Latest news with #io
Indian Express
23-07-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
Amazon to buy startup focused on AI wearables
Amazon has reached a deal to buy San Francisco-based Bee, a startup making an artificial intelligence-enabled bracelet to listen in on and transcribe conversations. Bee's $50 wristband can analyze and distill what it records to make summaries, to-do lists or other tasks. Amazon confirmed the deal on Tuesday following a post on LinkedIn by Bee CEO and co-founder Maria de Lourdes Zollo. The deal has not yet closed and Amazon declined to provide terms. A spokesperson said Amazon will work with Bee to give users more control over the devices, which are set to automatically transcribe audio but can be muted. 'We imagined a world where AI is truly personal, where your life is understood and enhanced by technology that learns with you,' said Zollo in her post. She did not immediately respond to a query on Tuesday. It was not Amazon's first foray into wearables. The Seattle online retailer marketed a line of wrist health trackers called Halo but ultimately killed the project in 2023. It also has a line of smart glasses embedded with Amazon's virtual assistant, Alexa, under its Echo brand. ChatGPT parent OpenAI bought former Apple designer Jony Ive's AI device startup called io for about $6.5 billion. Other startups have made early attempts at AI wearables, with mixed results. In her post, Zollo thanked Amazon devices executive Panos Panay, suggesting Bee would join his group when the deal closes. Much of Amazon's AI development is being conducted in its Amazon Web Services unit. Bee was founded in 2022.
The Hindu
23-07-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
Amazon to buy startup focused on AI wearables
Amazon has reached a deal to buy San Francisco-based Bee, a startup making an artificial intelligence-enabled bracelet to listen in on and transcribe conversations. Bee's $50 wristband can analyse and distill what it records to make summaries, to-do lists or other tasks. Amazon confirmed the deal on Tuesday following a post on LinkedIn by Bee CEO and co-founder Maria de Lourdes Zollo. The deal has not yet closed and Amazon declined to provide terms. A spokesperson said Amazon will work with Bee to give users more control over the devices, which are set to automatically transcribe audio but can be muted. "We imagined a world where AI is truly personal, where your life is understood and enhanced by technology that learns with you,' said Zollo in her post. She did not immediately respond to a query on Tuesday. It was not Amazon's first foray into wearables. The Seattle online retailer marketed a line of wrist health trackers called Halo but ultimately killed the project in 2023. It also has a line of smart glasses embedded with Amazon's virtual assistant, Alexa, under its Echo brand. ChatGPT parent OpenAI bought former Apple designer Jony Ive's AI device startup called io for about $6.5 billion. Other startups have made early attempts at AI wearables, with mixed results. In her post, Zollo thanked Amazon devices executive Panos Panay, suggesting Bee would join his group when the deal closes. Much of Amazon's AI development is being conducted in its Amazon Web Services unit. Bee was founded in 2022.
The Star
23-07-2025
- Business
- The Star
Amazon to buy startup focused on AI wearables
FILE PHOTO: Amazon logo is seen in this illustration created on February 16, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Amazon has reached a deal to buy San Francisco-based Bee, a startup making an artificial intelligence-enabled bracelet to listen in on and transcribe conversations. Bee's $50 wristband can analyze and distill what it records to make summaries, to-do lists or other tasks. Amazon confirmed the deal on Tuesday following a post on LinkedIn by Bee CEO and co-founder Maria de Lourdes Zollo. The deal has not yet closed and Amazon declined to provide terms. A spokesperson said Amazon will work with Bee to give users more control over the devices, which are set to automatically transcribe audio but can be muted. "We imagined a world where AI is truly personal, where your life is understood and enhanced by technology that learns with you,' said Zollo in her post. She did not immediately respond to a query on Tuesday. It was not Amazon's first foray into wearables. The Seattle online retailer marketed a line of wrist health trackers called Halo but ultimately killed the project in 2023. It also has a line of smart glasses embedded with Amazon's virtual assistant, Alexa, under its Echo brand. ChatGPT parent OpenAI bought former Apple designer Jony Ive's AI device startup called io for about $6.5 billion. Other startups have made early attempts at AI wearables, with mixed results. In her post, Zollo thanked Amazon devices executive Panos Panay, suggesting Bee would join his group when the deal closes. Much of Amazon's AI development is being conducted in its Amazon Web Services unit. Bee was founded in 2022. (Reporting by Greg Bensinger in San Francisco; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
Time of India
14-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Rugolo: AI device startup that sued OpenAI and Jony Ive is now suing its own ex-employee over trade secrets, ETHRWorld
Advt Advt Join the community of 2M+ industry professionals. Subscribe to Newsletter to get latest insights & analysis in your inbox. All about ETHRWorld industry right on your smartphone! Download the ETHRWorld App and get the Realtime updates and Save your favourite articles. A secretive competition to pioneer a new way of communicating with artificial intelligence chatbots is getting a messy public airing as OpenAI fights a trademark dispute over its stealth hardware collaboration with legendary iPhone designer Jony the latest twist, tech startup iyO Inc., which already sued Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for trademark infringement, is now suing one of its own former employees for allegedly leaking a confidential drawing of iyO's unreleased the heart of this bitter legal wrangling is a big idea: we shouldn't need to stare at computer or phone screens or talk to a box like Amazon's Alexa to interact with our future AI assistants in a natural way. And whoever comes up with this new AI interface could profit immensely from maker of ChatGPT, started to outline its own vision in May by buying io Products, a product and engineering company co-founded by Ive, in a deal valued at nearly $6.5 billion. Soon after, iyO sued for trademark infringement for the similar sounding name and because of the firms' past interactions.U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson ruled last month that iyO has a strong enough case to proceed to a hearing this fall. Until then, she ordered Altman, Ive and OpenAI to refrain from using the io brand, leading them to take down the web page and all mentions of the venture.A second lawsuit from iyO filed this week in San Francisco Superior Court accuses a former iyO executive, Dan Sargent, of breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets over his meetings with another io co-founder, Tang Yew Tan , a close Ive ally who led design of the Apple left iyO in December and now works for Apple. He and Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment."This is not an action we take lightly," said iyO CEO Jason Rugolo in a statement Thursday. "Our primary goal here is not to target a former employee, whom we considered a friend, but to hold accountable those whom we believe preyed on him from a position of power."Rugolo told The Associated Press last month that he thought he was on the right path in 2022 when he pitched his ideas and showed off his prototypes to firms tied to Altman and Ive. Rugolo later publicly expanded on his earbud-like "audio computer" product in a TED Talk last he didn't know was that, by 2023, Ive and Altman had begun quietly collaborating on their own AI hardware initiative."I'm happy to compete on product, but calling it the same name, that part is just amazing to me. And it was shocking," Rugolo said in an new venture was revealed publicly in a May video announcement, and to Rugolo about two months earlier after he had emailed Altman with an investment pitch."thanks but im working on something competitive so will (respectfully) pass!" Altman wrote to Rugolo in March, adding in parentheses that it was called has dismissed iyO's lawsuit on social media as a "silly, disappointing and wrong" move from a "quite persistent" Rugolo. Other executives in court documents characterized the product Rugolo was pitching as a failed one that didn't work properly in a said in a written declaration that he and Ive chose the name two years ago in reference to the concept of "input/output" that describes how a computer receives and transmits information. Neither io nor iyO was first to play with the phrasing - Google's flagship annual technology showcase is called I/O - but Altman said he and Ive acquired the domain name in August idea was "to create products that go beyond traditional products and interfaces," Altman said. "We want to create new ways for people to input their requests and new ways for them to receive helpful outputs, powered by AI."A number of startups have already tried, and mostly failed, to build gadgetry for AI interactions. The startup Humane developed a wearable pin that you could talk to, but the product was poorly reviewed and the startup discontinued sales after HP acquired its assets earlier this has suggested that io's version could be different. He said in a now-removed video that he's already trying a prototype at home that Ive gave him, calling it "the coolest piece of technology that the world will have ever seen."Altman and Ive still haven't said is what exactly it is. The court case, however, has forced their team to disclose what it's not."Its design is not yet finalized, but it is not an in-ear device, nor a wearable device," said Tan in a court declaration that sought to distance the venture from iyO's was that same declaration that led iyO to sue Sargent this week. Tan revealed in the filing that he had talked to a "now former" iyO engineer who was looking for a job because of his frustration with "iyO's slow pace, unscalable product plans, and continued acceptance of preorders without a sellable product."Those conversations with the unnamed employee led Tan to conclude "that iyO was basically offering 'vaporware' - advertising for a product that does not actually exist or function as advertised, and my instinct was to avoid meeting with iyO myself and to discourage others from doing so."IyO said its investigators recently reached out to Sargent and confirmed he was the one who met with told the he feels duped after he first pitched his idea to Altman in 2022 through the Apollo Projects, a venture capital firm started by Altman and his brothers. Rugolo said he demonstrated his products and the firm politely declined, with the explanation that they don't do consumer hardware same year, Rugolo also pitched the same idea to Ive through LoveFrom, the San Francisco design firm started by Ive after his 27-year career at Apple. Ive's firm also declined."I feel kind of stupid now," Rugolo added. "Because we talked for so long. I met with them so many times and demo'd all their people - at least seven people there. Met with them in person a bunch of times, talking about all our ideas."--------The Associated Press and OpenAI have a licensing and technology agreement that allows OpenAI access to part of AP's text archives.
The Verge
14-07-2025
- Business
- The Verge
Iyo sues former employee who shared secrets to get job at io.
Iyo sues former employee who shared secrets to get job at io. The new lawsuit says io co-founder Tang Tan admitted that he received confidential information, including CAD drawings of Iyo's ear-worn computer, from the startup's former design and manufacturing lead who was seeking a job from io at the time.
