bee Eclipse, which functions like other Bee devices, but instead of being worn, the credit card-sized gadget magnetically snaps on to the back of a smartphone. The Bee Frontier is available Thursday, while the Bee Eclipse “will be available soon,” the company said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
3 Drawbacks To Using Your Phone As A Mobile Hotspot
Coffee Break: Gilded Peony Blazer
The Metric Is Not The Mission: The Long Decline Of Certainty
-
Fashion5 days agoWeekend Open Thread: Quince – Corporette.com
-
Business & Hustles5 days agoPwC: Supply-Chain Diversification, AI and Energy Transition Open New Growth Paths for Thailand
-
Sports7 days agoMultiple Power Four programs face College Sports Commission investigations over alleged NIL cap evasion
-
Crypto4 days agoXRP Ledger Defends Emergency Patch Amid Criticism
-
Crypto3 days agoRep. Omar Says She Will ‘Not Be Silenced’ After Federal Agents Raid Her Home
-
Crypto6 days agoRobinhood Chain slowdown spreads from fees to trading as transactions fall 40%
-
Sports6 days agoCollege Football Week 6 Bets: Three Picks for Saturday’s Biggest Games
-
Sports5 days agoDuke receives encouraging update regarding top prospect from class of 2028
-
Crypto3 days agoKuCoin unveils 5.0 upgrade with AI tools and unified trading account – CoinJournal
-
Crypto4 days agoSaylor Signals Next Bitcoin Buying Plan After September STRC Buybacks
-
Crypto6 days agoMashinsky Accepts Lifetime Industry Ban and Up to $35 Million in Conditional Payments | The Defiant
-
Sports7 days agoMorocco and Senegal await AFCON final verdict after arbitration hearing – Sports
-
Sports6 days agoSaudi oil crisis affects Neom project, 2034 World Cup plans
-
Sports3 days agoWork on Trump’s D.C. muni enrages judge: ‘You did your absolute worst’ | News
-
Crypto5 days agoOctober 11 Crash: What Wiped Out 1.65M Traders
-
Crypto5 days agoJustin Sun says Tron post-quantum plan on testnet
-
Crypto3 days ago
ZEC and NEAR Plummet Hard, BTC Recovers From Rollercoaster Ride: Market Watch
-
Sports4 days agoTax evasion to Portugal fallout: Controversies that rocked Ronaldo’s career | Football News
-
Crypto4 days agoLedger halts CryptoBilis after $86M wallet drain
-
Sports5 days agoGlasgow’s power game leaves Connacht chasing shadows
You must be logged in to post a comment Login